Education, Faculty of
Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of
DSpace
UBCV
Anderson, Allan F.
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
With the intent of learning more about the process of assessing music ability, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of music learning on music aptitude scores. The problem of this study is to determine if there is a difference between pretest-posttest tonal aptitude scores, as measured by AMMA, for students who possess high and low levels of tonal audiation ability and who either received specialized audiation training on computer or no specialized audiation training. Forty-eight Grade 11 and 12 music students were administered AMMA as a pretest. An intact music class of 24 students received 13 weeks of computer instruction. The experimental treatment consisted of a computer assisted software program, Tonal Syntax Tutorial, which provided audiation practice for high school and college students. A randomly selected group of 24 students received their normal classroom music instruction. Pretest AMMA scores were used as the criterion measure. At the end of 13 weeks, all students were re-administered AMMA as a posttest. AMMA pretest and posttest Tonal scores were organized into a multidimensional design. A covariate analysis of the AMMA scores was calculated and a MANOVA was employed to determine differences between the pretest and posttest AMMA Tonal scores. Main effects, interaction effects, and simple main effects were tested at the .05 level of significance. The researcher found no significant difference between the treatment and control group tonal aptitude scores, however, there was a significant difference between levels of aptitude. It was interpreted that the difference between the students who possessed high tonal aptitude and students who possess low tonal aptitude was not a real difference because the difference in student tonal aptitude levels actually existed before the study began. The researcher believes that AMMA can be a useful instrument in the assessment of music abilities of high school students. Also, based on our present knowledge of computer assisted music instruction, it seems that that type of instruction alone is not sufficient to affect a change in tonal audiation ability of high school students.
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THE EFFECTS OF COMPUTER MUSIC LEARNING ACTIVITIES ONTHE TONAL APTITUDES OFCANADIAN STUDENTSbyALLAN F. ANDERSONB .Mus ., The University of British Columbia, 1972A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OFTHE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFMASTER OF ARTSinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES(Music Education)We accept this thesis as conformingto the required standardTHE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIAApril 1993© Allan F. Anderson, 1993In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanceddegree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make itfreely available for reference and study . I further agree that permission for extensivecopying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of mydepartment or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying orpublication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my writtenpermission.(Signature)Department ofMUEDThe University of British ColumbiaVancouver, CanadaDateDE-6 (2/88)ABSTRACTWith the intent of learning more about the process of assessing music ability,the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of music learning on musicaptitude scores . The problem of this study is to determine if there is a differencebetween pretest-posttest tonal aptitude scores, as measured by AMMA, forstudents who possess high and low levels of tonal audiation ability and whoeither received specialized audiation training on computer or no specializedaudiation training.Forty-eight Grade 11 and 12 music students were administered AMMA as apretest. An intact music class of 24 students received 13 weeks of computerinstruction. The experimental treatment consisted of a computer assistedsoftware program, Tonal Syntax Tutorial, which provided audiation practice forhigh school and college students. A randomly selected group of 24 studentsreceived their normal classroom music instruction. Pretest AMMA scores wereused as the criterion measure . At the end of 13 weeks, all students were re-administered AMMA as a posttest.AMMA pretest and posttest Tonal scores were organized into amultidimensional design. A covariate analysis of the AMMA scores wascalculated and a MANOVA was employed to determine differences between thepretest and posttest AMMA Tonal scores. Main effects, interaction effects, andsimple main effects were tested at the .05 level of significance . The researcherfound no significant difference between the treatment and control group tonalaptitude scores, however, there was a significant difference between levels ofaptitude . It was interpreted that the difference between the students whopossessed high tonal aptitude and students who possess low tonal aptitudeiiwas not a real difference because the difference in student tonal aptitude levelsactually existed before the study began.The researcher believes that AMMA can be a useful instrument in theassessment of music abilities of high school students. Also, based on ourpresent knowledge of computer assisted music instruction, it seems that thattype of instruction alone is not sufficient to affect a change in tonal audiationability of high school students .iiiABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS (ILIST OF TABLES viLIST OF FIGURES viiACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viiiCHAPTERI. PURPOSE OF THE STUDYIntroduction 1Purpose 13Problem 13II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATUREIntroduction 14The Flohr Study 1 5The Levinowitz Study 17The Jessup Study 20The Gouzouasis Study 25The Estrella Study 28III. DESIGN AND ANALYSISSample 37Procedure 37Analysis 39IV. RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION 41V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONSSummary 44Conclusions 46Recommendations 46BIBLIOGRAPHY 48ivTABLE OF CONTENTS (cont'd)APPENDIXESA. TESTS OF TONAL PATTERN DISCRIMINATION ANDTONAL FUNCTION IDENTIFICATION 52B. PROCEDURES FOR THE TRAINING AND PRACTICEMODE OF THE TONAL SYNTAX TUTORIAL 63vLIST OF TABLESTable Page1 . AMMA Tonal Pretest Means and Standard Deviations 412. Posttest Means and Standard Deviations 423. MANOVA Summary Table for the AMMA Pretest \and Posttest Scores 424. Tonal Functions used in Practice Procedures 1 through 3for Practice in each of the Seven Tonalities 635. Distribution of Exercises in Practice Procedures 4 and 5 for Practicein each of the Seven Tonalities 63viLIST OF FIGURESFigure Page1 . Experimental Treatments by Sites, Two by Two Design 31viiACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe writer wishes to thank his wife, Lorill, and his boys, Cole and Shane,who relinquished valuable family time to allow me the freedom of academicdiscovery and enlightenment . Enlightenment came through my advisor andmentor Dr. Peter Gouzouasis who revealed a world of music psychology that Ihad been unaware of in my years of teaching in the public school system.Thank you to my other committee members, Dr. Charles Curtis and SandraDavies, for their efforts to keep this research relevant and practical for othermusic educators to study and critique in the future . Dr. Allen Clingmandeserves my gratitude for his continuous support throughout my career, as wellas Dr. Dennis Vincent who was invaluable in his statistical support andexpertise . I would sincerely like to thank Dr . Steven Estrella for allowing me theopportunity to share and expand on his research through the use of hiscomputer learning program. Finally, I would like to thank the music students ofMatthew McNair Senior Secondary who so willingly agreed to participate in thisstudy.1CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTION, PURPOSE, AND PROBLEMOne of the purposes of psychological testing is to assess cognitive abilitiesof human beings. Many researchers believe that psychological tests arereliable measures of innate capacities and hereditary predispositions . One mayevaluate innate music abilities through measures of music aptitude . Musicaptitude may be defined as music potential . Many music educators makejudgements on student music abilities and talents based on subjectiveevaluations and unreliable tests of music aptitude and achievement . Moreover,most music educators rarely evaluate music aptitude and infrequently evaluatemusic achievement with well constructed objective tools . Although aspects ofheredity enter into all human behaviour, it may be unrealistic to expect thepsychological development measurement of inherited abilities to beindependent of environmental influences . Environmental influences play a rolein the development of individual achievement and skills, and these differencesare influenced by early childhood experiences.A major criterion for the consideration of a test as a measurement of musicaptitude is the ability to generalize about fundamental abilities and basic skills.Ideally, to take an aptitude test a student need not possess specific skills . Thatis because, skills are learned over time and are thus related to achievement.One threat to the construct validity of IQ tests is that in order to write an IQ oracademic intelligence test, it is assumed that the child to some extent can readand write in a