The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of focus of attention instructions (i.e. focus on the solo, accompaniment, or collaboration) on listeners' performance evaluations. Participants (N = 159) were inservice band directors who listened to and evaluated the accuracy and expressivity of four excerpts of Haydn's "Concerto for…

The purpose of this replication study was to examine the effects of accompaniment on evaluations of solo instrumental performances. Although previous findings have indicated that instrumental music education majors' evaluations of soloists were not independent of accompaniment, it is unknown whether more experienced evaluators are similarly…

The purpose of this study was to examine effects of ensemble size and repertoire difficulty on listeners' perceptions of concert band performances. Undergraduate music majors (N = 210) viewed an audiovisual stimulus consisting of various images of large and small concert bands paired with identical audio performances of either an easy or difficult…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of accompaniment quality on the evaluation of solo instrumental performance. Undergraduate instrumental music education majors (N = 71) listened to and evaluated the accuracy and expressivity of six excerpts of Haydn's "Concerto for Trumpet in E-Flat Major," which we created by…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of baton usage on college musicians' perceptions of ensemble performance. Two conductors were videotaped while conducting a 1-minute excerpt from either a technical ("Pathfinder of Panama," John Philip Sousa) or lyrical ("Seal Lullaby," Eric Whitacre) piece of concert…