Addressing the disparate levels of aural skills that students may have acquired through their daily musical experiences prior to formal schooling can be difficult. Placement tests within the Western classical musical tradition typically involve structural decoding and formal concepts of elementary music theory. In this manuscript, we discuss the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two listening strategies on rhythmic dictation scores. In a within-subjects design, 54 undergraduate music majors completed two-measure rhythmic dictations under each of three conditions: (a) no prescribed approach, (b) required listening before writing, and (c) required writing while…

The purpose of this research was to examine effects of two listening strategies on melodic dictation scores. Fifty-four undergraduate music majors completed short tonal melodic dictations in a within-subjects design with three conditions: (a) no specified strategy in the instructions, (b) required listening before writing, and (c) required writing…

The main purpose of this study was to examine the effects of familiarity with the sound of a melody on children's performance of the melody. Children in kindergarten through fourth grade (N = 97) with no previous formal instrumental instruction were taught to play a four-measure melody on a keyboard during an individual instruction session. Before…

This study investigated the relationship of tonal pattern to tonal concept development and performance achievement of beginning instrumentalists. Tonal concept development was compared with technical skill development. Results indicate that tonal concept development improved the melodic sight-reading skills more successfully than the traditional…

The purpose of the study is to develop and evaluate programed instruction in score-reading skills. (Author/MF)

Objective of this study was to determine subjects' reliability in rating randomly played ascending and descending melodic intervals within the octave on the basis of their familiarity with each type of interval and the frequency of their having experienced each type of interval in music. (Author/CB)

This experiment measured the achievement of 18 college freshmen music majors in the Graded Units for Interactive Dictation Operations (GUIDO) chord quality program and determined the pattern of student responses to chord quality dictation exercises. (Author/KC)

Reports two experiments which investigated the effect of three pretraining conditions on the discrimination of select pitch patterns. Finds no significant differences among groups but results show a significant age effect. Indicates that providing activities requiring children to compare tonal patterns is at least as effective as vocal repetition…

Presents a study which was to evaluate instructional activities and practice techniques of musicians attempting to improve their accuracy in detecting errors in music examples heard. Compares the techniques of keyboard sight-reading and listening to recorded examples of simple piano music as methods of aural perception pedagogy. (Author/GEA)

Reports a study which examined the effects of audio and visual approaches to rhythm reading and short-term retention in second and sixth grade students. Sixth graders learned the patterns twice as fast as younger children. Simultaneous use of both auditory and visual channels facilitates learning. (Author/AEM)

Investigates whether introduction of music reading activities during beginning instrumental music instruction impedes student's development of aural musicianship and instrumental performance skills because of the division of attention between aural and visual activities. Concludes that music reading activities do not adversely affect the…

Compares a singing approach to a nonsinging approach in an elementary directed listening program to determine whether there was a significant difference in aural thematic recognition and thematic preferences between groups. Indicates that subjects who sang thematic material had a higher aural recall rate and finds no difference with regard to…

Most primary-grade children were found to prefer current popular musical styles--rock, country and western, and easy listening pop. Music preferences of males and females generally were the same. There were no differences in racial group preferences for musical excerpts without racially identifying elements. (RM)