language. Linguistic skills are learned ; therefore, to some extentthose tests are a measure of linguistic achievement. Some contemporary music2aptitude tests (Gordon, 1965, 1979, 1982, 1989 ) differ from IQ tests in thatchildren do not need prior music knowledge in order to write them.Throughout history, music psychologists have attempted to discover whethermusic aptitude is either a product of nature, which can be described in terms ofbiological and hereditary factors, or of nurture, which can be described in termsof environmental influences and early learning experiences . It was not until thelate 18th century that German psychologists became interested in the nature ofmusic aptitude. European researchers such as Pear (1911) and Revesz (1953),as well as the American researcher Stanton (1922), believed that musicaptitude was innate, a product of nature . Seashore (1919) believed that musicaptitude was both innate and inherited, both biological and genetic . Thephilosophical premise that music aptitude is either innate or inherited has neverbeen confirmed through research, but the notion of music aptitude as an innateconstruct is consistent with research on intelligence in general psychology(Gesell, 1929 ; Piaget, 1952) . While music aptitude is not specifically discussedby developmental psychologists, they do elude to similar concepts in theircognitive-stage models and through their perspectives of change in mentalstructures. As of yet, research designs created to assess the role of heredity inthe aptitude of children have not been successful in the evaluation of this factor(Stanton, 1922 ) . Edwin Gordon, in his book The Nature, Description,Measurement, and Evaluation of Music Aptitudes (1986, p. 7-8) writes thatmusic aptitude is a product of both nature and nurture . That is, we are all bornwith a degree of music aptitude, but unless this aptitude is nurtured at an earlyage, it will decrease. However, based on existing music research literature, hebelieves that music ability is innate but not necessarily inherited.The first published standardized test of music aptitude was the SeashoreMeasures of Musical Talent (Seashore, 1919 ; revised, 1939) . As late as 19573Seashore continued to update the test. The test is designed for students, age10 through adult . In designing this test, Seashore used a reductionist oratomistic approach to music aptitude ; he believed that music is comprised ofdifferent elements that work as one, but that can be measured separately.From a Gestalt perspective, the major problem with Seashore's test is that itonly measures the individual components--pitch, loudness, time, and timbre--ofmusic on an atomistic level . Pitch, loudness, time, and timbre are used todescribe the actual physical aspects of sound . Seashore believed that pitchaptitude is the ability to discriminate between two separate tones rather than theability to discriminate between two tonal patterns or two melodic motives.These two tones are performed at approximately 500 cycles per second andvary by no more than 10 cents . The cent is based on the equally temperedscale with 1200 cents equal to one octave . An interval of a semitone contains100 cents, therefore, the pitch variance which Seashore uses (10 cents) is onlyone tenth of a semitone.For Seashore, loudness aptitude is defined as the ability to discriminatewhether the second tone, in terms of volume, is either softer or louder than thefirst tone. The variance in loudness, as measured in decibels, has a range from0 .5 to 4.0 decibels. Seashore uses the decibel as a comparison between, orratio of, two quantities of loudness. For Seashore, time aptitude is defined asthe measurement of length, longer or shorter, between the pairs of tones and ismeasured in seconds . The variance of time between the performances of tonesranges from 0 .5 to 0 .3 of a second . For Seashore, timbre aptitude is a measureof a student's ability to decide whether two pairs of notes are the same ordifferent as differentiated by possible changes to the third and fourth harmonics.The overtones or harmonics of each instrument are different and unique in theworld of sound. Timbre is that quality of sound which allows one to distinguish4between two sources, e .g., a clarinet or an oboe, which produce sustainedsounds of the same pitch.Because of the way that Seashore defined and measured aptitude in termsof pitch, loudness, time, and timbre rather than in terms of tonal, rhythmic,melodic, and harmonic elements of music, Seashore was labelled an atomisticresearcher by those who elaborated in a Gestalt approach to music aptitude.Seashore's subtests of pitch, loudness, time and timbre focus only on theacoustic components of music, and ignore the musical elements of tone quality,sense of consonance, sense of dynamics, and the sense of rhythm (Gordon,1987, p .19-20) . Gestaltists believe in the concept of holism, the notion thathuman beings listen to music as a complete entity, therefore, the measurementof component parts of a melody would not be comparable to the measurementof the whole melody.The followers of the Gestalt movement in psychological research, led byMursell (1931) in the United States, believed that music aptitude was linked tointelligence, and that it should not be separated and tested as an individualcomponent of intelligence . In other words, general intelligence is an essentialpart of music aptitude . They also felt that music aptitude test items should beconstructed with music related examples performed by a music instrument . Thegreatest criticism of Seashore's test is that it actually is a measure of musicachievement, because prior music learning is needed to answer many of thequestions on the test . For example, the use of the concepts of "high" and "low"to describe pitch change is a learned adult construct . Also, it is primarily relatedto music notation symbols which are learned by children in the classroom.Whereas reading music involves achievement, most children are able to eithersing, perform, or read a simple song without knowledge of the concepts of"high" and "low" and music symbols .5Although their test battery is similar in construction to Seashore's test,Kwalwasser and Dykema (1930) claimed to measure different music constructswith the Kwalwasser-Dykema Music Tests (K-D Music Tests) . Test items arebased on actual melodies that consist of intervals no less than a semitone apart.Rather than using random computer generated melodies, they used musicexamples taken from traditional European melodies and harmonies . Becausethe music examples are recognizable, the construct and content validity of thetest may be challenged. Regardless, their subtests are considered to havemore logical music content than Seashore's test (Schuter-Dyson and Gabriel,1981).Kwalwasser and Dykema believed that the addition of four subtests of tonalmovement, melodic taste, pitch imagery, and rhythmic imagery would make thetest results more valid as a predictor of music aptitude . One of those constructs,melodic taste, is a learned concept that is based on environmental and culturalexperiences . Sound may be a universal phenomenon, but the syntax ofmusical taste is not universal because musical taste is in part determined byexposure to particular music styles . As with the Seashore test, the K-D MusicTests (1930) were designed for students age 10 through adult . Seashore'scomponents of pitch, intensity, time, rhythm, timbre, and tonal memory are alsoincluded in this test battery. Similar to Seashore's test, it takes one hour toadminister. No reliability data is mentioned in the test manual, but an overallaverage composite reliability ( .40) as reported by Farnsworth (1969) is quitelow. Despite the low reliability levels found by Holmes (1954), Whybrew (1962),Lundin (1967), and Farnsworth (1969), the battery was used extensively in theUnited States from 1930 to the late 1960s . Holmes (1954) revised the tests witha new set of scoring keys and norms which resulted in high reliabilitycoefficients (r=.91) for high school students .6Herbert D . Wing's Tests of Musical Ability and Appreciation (1948) consistsof seven subtests, three subtests which measure aural acuity, and an additionalfour subtests which measure music preference . Wing defines aural acuity asthe ability to decide whether two performances are different because of achange in either rhythmic accents, harmonization, dynamics, or phrasing . Ageseight to adult may be assessed with this battery of tests which takes one hour toadminister . Wing was a follower of Gestalt psychology in that he believedaptitude tests should only include relevant music examples played byrecognizable musical instruments . He defined relevant music examples aschord progressions familiar to the citizens of England and common to Englishmusic and English composers . He also thought that general intelligence wasan essential element of music aptitude . Unlike Seashore, Wing believed thatmusical memory included both tonal and rhythm elements in a melodic context.Wing's insightful additions to the notion of music aptitude test constructioninclude the measurement of music preference, the definition of the interactionbetween tonal and rhythmic components, and the use of tonal music examplesand actual music instruments in his aptitude tests . Composite test reliabilitycoefficients are quite high, (r=.86, Bentley, 1955 ; r=.90, Wing, 1962) . Despitethese high reliability coefficients, reliability coefficients for children under nineyears of age has never been investigated or published . Objective validity isalso