Psychology of Music

During the 1970s there were many who expressed a fear that music in education was in a state of crisis as far as classroom music was concerned. The traditional diet of folk and national songs together with appreciation seemed increasingly inappropriate and unpopular, yet the emergence of experimental music became the focus of heated debate. Adding further complications was the powerful hold rock music had developed over the minds of young people. To some it appeared that classroom music might disappear particularly in the wake of economic pressures. However, it is suggested in this third article that the real cause of the problem was a failure in some music educators to move away from an eighteenth century view of our perceptual processes. In much the same way as Tin Pan Alley did not understand the phenomenon of rock and roll, some music educators did not adjust their attitude to children much beyond a mind/body dualism, and concentrated their educational work entirely on the intellectual. It is proposed that the experimentalists did in fact offer a viable and valid approach to music education but that their reasoning was inadequately explicated.

Personality traits, assessed from the 16PF and HSPQ, were examined in a sample of secondary school musical instrumentalists and student instrumentalists attending a college of music. In both samples, significant differences were found between the musical sample and the normative population from which they were drawn. In the college sample, particularly, further differences were found between students whose main instrument of study was strings, woodwind or brass. Possible mechanism giving rise to these differences in personality were considered. It was suggested that some personality characteristics predisposed individuals to pursue instrumentalperformance studies, whilst others reflected habitual performance on different types of musical instrument.

Bentley's Measures of Musical Abilities (MMA) (1966), is currently used to assess the "musical ability" of some British schoolchildren. Hence, it is relevant to consider some discrepancies which are found when statistics derived from the Bentley Pitch Discrimination (BPD) responses of 311 contemporary schoolchildren are compared with statistics given in the MMA test manual. These discrepancies appear to result, at least partially, from inaccuracies in the frequencies of some of the recorded BPD tones which differ from their item specifications, waver in pitch, and probably vary from record to record. When the test responses of 640 schoolchildren to a re-recorded version of BPD (Test A) are considered, these discrepancies appear to be eliminated. However, the extent to which the mean score of Test A exceeds that of BPD implies that the capacity of Test A to discriminate between high scorers will be inadequate. Hence, the case for developing, and publishing, a new test of "musical ability" is argued.

An analysis of music as a content of learning dlemonistrates the existence of a remarkable system:

1. The single sound as the simplest unit of musical learning possesses timbre, duration, volume and dynamics. Thus it provides what may be called the raw material of sound, nonrelational in character: at the same time. it fulfils the functioln of noise.

2. Rhythm is realised through the elements belonging to any single sound as well as the relational temporal elements that make up rhythms, both accentuation aind duration rhythms. Only the relational temporal elements are essential for its structure as rhythm.

3. Melody is realised through the elements of the single sounds plus rhythmic elements and changes of pitch. Only the relational structuring elements of rhythm and pitch change are essenitial

4. In the hearing of harmonies, the elements that realise and conI- stitute a single sound, a rhythm or a melody are joined by the elements of hearing sounds simultaneously arid establishing connections between them. In the case of harmonv too, only the relational elements are significant.

All relative elements may only be grasped cognitively.

The onto-genetic musical development of the individual shows remarkable parallels with this structural analysis of music as a content of learning.

In conclusion, six multi-sensory ways of experiencing music are described.

Students in an experimental group received training in aural/oral perception through the use of a pitch discrimination programme which utilised a technological innovation, the TAP Pitch Master. Trombonists who received the five-hour aural/oral instructional programme with the Pitch Master made significantly greater pre-test to post-test gains on two measures of pitch performance devised by the investigator than did trombonists who received only their regular band instruction. It was concluded that the instructional programme utilising the Pitch Master was effective in improving pitch accuracy in young trombonists' performance.

The purpose of this paper is to look briefly at some of the more important factors shaping the music curriculum during the last decade; to provoke discussion about some of the present issues by asking a series of questions; and to suggest some ways in which it might be possible to influence for good the Primary Music Curriculum in the next ten years.