Psychology of Music RSS feed -- OnlineFirst Articles

Emerging musicality during the pre-school years: A case study of one child

Forrester, M. — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:17:32 PDT

Studies of communication in early infancy and childhood have highlighted the significance of rhythm, sound and music for emotional and social development. There is, however, little detailed empirical data on the emergence of naturalistic music-related behaviour by children in the early years. The aim of this work is to examine instances of musicality with respect to their form and/or function and to trace out developmental indices of musically related behaviours and competencies. Employing a single-case study approach, this paper documents the emergence of one child’s musicality between the ages of 1 year, and 3 years 10 months. From a data corpus of video-recordings, 33 examples of musicality, representing 20 time periods, were examined and categorized. In order to examine specific instances, ethnomethodologically informed conversation analysis was used to consider examples in more detail. Beyond indicating what conversation analysis might bring to the study of musical behaviour in context, the results highlight certain interrelationships between musicality, early word use, interpersonal skill and narrative development. Distinct phases – social-affective followed by ‘song-word’ play and finally narrative-related musicality – were identified in the data. Concluding comments touch on the significance of emerging musicality for social and cognitive development.

One-to-one tuition in a conservatoire: the perceptions of instrumental and vocal students

Gaunt, H. — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:17:32 PDT

This paper analyses the perceptions of 20 students in a conservatoire in the UK about one-to-one tuition, and forms part of research also investigating the perceptions of the students’ teachers. Findings suggested that these students had significantly different experiences of one-to-one tuition in terms of frequency and length of lessons. Nevertheless all were enthusiastic about their relationship with their current teacher(s), and the individual attention which one-to-one tuition offered. Tension emerged between trust in a single teacher and ways in which having several teachers encouraged students to become more responsible for their own learning. Furthermore, the dynamics of power in this relationship, though rarely discussed, seemed to have considerable impact on the students, at times hampering their development. Those who had experienced difficulties in the past with teachers also expressed anxiety about personal and professional repercussions. Although students had clear aspirations, for example to be professional performers, these were not usually translating into focused strategic efforts to develop work. This was surprising particularly as their teachers were themselves usually active in the music profession. It was clear that the development of planning and reflective strategies relating to either learning processes or career development were rarely prioritized.

Short- and long-term musical preferences: What makes a favourite piece of music?

Lamont, A., Webb, R. — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:08:49 PDT

Within the growing field of music preferences, little is currently known about the concept of a favourite piece of music. The current study explores listeners’ nominated favourite pieces of music over short and longer time-spans, combining diary and interview methods to uncover what a favourite means, how stable it is, and what factors influence the development of favourites. Nine undergraduate students participated in a diary study spanning one month, with follow-up interviews conducted with two participants. Results indicate that musical favourites are subject to rapid change and highly context-dependent. Most daily favourites were heard on the day, either deliberately or by chance. ‘Magpie’ listeners collected a large number of relatively transient favourites, while ‘squirrel’ listeners had a large catalogue of music stored from which to select. Long-term favourites differed from daily favourites, being associated with intense emotional events in listeners’ lives. In this small-scale study, diary methods successfully captured fluctuations in music preferences over time for most listeners, while interviews revealed more about listeners’ motivations and personal stories connected with their favourite music. Future research is required with larger samples to tease out the complexities of developing music preferences over time and engagement with music in everyday life settings.

Music lessons, pitch processing, and g

Schellenberg, E. G., Moreno, S. — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:08:49 PDT

Musically trained and untrained participants were administered tests of pitch processing and general intelligence (g). Trained participants exhibited superior performance on tests of pitch-processing speed and relative pitch. They were also better at frequency discrimination with tones at 400 Hz but not with very high tones (4000 Hz). The two groups also performed similarly on a measure of g. The findings suggest that music training is associated positively with various aspects of pitch processing for tones in the typical pitch range for music. They also imply that general associations between music lessons and nonmusical cognitive functioning stem from individual differences in psychological mechanisms distinct from g.

Music Performance Teachers' Conceptions about Learning and Instruction: A Descriptive Study of Spanish Piano Teachers

Bautista, A., Perez Echeverria, M{a} d. P., Pozo, J. I. — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:08:48 PDT

There has been little research into the conceptions music performance teachers have about learning and instruction, by either psychological or educational researchers. The main aim of this study was to describe the conceptions of 45 Spanish piano teachers from music conservatories, by analysing their differences according to the variable ‘Years of teaching experience’ (YTE). Three groups of 15 teachers were studied as follows: (1) highly experienced teachers (more than 15 YTE); (2) experienced teachers (between five and 15 YTE); and (3) novice teachers (less than five YTE). Data was collected using written open-ended questionnaires, and analysed by means of the lexicometrical method. Three different conceptions were identified between these groups: direct, interpretative and constructive. The findings suggested that the less experienced the teachers were, the more sophisticated, complex and adapted to music education their conceptions about learning and instruction were. Psychological, educative and curricular implications are discussed.

Using graphical notations to assess children's experiencing of simple and complex musical fragments

Verschaffel, L., Reybrouck, M., Janssens, M., Van Dooren, W. — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:20:34 PDT

The aim of this study was to analyze children’s graphical notations as external representations of their experiencing when listening to simple sonic stimuli and complex musical fragments. More specifically, we assessed the impact of four factors on children’s notations: age, musical background, complexity of the fragment, and most salient sonic/musical parameter. One hundred and sixteen children – 8–9-year-olds and 11–12-year-olds with and without extra music education – were exposed to six fragments that differed from one another in terms of complexity and the most salient sonic parameter. Their notations were categorized by means of a classification scheme that differentiated between (a) global notations, which represent the fragments in a holistic way, and (b) differentiated notations, which try to capture one or more sonic/musical parameters in their temporal unfolding. As expected, we found a significant impact of age and music education, with older children and children with extracurricular music education generating more differentiated notations. Furthermore, complex sounding fragments elicited much fewer differentiated notations than simple ones. We also found significant interaction effects between subject and task variables. Finally, we found a correlation between the sophistication level of children’s representations of the simple and complex fragments.