questionable since longitudinal studies which use Wing's test battery werenever conducted . Also, his reliability calculations are based on multi-agegroups, hence, the reliabilities are inflated.Raleigh M. Drake published his Drake Musical Aptitude Tests (1954) basedon many of the same notions of music memory that were previously advancedby Wing. With his tests, the music aptitudes of people aged eight through adultmay be evaluated in 80 minutes. The memory subtest consists of 54 items.7These items are developed from 12 melodies which are used from two to 12times. The second example in the pair is either the same or different because ofa pitch, rhythm, or modulation change . The rhythm subtest consists of 50atomistic test items . These test items are considered atomistic because rhythmaptitude is measured without reference to pitch . Published reliabilitycoefficients range from (r= .85 to .93) for the memory subtest and (r=.56 to .96)for the rhythm subtest (Tanner and Loess, 1967) . With this wide a range ofreliability coefficients, one must conclude that the low validity is a result of a testwhich is not stable on a reliability level . One of the problems with this test is thatDrake used music examples that may be recognized by some students, whichmeans that prior learning might affect test results . As with the Seashore andWing aptitude tests, research has shown that Drake's test measuresachievement, not aptitude (Gordon, 1958).The Bentley Measures of Musical Abilities (1966) is designed for studentsaged seven through fourteen and takes 20 minutes to administer . The batteryincludes four subtests : Pitch Discrimination, Tonal Memory, Chord Analysis andRhythm Memory . Like the music psychologists who preceded him, Bentleyused microtonal patterns (i .e., the discrimination of minute pitch fluctuations inindividual pitches) in his pitch discrimination subtest . Also, tonal memory andrhythm memory are tested separately . The separate evaluation of those twoconcepts in two subtests made the test easier for young students (Schuter-Dyson and Gabriel, 1981, p .29). Reliability coefficients for pitch, tonal memory,chord analysis, and rhythm memory were (r= .74, r=.53, r=.71, and r= .57)respectively (Bentley, 1966) . Composite reliability coefficients for this testrange from r= .84, (Bentley, 1966) to r= .60, (Rowntree, 1970) . Overall reliabilityof this test is questionable since the only published total test scores andanalyses are for a heterogeneous group of Grade 5 through Grade 7 children .8The reliability coefficients are inflated because of the wide range of studentages, hence music experience, thus increasing the variability in the test scores.Test balance is also a concern because the battery includes 20 chord analysissubtest items but only 10 memory subtest items . No longitudinal and predictivevalidity studies that use the Bentley Measures of Musical Abilities exist in theresearch literature.In 1965, Edwin Gordon published the Musical Aptitude Profile (MAP). Thisbattery of seven subtests is considered by many music educators to be the bestdiagnostic standardized music aptitude test available today . The battery maybe used to evaluate Grade 5 through Grade 12 students. In the test manual,Gordon provides separate item analyses and reliabilities for each grade level.The MAP is designed to be administered over three days, with the objective,non-preference subtests of Tonal Imagery (Melody-Ti and Harmony-T2 ) andRhythm Imagery (Tempo-R1 and Meter-R2 ) each composed of 40 questions,and the three preference subtests of Musical Imagery (Phrasing-S1, Balance-S2 and Style-S3 ) each composed of 30 questions . A violin and a cello areused to perform all the music examples . An "in doubt" response is included onthe answer sheet and students are directed to use this response instead ofguessing answers . Gordon feels that this response option adds to the highvalidity of MAP (Gordon, 1986).Over 180 studies (Scheuter, 1991) have used the MAP as a criterionmeasure. All of those studies verify the high reliability and validity of the MAP.In the manual, Gordon states that MAP is a test of stabilized aptitude . Based onresearch (Fosha, 1960 ; Gordon, 1968 ; Tarrell, 1965), he theorizes that musicaptitude stabilizes at age nine. He also believes that music aptitude is normallydistributed throughout the population. Contemporary research, whilesubjectively questioned by some, seems to verify those conclusions (DiBlassio,91984 ; Flohr, 1981 ; Gordon, 1979 ; Gouzouasis, 1987 ; Jessup, 1984 ; Levinowitz,1985).Early in his career, Gordon believed that stabilized music aptitude should bedescribed in both Gestalt and atomistic principles (Gordon, 1971, p.22). All ofGordon's more recent music aptitude tests, Primary Measures of MusicAudiation (PMMA, 1979), Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation (IMMA,1982) and Advanced Measures of Music Audiation (AMMA, 1989) have onemajor theme, which is the overriding importance of the concept of audiation.Audiation is the ability to conceptualize music when sound is not physicallypresent . Thinking is to language what audiation is to music, a complexconceptual process (Gouzouasis, 1992). Gordon's (1989) model includesseven applications of audiation--the abilities to listen, to read, to write, toperform, to recall and notate, to create, to improvise and perform, and tocompose music either in one's mind or on paper.Gordon (1989) has attempted to theorize the steps that occur when weaudiate familiar and unfamiliar music . Stage one involves the retention of aseries of notes for only a few seconds . Stage two involves the consciousorganization of a series of notes into patterns of essential notes . In Stage threeone consciously retains in audiation the pattern of essential notes that were justorganized. Stage four involves the comparison of known patterns of essentialnotes with the ones that were just audiated. In Stage five, one predicts patternsthrough association, of essential notes before they are heard . Stagesixinvolves the prediction of patterns that are about to be heard.In 1979, Gordon published the Primary Measures of Music Audiation(PMMA). This test of developmental music aptitude is designed for children inKindergarten through Grade 3 . To take a standardized music aptitude test suchas MAP (Gordon, 1965) and PMMA (Gordon, 1979) a child needs no prior10instruction in music, but does need previous listening experiences . To writeeither MAP or PMMA, a student only need understand the meaning of theconcepts "same" and "different ." Based on longitudinal research (Gordon,1986 ; Woodruff,1983), it has been determined PMMA is the only valid musicaptitude test available for children ages five though nine.The short administration time for each of the two subtests, 18 minutes each,is a very positive aspect of this test. Most important, children do not need toknow how to read or write language . Questions on the answer sheets areidentified by pictures, not numbers or words . Children are asked to listen to andrespond to two musical examples, and to decide whether they sound either thesame or different . If they are the same, the child circles the two happy faces ; ifthey are different, the child circles the one happy and one sad face . Fiveseconds are provided between each test item to allow students time to audiateand mark their score sheets.Gordon believes that unless children receive positive early musicalexperiences, they will not be able to maintain the level of aptitude with whichthey were born (Gordon, 1979) . In other words, children cannot surpass thelevel of music audiation with which they were born, but they can decrease intheir ability to audiate if they are not provided with quality music experiences.Because of the interaction of audiation abilities and environmental variables,either more or less music instruction and exposure to music, children birththrough age nine are considered to be in the developmental stage of musicaptitude. Gordon states:It cannot be over-emphasized that early informal and formalinstruction, particularly from birth to age nine, is of greaterconsequence than formal instruction in music after age nine . Themore appropriate early experience and formal instruction in musicare, the higher the level at which a student's music aptitude will11stabilize . Also, the younger a child is when he begins to receiveinformal and formal instruction in music, the more he can profitfrom such instruction and the higher level at which his musicaptitude will eventually stabilize . (Gordon, 1987, p .9).In 1982, Gordon published the Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation(IMMA), which is designed to more precisely examine the music aptitude ofkindergarten through grade four students The only difference between PMMAand IMMA is that IMMA is constructed with tonal and rhythm patterns that aremore difficult to audiate and discriminate, hence, one is able to more accuratelyevaluate children who score higher than the 80th percentile on PMMA . LikePMMA , IMMA is given over two successive days with tonal and rhythmelements evaluated separately . As in all of Gordon's manuals, interpretation ofresults from pilot studies and the standardization study, research implications,and suggestions for future formal and informal instruction are well documented.Gordon's Advanced Measures of Music Audiation (AMMA, 1989) wasoriginally designed for undergraduate and graduate students in college musicprograms. Despite this initial categorization, it has been successfully used toevaluate the audiation abilities of children as young as Grade 5 (HEADS, 1986-87). Standardized scores and percentile rankings are available in the testmanual for high school students, college music majors and college non-musicmajors . Tonal, Rhythm, and Composite scores are gathered in only 30 minutesfrom this test of 30 questions . Four seconds are provided between test items toallow students time to audiate and mark their answer sheets . Similar to PMMAand IMMA, the test involves the choice as to whether two successive musicalexamples played on a Yamaha DX-7 keyboard either sound the same, sounddifferent because of a tonal change, or sound different because of a rhythmchange. However, whereas PMMA is based on the audiation anddiscrimination of similarities and differences of tonal and rhythm patterns in12separate contexts, AMMA is based on the audiation of entire melodies and thediscrimination of similarities and differences of tonal and rhythmic aspects ofentire melodies . Each test item was derived from a computer software program.Because AMMA is relatively new, no longitudinal studies that use AMMA havebeen conducted.Estrella (1992), in his study of music aptitude, measured the effects of tonaltraining and practice on AMMA scores . A computer assisted software programdesigned for individualized instruction was used for the study . Estrellacomposed music patterns similar to those found in AMMA, and trained studentswith those patterns in an attempt to improve AMMA posttest scores . A computerwas used because a subroutine of the instructional program was able todiagnose and control the speed in which a student progressed, based on theirdemonstrated skills . The use of a computer also eliminated the possibility ofteacher bias . In his study, which included a comparison of two experimentalgroups who learned tonal pattern and tonal function skills and two controlgroups, Estrella found that AMMA scores could be improved (p< .05) withspecialized training.One may interpret that the increase in audiation ability was not necessarily ameasure of an actual increase in developmental music aptitude but merely ameasure of a child's ability to activate and retrieve dormant audiation abilities(Gouzouasis, 1992). Estrella's findings are contrary to those of Gordon (1990),which poses some interesting questions with regard to the diagnostic validity ofAMMA. It is with those perspectives in mind that the researcher chose toexplore the issue of AMMA as a measure of stabilized music aptitude.With the intent of learning more about the process of assessing music ability,the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of music learning on musicaptitude scores and tonal skills. The problem of this study is to determine if13there is a difference between pretest-posttest tonal aptitude scores, asmeasured by AMMA, for students who possess high and low levels of tonalaudiation ability and who received either specialized audiation training, andstudents who possess high and low levels of tonal audiation ability andreceived no audiation training .14CHAPTER TWOREVIEW OF THE LITERATUREThere are few published studies which investigate the topic ofdevelopmental and stabilized music aptitudes. An ERIC (1966) searchrevealed little information on this research topic . Few studies with pertinentinformation were discovered through a search of the Dissertation AbstractsInternational and Comprehensive Dissertation Index (1966-91) . Articles foundin The Quarterly (Hohn,1991 ; Colwell and Abrahams, 1991 ; Schuler, 1991;Walters, 1991 ; Grunow, 1991 ; Azzara, 1991 ; McDonald, 1991 ; Saunders, 1991;Trusheim, 1991) helped to focus this study, since two successive volumes wererecently dedicated to the work of Edwin Gordon . The Estrella (1992)dissertation was easily acquired because the researcher was an activeparticipant in the administration of a treatment effect for that study.Secondary sources were gathered from selected readings on the topic ofmusic aptitude and how it is affected by training and practice . These sourcesincluded journals such as the Journal of Educational Research (1965-1991),The Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education (1967-1991), andthe Psychology of Music (1972-1991). The book Psychology of Music Ability(Shuter-Dyson and Gabriel, 1981) offered valuable historical facts and adiscussion of psychological constructs in the study of music aptitude . Also, themany books and articles by and about Edwin Gordon (Gordon, 1965, 1970,1971, 1979, 1982, 1986, 1989, 1990) were a tremendous resource to learnmore about music aptitude in general and in specifics with regard to how it maybe measured.In the present study, research by Flohr (1981), Jessup (1984), Levinowitz15(1987), and Gouzouasis (1987) all used Primary Measures of Music Audiation(PMMA ; Gordon, 1979) as their criterion measure of music aptitude. TheEstrella study (1992) is directly related to the present study in that the samecomputer instruction program which was used by Estrella is used in the presentstudy. Estrella is the first researcher to study the effects of training and practiceon audiation as measured with the Advanced Measures of Music Audiation(AMMA; Gordon, 1989) . AMMA is primarily designed as a test of stabilizedmusic aptitude for college-age students . Although there are no reliability itemdifficulty and item discrimination coefficients provided in the test manual, thistest has been standardized as a criterion measure with grade 7 through Grade12 students.The Flohr StudyFlohr's study (1981) was designed to determine the effect of short-termgeneral music instruction on the developmental music aptitudes of five year oldchildren . Twenty-nine children from the Child Development Center of TexasWomen's University participated in the study . Each child was randomlyassigned to one of three treatment groups . Prior to instruction, the Tonal andRhythm subtests of PMMA (Gordon, 1979) were administered to all of thechildren.Children who were assigned to the first experimental group received 12weeks of general music instruction that emphasized improvisation . Childrenwho were assigned to the second experimental group received 12 weeks ofregular general music instruction with no emphasis on improvisation . Allchildren in both groups received their respective instruction from two studentteachers twice a week for 25 minutes . The third group was a control group inwhich children received no music instruction . At the end of instruction, bothsubtests of the PMMA were administered to all children . The dependent16variable was the PMMA scores .An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used because the numbers ofstudents who took the PMMA differed for each of the three groups . Pretestscores were used as a covariate because the three groups were sufficientlydifferent on the PMMA pretest scores . There was a significant difference inobserved posttest scores for the two groups which received music instruction.T-tests were performed to determine if there was a difference between thepretest and posttest scores for the groups who received music instruction andthe control group . Flohr found that children who received music instructionaudiated at a significantly higher level than children who did not receive musicinstruction. In other words, children who received music instruction had asignificant increase in audiation ability.Flohr believes that a child's developmental music aptitude, as measured byPMMA, can be influenced by general music instruction . Flohr also believes thatthe effects of general music instruction on young children may be temporary.Based on those positions, he felt that further research was needed to study theeffects of instruction over time.In this study, Flohr used a quasi-experimental design with a sample of only29, five-year-old children . The small size of each group raises the possibility ofa Type I error . The design used in this study was appropriate and themethodology fairly clear . To replicate this study one might use a two-dimensional model with more subjects . The two-dimensional design would becomprised of levels of instruction and high and low levels of aptitude . A twofactor analysis of variance (treatments by levels of aptitude) might be used toanalyze the effects of general music instruction for children who possess highand low music aptitude The practical outcomes of this replication would be toemphasize the importance of music instruction for all young children in the17public school system.The construct of time is an important variable that should be included infuture replication studies that examine developmental music aptitude . Becausedevelopment is measured over time, questions regarding length of instruction(in weeks) and amount of instruction per week (days and minutes) must beconsidered in future research (Gouzouasis, 1992).Levels of developmental music aptitude should also be considered as anindependent variable in future studies . To analyze the effect of instruction onchildren who possess various levels of music aptitude would help musiceducators to be more diagnostic in their approach to music instruction . Childrenwho possess low rhythm aptitude or low tonal aptitude may be given instructionappropriate to their abilities, without loss of self-esteem, while students whopossess high rhythm aptitude or high tonal aptitude may be given instruction tochallenge their audiation abilities and keep their interest.The Levinowitz StudyLevinowitz (1987) studied the effects of song instruction, which includedsongs with and without words, on the developmental