A Limiting Feature of the Mozart Effect: Listening Enhances Mental Rotation Abilities in Non-musicians but not Musicians

Aheadi, A., Dixon, P., Glover, S. — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:20:34 PDT

The ‘Mozart effect’ occurs when performance on spatial cognitive tasks improves following exposure to Mozart. It is hypothesized that the Mozart effect arises because listening to complex music activates similar regions of the right cerebral hemisphere as are involved in spatial cognition. A counter-intuitive prediction of this hypothesis (and one that may explain at least some of the null results reported previously) is that Mozart should only improve spatial cognition in non-musicians, who process melodic information exclusively in the right hemisphere, but not in musicians, who process melodic information in both hemispheres. This hypothesis was tested by comparing performance of musicians and non-musicians on a mental rotation task before and after exposure to either Mozart or silence. It was found that performance on the mental rotation task improved only in non-musicians after listening to Mozart. Performance did not improve for non-musicians after exposure to silence, or for musicians after exposure to either Mozart or silence. These results support the hypothesis that the benefits of listening to Mozart arise because of activation of right hemispheric structures involved in spatial cognition.

Perceptions and predictions of expertise in advanced musical learners

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:37:02 PDT

The aim of this article was to compare musicians’ views on (a) the importance of musical skills and (b) the nature of expertise. Data were obtained from a specially devised web-based questionnaire completed by advanced musicians representing four musical genres (classical, popular, jazz, Scottish traditional) and varying degrees of professional musical experience (tertiary education music students, portfolio career musicians). Comparisons were made across musical genres (classical vs. other-than-classical), gender, age and professional status (student musicians vs. portfolio career musicians). Musicians’ ‘ideal’ versus ‘perceived’ levels of musical skills and expertise were also compared and factors predicting musicians’ self-reported level of skills and expertise were investigated. Findings suggest that the perception of expertise in advanced musical learners is a complex phenomenon that relates to each of four key variables (gender, age, musical genre and professional experience). The study also shows that discrepancies between advanced musicians’ ideal and self-assessed levels of musical skills and expertise are closely related to gender and professional experience. Finally, characteristics that predict and account for variability in musicians’ views and attitudes regarding musical expertise and self-assessments of personal expertise levels are highlighted. Results are viewed in the context of music learning and implications for music education are discussed.

From death metal to R&B? Consistency of music preferences among Dutch adolescents and young adults

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:37:02 PDT

The structure of music preferences has been investigated extensively. However, development of music preferences in terms of consistency of music taste is as yet understudied. In this study, intra-individual consistency of music taste was assessed among Dutch adolescents and young adults over three points in time in a 21-month period. An internet-based panel of 236 participants was asked to list their top three favourite artists or bands, and to rate their preferences for a range of music genres. Genre ratings were grouped into five styles: pop, urban, elite, rock and dance, using factor analysis. Thus there were three measures of music taste for each participant over time: favourite artists, preference for musical genres and styles. Findings indicated that favourite artists tended to have a high turnover rate, that genres were rated relatively consistently with moderate to high q-correlations (between .41 and .67), and that style preferences were highly consistent (q-correlations between .77 and .86). Differences in consistency over time across gender and educational level were not substantive, but age was positively related to music taste consistency. It is concluded that music taste is already well developed in early adolescence, and crystallizes further during late adolescence and early adulthood.

Preparing for memorized cello performance: The role of performance cues

Chaffin, R., Lisboa, T., Logan, T., Begosh, K. T. — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:37:02 PDT

An experienced cello soloist recorded her practice as she learned and memorized the Prelude from J.S. Bach’s Suite No. 6 for solo cello and gave 10 public performances over a period of more than three years. She described the musical structure, decisions about basic technique (e.g., bowing), interpretation (e.g., dynamics), and five kinds of performance cues she attended to during performance (expressive, interpretive, intonation, and basic technique separately for left and right hand). The 38 hours of practice provide the most comprehensive empirical account to date of preparation of a new piece of music for performance. The cellist repeatedly took the piece apart section-by-section and then re-integrated the sections into practice performances in each of five stages: exploration, smoothing out, listening, reworking and preparation for performance. The location of starts, stops and repetitions identified the changing focus of practice in each stage. The cellist organized her practice around the musical structure, developed interpretation before working on technique and practised memory retrieval at each stage. When she wrote out the score from memory, better recall of expressive and structural performance cues showed that they served as landmarks in a hierarchical memory retrieval organization.

'Posh music should equal posh dress': An investigation into the concert dress and physical appearance of female soloists

Griffiths, N. K. — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:37:01 PDT

This study investigates the effects of concert dress and physical appearance on perceptions of female classical soloists’ musical abilities over a range of genres. Four female violinists were recorded playing three pieces, in four styles of dress of varying formality. Each combination of performer, piece and dress was recorded twice, once as the performer’s own interpretation and again with a master-track dubbed over the top. The master-track provided a constant musical soundtrack and allowed the investigation of observer perceptions based on changes in visual information alone. The clips were rated by 15 male and 15 female observers (age range 18–28) in terms of technical proficiency, musicality, appropriateness of dress and attractiveness of performer on six-point Likert scales. Significant effects of dress, performer and piece suggest that (1) observers have a strong concept of appropriate dress by genre of music; (2) inappropriate and body-focused dress may have a detrimental effect on perceptions of performers’ musical abilities; and (3) performers’ body movement style may also affect perceptions of their abilities.