music aptitude andsinging achievement of children in kindergarten and first grade . Beforeinstruction began, three kindergarten classes and three-first grade classes wereadministered PMMA ( Gordon, 1979) . All children received one of three types ofsong instruction for one academic year . One group learned to sing songsprimarily with words (T1) . They heard no more than two songs without wordssung during any class period . The second group learned to sing songsprimarily without words (T2) . For them, no more than two songs were sung withwords during any class period . The third group learned to sing all songs withwords (T3) . At the end of a year of instruction, PMMA was administered to all ofthe children . Also, to evaluate singing achievement, all children were18individually tape-recorded singing two criterion songs . The two criterion songswere taught in the last month of instruction . One song was in major tonality andtriple meter and the other song was in minor tonality and duple meter.Two separate three-dimensional designs were used to determine the effectsof singing instruction with and without words on the PMMA Tonal scores andthe PMMA Rhythm scores of the kindergarten and first grade children . For thekindergarten children, two three-way analyses of variance (treatments by levelsof high and low PMMA aptitude scores by one year of instruction time) withrepeated measures on the time factor were performed on the PMMA Tonal andRhythm subtest scores . The first grade children's scores were analyzedseparately using this same technique . Singing achievement scores wereorganized into two, two-dimensional designs - - (treatments by levels of musicaptitude), one for tonal achievement scores and one for rhythm achievementscores. As with the aptitude scores, the kindergarten children's and first gradechildren's achievement scores were analyzed separately . Two, two factoranalyses of variance were separately performed on the rhythm and tonalachievement scores for each of the kindergarten and first grade children . Thisdesign was used to determine the comparative effects of treatments on thesinging achievement of kindergarten and grade one children (levels).Statistically significant two-way interactions between high and low levels ofaptitude and amount of instruction time were found for the tonal analysis ofkindergarten children and for both the rhythm and tonal analyses of first gradechildren . Also, a significant three-way interaction was found in the rhythmanalysis of kindergarten children.Levinowitz found that the audiation ability of young children with lowdevelopmental music aptitude is enhanced by song instruction, regardless ofwhether words were used. She also believes that tonal and rhythm music19aptitudes scores are not affected by song instruction . Singing achievementscores were also not affected by the three different song instruction methods.The one ambivalent discovery for Levinowitz was that the song instructionwhich was comprised of only words increased the audiation skill of children withhigh rhythm developmental music aptitude . She concluded that the rhythm ofthe words in songs may have helped these students to audiate and sing therhythm of the music more precisely.In this study, all of the groups were randomly selected . The description ofthe sample is adequate for anyone who wishes to undertake a replication study,although a further description of the ethnic and socio-economic background ofthe children might be helpful to future researchers . The design, methodology,and analyses are appropriate for this topic . The use of high and low levels ofmusic aptitude as an independent variable, in contrast to Flohr's study, is a verypractical aspect of this study . Also, the length of instruction time for this studywas longer, one year versus 12 weeks, than the Flohr study.It is interesting that Levinowitz chose to have the criterion songs kept in theiroriginal format, that is, the songs with words were not sung without words andthe songs without words were not sung with words . It would be of interest tothis researcher to know how the instruction methods might have compared if thechildren had all sung the same songs during their class periods . Musicinformation such as tonal and rhythmic complexity of the songs that were sungduring the year is very unclear.The conclusion that children who possess high rhythm music aptitude mightbenefit more from song instruction that uses only words needs further research.Questions to be considered might include to determine if the music helpsstudents to learn the words of a song or if the words help the student to learn themusic. It would be interesting to see if there is a high correlation between IQ20levels and music aptitude levels in the grade one group that was investigated.The published research by Gordon stipulates otherwise.Most important, the findings of this study suggest that developmental musicaptitude levels may be increased through a variety of techniques forkindergarten and grade one students who possess low tonal and rhythmaptitudes . The belief that the PMMA scores of children with high aptitude levelsare unaffected by any one method of instruction reinforces the validity of usingPMMA for the measurement of music aptitude.The Jessup StudyJessup (1984) investigated valid ways for music supervisors to evaluatemusic teachers . The problems of this study were to determine the comparativeeffects of indirect and direct music teacher behaviour upon overalldevelopmental music aptitude scores, music listening achievement, and theperformance of rote songs and tonal and rhythm patterns of students whopossess high and low levels of developmental music aptitudes . The terms"indirect and direct teacher behavior" were used to describe the two methods ofteacher classroom instructional strategies . Indirect teacher behaviours allowstudents more freedom to respond than do direct teacher behaviours . In thisstudy, Jessup attempts to prove that standardized music aptitude tests can beused in conjunction with non-standardized achievement tests to find results thatwill be useful to music supervisors for measuring and evaluating music teachereffectiveness.Jessup used a system designed by Flanders (1960) to observe behaviourinteractions among students and teachers . Flanders observed that Grade 8geometry and socials studies students scored higher on written achievementtests ( Flanders, 1960, p .2) if the teacher used either indirect teachingbehaviours or techniques . An indirect teacher behaviour includes the praise of21students, use of student ideas, and the use of music echo responses . In thatcontext, students are constantly stimulated and encouraged to achieve . A directbehaviour teacher will lecture, give directions, criticize, and play music forlistening. No effort is made by teacher direct behaviour to either intereststudents in music or to motivate them to achieve in music.A sample of 85 students enrolled in four intact heterogeneous (academicability) Grade 2 classes from the same elementary school in MontgomeryCounty, Pennsylvania participated in the study . Students were from apredominantly middle class background . All students were administered theTonal and Rhythm subtests of PMMA (Gordon, 1979) as a pretest, insuccessive weeks. Each class met for one 30 minute period of instruction perweek. The researcher trained the school music specialist on direct and indirectinstruction techniques . The researcher and the school music specialist eachtaught two classes. Students taught by the researcher received 13 weeks ofinstruction while the students taught by the music specialist only received 11weeks of instruction . Illness and school holidays were given as reasons for thedisparity in instruction time . Each teacher used primary indirect teacherbehaviour for treatment group one and primary direct teacher behaviour fortreatment group two . Four music teaching objectives were selected from theSilver Burdett Music Series , Book Two (1980). These objectives included beat(no beat), tempo (fast-slow), dynamics (loud-soft), and register (high-low).A cassette was made of each lesson to ensure that direct and indirectbehaviours were used . Two five-minute tape samples of each of these classeswere analyzed by two independent judges . The judges used Jessup's MusicClassroom Instruction Analysis (MCIA, 1978) system . This system ofobservations was based upon Flanders system (1960) and modified by Jessupfor applications in the music classroom . The "M" letters represent Jessup's22additions to Flanders (1960) categories . The 10 Flanders questions and theadditional five Jessup questions include 1) accepts feelings, 2) praises andencourages, 3) accepts or uses ideas of students, M3) accepts or uses musicalideas of students, 4) asks questions, M4) asks musical questions, 5) lectures,M5) lectures through musical performance, 6) gives direction, 7) criticizes orjustifies authority, 8) student talk--response, M8) student talk--prescribedmusical response, 9) student talk-initiative, M9) student talk--creative musicalresponse, 10) silence or confusion.The four criterion measures used included PMMA (Gordon, 1979) Tonaland Rhythm posttest scores, the Silver Burdett Music Competency Tests(SECT ; Colwell, 1980) that corresponded to the four teaching objectives,student performances of two phrases of a rote song taught to all students in thelast three weeks of instruction, and student performances of four unfamiliarmajor and minor tonality patterns and unfamiliar duple and triple meter patterns.Two, five-point continuous rating scales were constructed for each tonal andrhythm pattern . The patterns were chosen by the researcher.Interjudge reliability of the rating scale was investigated for the 80 individual30-minute class meeting samples, 20 for each of the four classes. Overallscores for all 10 meetings of each of the four separate classes were correlated.Interjudge reliability also was investigated for each of the 15 interaction analysiscategories, the total direct categories, and the the total indirect categories . Theextent of indirect and direct verbal behaviours demonstrated by each teacher (Aand B) was investigated by calculating two types of indirect/indirect verbalbehaviour ratios for each of the 80 individual 30 minute class meeting samplestallied by the judges . Scores were organized into four, three dimensionaldesigns (treatments by levels by replications) . The design was used once foreach of the four criterion measures . The 66th percentile was used for high and23low ranking of PMMA (Gordon, 1979) student scores in order to achieve equityof cell size. Treatments were direct/indirect teacher behaviours, levels werehigh and low levels of music aptitude based on composite PMMA (Gordon,1979) scores, and replications were the two teachers A and B. Interactioneffects, main effects, and simple effects were calculated . For all analyses thelevel of confidence used for statistical significance was ( .05) . A three-wayanalysis of variance was used to analyze the data.Interjudge reliability for the 80 classes ranged from (r= .77 to .99). Teacher B(the researcher) was more successful in effecting a difference between indirectand indirect teacher behaviours . PMMA (Gordon, 1979) pretest and posttestscores in this study were two to two and a half standard errors higher than thosepublished in the test manual . Only composite scores were analyzed for tonal,rhythm, and rote songs. The mean and standard deviations of student scoreson the SBCT were not compared to those in the test manual since only four ofthe six subtests were administered to the students . The entire test contains 20items, but only 15 items were used in the music achievement test . Although nostatistically significant differences were found among the PMMA gain scores forthe indirect/direct treatments, a significant main effect was found fordevelopmental music aptitude . Students with low pretest aptitude scoresincreased their scores more than did students with high pretest scores . Theobserved mean for teacher A's direct behaviour class was higher than teacherB's direct behaviour class, while the observed mean for teacher B's indirectbehaviour class was higher than teacher A's indirect behaviour class . It waslater discovered by Jessup that teacher A's direct behaviour class containedthree gifted children and an intact high reading level group of students.Therefore, this was not an academically heterogeneous group. Jessup alsoobserved that there was a high correlation between IQ and music achievement24when the SBCT were used.Several of Jessup's conclusions need examination in relation to the presentstudy. First, the lack of significant treatment effects may be due to the fact thatJessup's methodology and objectives were not totally understood by either theother music specialist or by the judges who rated the tapes . The lack ofsimilarity found between the two teaching styles shouldn't have affected theindirect/direct results if the behaviours had been totally understood by the othermusic teacher . If the behaviours were totally understood by the other teacher,then the external validity of this study is suspect . The issue of amount ofinstructional time is a very important aspect of this study, in that one 30 minuteclass a week may not be enough to affect student behaviours, attitudes, or skilldevelopment . More music instruction time may be needed to produce a higherlevel of achievement for elementary students . For the present study, a computerassisted instruction program will eliminate the possibility of teacher error orbias. Also, two sessions a week in the present study may have more of an effecton learned skills.One of Jessup's informal observations was that students with high IQsscored higher on the tonal pattern exercises . That is not surprising, inconsideration that the method of data measurement and the SBCT test designitself all relate to the measurement of music achievements, not themeasurement of music aptitude . The students who scored low on the PMMApretest, but demonstrated the most significant improvement on the PMMAposttest, most likely had not been given the opportunity to discover their musicpotential through previous training and instruction in music. Since the reader isnot given data on students' music backgrounds, one might accept the possibilitythat the students who scored low on the PMMA may not have had any previoustraining and instruction in music. This study does collaborate contemporary25belief that scores on PMMA (Gordon, 1979) may be improved both normativelyand idiographically . A long term study of these students would have beenuseful to study the effects of skill and practice on standardized aptitude scores.This writer does not believe the labels of "direct and indirect" teaching areappropriate, because, although the terms seem appropriate for this study, theyare too vague and misleading . Observations of "direct and indirect" teachingare quite subjective, but when the data is presented in this objective format, onemight question the validity of the SBTC test design.The Gouzouasis StudyGouzouasis's study (1987) was designed to learn about the role of hot(electric guitar informal song and movement accompaniment), warm (acousticguitar informal song and movement accompaniment), and cool (non-accompaniment informal song and movement) media, from a McLuhanisticperspective (McCluhan, 1964), in the acquisition of music skills and in thedevelopment of tonal aptitude of preschool children . The effects of the differentlevels of accompaniment technology were explored . Seventy-eight five-year-old preschool children were assigned randomly to one of three instructiongroups. The children who participated in the study were selected from anurban, middle-class population in Philadelphia.The Tonal subtest of PMMA (Gordon, 1979) was administered as a pretestto all children. The investigator taught the three groups of children for 14 weeksin two nearby locations of the same community day care center . Each group ofchildren met twice a week for 30 minute sessions of music instruction.The Tonal subtest of PMMA was readministered to all of the children afterthe 14 weeks of instruction . Children's singing achievement was rated by twoindependent judges using the same five-point continuous rating scale for eachof the four criterion songs in major, minor, dorian, and mixolydian tonality . To26determine the effects of the treatments on the children's rote singingachievement, the combined judge's ratings were organized into four, two-dimensional designs for the major, minor, dorian, and mixolydian criterionsongs. Singing achievement scores of the children were divided into high andlow levels of developmental tonal aptitude by using the pretest Tonal scores onPMMA as the basis for levels . Combined judge's ratings, organized into four,two-dimensional designs of the criterion songs were used to determine theeffects of the accompaniment treatment on singing achievement . Tonal pretestand posttest scores were organized into a two-dimensional design to study thetreatment effects on developmental aptitudes of the three classes.No significant interaction or main effects for treatment were noted for themajor, minor, or dorian criterion songs. Only the mixolydian criterion song hada significant treatment effect.Gouzouasis observed that there was a significant gain in developmentaltonal aptitude for children who participated in the study--children whopossessed low tonal aptitude gained more audiation ability than children whopossessed high tonal aptitude. Based on non-significant but observabledifferences in mean singing achievement scores, he believes that song singingskills seem to be affected by the types of accompaniment media, but not in anyconsistent pattern. Because of these inconsistencies, he recommends that alltypes of accompaniment should be used to teach songs.In this study, Gouzouasis used a quasi-experimental design whichincorporated three treatment groups . Since the researcher taught all of theclasses, and the researcher is a proficient guitarist, instructional reliability wasnot a concern . The research design is described in enough detail to allowreplication of this study . All the criterion measures are described in detail andare easily understood . Interjudge reliability for the rating scales was high . That27was because the researcher and an elementary music specialist were thejudges, and because the researcher designed an evaluation kit (included in thethesis appendix) that clearly explained how to use the rating scale . Gouzouasisreported interjudge reliabilities for the criterion major, minor, mixolydian, dorian,and all songs combined were (r= .94, .92, .87, .96, and .97), respectively (p.33).The use of the terms "hot, warm, and cool" in describing the treatments mightbe confusing for some readers, since Gouzouasis explains and extends thecommon meanings of these terms in a theoretical model . The model is anattempt to relate McCluhan's theory of communication to Gordon's theory ofmusic learning (1990). The statistical analysis used is very powerful foranalyzing individual differences in singing achievement using major, minor,dorian, and mixolydian songs . In hindsight, instead of the several ANOVAs thatwere used to analyze the criterion songs, a multivariate analysis of variancemight have been more appropriate for this study, since it would have involvedless calculations and thus lessened the chance of a Type I error . One mayhypothesize that his choice of analysis was influenced by the notion that eachtonality has its own form of syntax and that at the time when the study wasconducted an atomistic perspective of tonality was in vogue, hence, eachcriterion song was analyzed separately.Gouzouasis concludes with some very important theoretical discussionbased on observation about the relationship between developmental musicaptitude and song singing skills . He maintains that the Gestalt effect of singingsongs in many different tonalities to improve music aptitude must be studiedbefore educators too readily adopt popular elementary teaching techniqueswhich rely heavily on song and tonal patterns in pentatonic tonalities . Theinfluence of mixolydian tonality rock music on young children cannot be ignoredsince this is the type of popular music that dominates the environment of most28young children . The constant influence of electronic media is in large part theonly nurturing children receive in the developmental music aptitude stage.Gouzouasis also believes that all forms of accompaniment and a capellasinging should be incorporated into elementary classes . The PMMA pretestscores and the PMMA posttest scores, divided into high and low groups ofaudiation abilities, revealed that students with high music aptitude, asmeasured by PMMA, scored higher on singing tests than did students with lowscores, as measured by PMMA. Explanations for high and low singing scoresare appropriate for this study. Physical factors other than audiation skills willinevitably control a child's ability to sing in tune with the proper rhythms.Gouzouasis's final comments on the definitions of conception and perceptionare concise and rooted in Piagetian theory, but are not universally known bymusic educators . In the context of singing a song, his definitions are veryintuitive and appropriate to the study.The Estrella StudyThe purpose of the Estrella study (1992) was to investigate the effects oftraining and practice on audiation as reflected in music aptitude scores . In histhesis, Estrella challenges the diagnostic validity of the Advanced Measures ofMusic Audiation (AMMA ; Gordon, 1990) . AMMA is a short music aptitude testdesigned for first year college music students and high school seniors . WhileGordon believes that AMMA can be used to measure the dimensions of Tonaland Rhythm as well as provide a composite score, he reports high correlationsthat range from .72 to .78 between tonal dimension and rhythm dimensionscores. It is because of those high correlations that Estrella questions thediagnostic value of AMMA . Estrella believes that AMMA only gives musiceducators a normative evaluation of their students' general audiation ability, nota diagnostic evaluation of student strengths and weaknesses in audiation ability29relative to the tonal and rhythm dimensions of music learning (p .7).The test consists of 30 pairs of short musical phrases performed on aYamaha DX-7 synthesizer and recorded on audio cassette . To take this teststudents must fill in a space on an answer sheet, indicating whether two shortmusical phrases sound the same, whether they sound different because of tonalchange, or whether they sound different because of a rhythm change . Thepublished predictive performance validities for the Tonal , Rhythm , andComposite scores are .77, .75, and .82, respectively (Gordon, 1990, p.11). Asreported in the test manual, split-halves and test-retest reliability coefficientsrange from .80 to .89 (1989).The problems that Estrella addresses are, first to determine whether pretest-posttest Tonal and Rhythm difference scores on AMMA for students whoreceive training and practice in tonal audiation differ from the pretest-posttestTonal and Rhythm scores on AMMA of students who do not receive trainingand practice in tonal audiation . His second problem was to determine thedegree to which pretest-posttest difference scores for harmonic functionidentification and tonal pattern discrimination predict AMMA Tonal scores forthose students who receive training and practice in tonal audiation.A total sample of 76 students participated in this study . There were 37undergraduate music and non-music majors from Temple University(Philadelphia, PA) and 39 seniors from Matthew McNair Senior SecondarySchool (Richmond, British Columbia) . The British Columbia students ranged inage from 17-18 and were selected from band, choir, and music compositionclasses. The Temple University students ranged in age from 18-21 and wereselected from music and non-music major education classes at the university.Random sampling was not possible due to the length of the experimentaltreatment and because of a shortage of volunteers . Nineteen volunteers from30McNair Senior Secondary (HS-E) were considered as experimental group oneand 17 volunteers (ten music majors and seven non-music majors) from TempleUniversity (TU-E) were considered as experimental group two . The two controlgroups were comprised of another 20 volunteers from McNair SeniorSecondary (HS-C, control group one) and another 20 volunteers (10 majorsand 10 non-music majors) from Temple University (TU-C, control group two).The experimental groups completed two computer based pretests beforeproceeding with the computer assisted lessons . The pretests consisted of a 30item test of tonal pattern discrimination (TPD) and a 30 item test of tonal functionidentification (TFI) . The computer program designed by Estrella to teach tonalpattern discrimination and tonal function identification was found to be effectivein a pilot study (Estrella, 1990) . A mean difference of 1 .4 points for tonalfunction discrimination and a mean difference of 0.8 for tonal patterndiscrimination (p<.05) was statistically significance. Despite statisticalsignificance, Estrella decided not to use the scores as part of his criterionmeasures since the TPD and TFI had not been investigated for reliability.The experimental group completed 26, thirty-minute computer assistedlessons in 13 weeks. Following these lessons, the experimental groupscompleted the two computer based posttests . Use of a computer was believedto eliminate the possibility of instructor bias in the administration of thetreatment.In the computer assisted music training program, the computer uses asynthesized clarinet timbre to demonstrate tonal patterns in a variety oftonalities and functions without tonal syllables. To demonstrate tonal patterns ina variety of tonalities and functions, the computer program uses digitized audiosamples of the researcher's voice singing patterns with tonal syllables.Students are taught to identify tonal pattern functions, to determine if two series31of tonal patterns are the same or different, and to determine whether twomusical examples played with a clarinet timbre are the same or different in atleast one or more pitches.Attrition reduced the TU-E group to 11 students ; the HS-E and HS-C groupswere also reduced to fifteen students each . Academic pressure for both theuniversity and high school students accounted for the attrition . The HS-E groupalso suffered from apathy.All students were administered AMMA as a pretest prior to instruction . Thecontrol group received their normal music instruction during this period . Allstudents in both experimental and control groups were then administeredAMMA (Tonal and Rhythm) as a posttest.Universit N Hiah School NAMMA Tona/difference scoresAMMA Rhythm difference scores11 AMMA Tonaldifference scoresAMMA Rhythm difference scores15AMMA Tonaldifference scoresAMMA Rhythm difference scores20 AMMA Tonaldifference scoresAMMA Rhythm difference scores15Figure 1 . Experimental Treatments by Sites, Two by Two Design (Estrella,1992)Two, two way analyses of variance (ANOVA) were used to determine themain effects for site (high school vs . university), treatment (experimental vs,control), and an interaction effect between site and assignment (p< .05) for eitheror both AMMA Tonal and Rhythm pretest scores (p. 24). No significantdifferences were found for any of these factors . A two-way ANOVA was used todetermine if there were main effects for site, treatment, and an interaction effectbetween site and treatment (p . 27) . A significant main effect for treatment wasfound.Two, two-tailed t-tests of mean differences for correlated samples wereExperimental GroupsControl Groups32calculated for each of the four groups to determine posttest-pretest differenceson each measure, tonal and rhythm (p< .05) The analyses indicated that AMMATonal scores decreased significantly for the university control group (TU-C) andincreased significantly for the high school experimental group (HS-E) . Scoresfor the university experimental group (TU-E) and the high school control group(HS-C) changed insignificantly . Estrella acknowledges that the use of multiplet-tests increased the probability of a Type I error . Lack of built-in measures tocontrol the emotional and motivational climates of the two sites may have been,in Estrella's opinion, the major contributor to the significant differences inuniversity control group (TU-C) and the high school experimental group (HS-E)scores.AMMA Rhythm posttest-pretest scores for the four groups providedconflicting information . Two-tailed t-tests revealed no significant differences forthe high school experimental group (HS-E) and the high school control group(HS-C) . Two-tailed t-test analysis showed that the mean posttest score ofuniversity experimental group (TU-E) was significantly higher than that group'spretest score, while the university control group (TU-C) showed no difference onAMMA Rhythm subtest scores (p . 46).Based on the results, Estrella believes that both tonal and rhythm audiation,as measured by AMMA, can be altered through specialized training in tonalaudiation . Rhythm audiation can also be improved by enrollment in a universitymusic program. Estrella's recommendations include a suggestion to redesignAMMA to include dimensions used in Gordon's MAP model, eliminate thecontrol group, use only one location, and use only the AMMA Compositescores as a criterion measure.A final, controversial conclusion by Estrella is that audiation for studentsaged 17 to 21 is unidimensional on a Gestalt level, which conflicts with33Gordon's position and that of many other music psychologists, who believe thatthere are at least seven dimensions of audiation . In the MAP manual, where theword "aptitude" was used instead of the contemporary term "audiation," Gordonnarrowed the number of audiation dimensions to seven . That is because theseare the most reliable to measure, although he was able to identify in researchover 50, highly fluid dimensions of audiation . This researcher believes thataudiation, or aptitude, is comprised of many dimensions and that we all havestrengths and weaknesses in these dimensions which contribute to our ownunique way of creating and enjoying music.Estrella's study uses a quasi-experimental design to research Gordon's newstandardized test for audiation. He questions whether AMMA is a usefulinstrument for predicting music aptitude or potential, and poses some criticalquestions pertaining to the value of AMMA as a diagnostic tool for schools anduniversities . In the AMMA manual, Gordon explains that despite a highcorrelation between Tonal and Rhythm scores, a significant portion of thevariance for each test is still unique . That statement contradicts Estrella's nullhypothesis that the two dimensions are not unique for students aged 17 to 21.Most people, including this researcher, would disagree with Estrella . It seemsreasonable that if students at a young age, e .g ., before age nine, show strengthin either tonal or rhythm aptitude, the same students should continue to exhibitthese strengths later in their high school or university years.The research design used in this study was well defined and clearly written.Replication is possible if a researcher can obtain a copy of the unpublishedcomputer training program . It is unfortunate, however, that a true experimentaldesign was not possible . The use of only student volunteers threatened theinternal validity of the study . Despite the use of only volunteers, or perhaps dueto the use of volunteers only, the attrition level seems relatively high, especially34for the high school experimental group (HS-E) which decreased 42 percentfrom 19 to 11 subjects . Estrella did not address the issue of whether boredomor apathy with the computer training program had an effect on student attitudesand their motivation to complete the study. Based on teaching experience, adifferent approach in the presentation of the program is necessary to sustain thelevel of interest for both the experimental and the control groups.Estrella's data analysis for AMMA Tonal posttest-pretest score differencesdetermined that there was a significant improvement for the universityexperimental group (TU-E) . Considering the treatment involved training in tonalaudiation which was similar to those discrimination abilities tested in AMMA,and the fact that some of the students in the TU-E group were music majors whowere exposed to aural skills classes in their university curriculum, these resultshave little practical significance . Any training effect that resulted from classroommusic instruction and ensemble performance experiences could bias theposttest scores in favour of the experimental group . Since none of the studentsinvolved in this study received any specific training in audiation prior to thestudy, the computer training program should have affected latent musicabilities.The use of two sites did offer potential problems, but the researcher believesthat the advantages outweighed the disadvantages . No researcher interferencewas possible for the high school, which allowed the computer training programto stand on its own merit . Computer assisted instruction has some very distinctdisadvantages when compared to teacher guided instruction . These include alack of motivation, boredom, and a lack of accountability . Some students arenot visual learners while others need to be motivated through active groupparticipation and aural-oral reinforcement . Pretest and posttest scores for thecomputer training in tonal skills would have been interesting to analyze and35compare, because of the similarities between the AMMA test questions and thetraining exercises . Moreover, although the results were not published one maywonder whether the pretest-posttest results of music achievement on thecomputer program may have contradicted the aptitudinal findings of theresearcher.Estrella's conclusions, based on statistically significant data, areappropriately related to his problems . However, the use of multiple t-testsincreases the probability of a Type I error . Also, if Estrella had used an ANOVA,he would have been able to test the differences between all groups and beenable to make more accurate probability statements.The recommendations in this study, although well documented, seem weak.If a researcher used only one test site, he or she might be able to use a twodimensional ANOVA (treatment by levels), where the levels are divided intohigh and low AMMA pretest scores, and the treatment is administered with acomputer program . In that scenario, either a control group or secondexperimental group might be used . The second experimental group couldreceive audiation training from the teacher in a traditional classroomenvironment . The two dimensions could produce more precise data on howwell students who possess high or low levels of audiation ability might improvewith tonal training over a 13 week period . More research is needed on thistopic since the diagnostic value of AMMA is still unproven.SummaryAll of the researchers cited in this review attempted to affect a change in theaptitude scores of students through the use of various instruction and trainingtechniques . Flohr, Jessup, Levinowitz, and Gouzouasis believe thatdevelopmental aptitude scores of students through age nine can be influenced,both normatively and idiographically, by various types of instruction . Estrella36was able to affect a change in stabilized aptitude scores for some university andhigh school students through the use of a computer training and practiceprogram . Based on those conflicting results, the researcher wishes to furtherinvestigate that paradigm through the use of computer assisted instruction .37CHAPTER THREEDESIGN AND ANALYSISSampleForty-eight Grade 11 and 12 students from Matthew McNair SeniorSecondary school in Richmond, British Columbia participated in this study.These students, whose ages ranged from 16 through 19, were enrolled inscheduled school music classes . Matthew McNair Senior Secondary School isa middle class school located in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia withan enrollment of approximately 1100 students . Over 25 percent of the schoolpopulation is made up of ESL (English as a Second Language) students.Neither group of students received any specialized audiation training prior tothe study. Members of the experimental group (T1) were chosen from an intactmusic composition class. This class represents a sample of 24 students ofvarious music abilities and experience . Before enrolling in this class, studentswere instructed that completion of the computer program was a necessarypartial fullfilment of the course objectives.Members of the control group (T2) were randomly selected from theremaining students enrolled in music classes . Twenty-four students wererandomly selected from a population of 134. A random number table was usedfor the selection process.ProceduresBefore commencement with the instructional program, all students wereadministered the Tonal subtest of Advanced Measures of Music Audiation(AMMA; Gordon, 1989) . AMMA is designed for use primarily with universitystudents and consists of 30 pairs of musical phrases . These musical phrases38are recorded on an audio cassette and are performed by a synthesizer . Asstated in the oral instructions, the second phrase of each pair may be the sameas the first, different because of one or more tonal changes, or different becauseof one or more rhythm changes . A time of four seconds is given to audiate thetwo phrases. Students must decide if the two musical phrases are the same ordifferent. If the second phrase is different, the student must choose whether thedifference is because of a tonal or rhythm change . Four different answer masks(T1, T2, R1, R2) allow for tonal, rhythm, and total scores to be calculated for this20 minute test . In the standardization sample of high school students asreported in the test manual, split-halves reliability for the Tonal subtest wascalculated at .81.During the 13 weeks of computerized instruction, students in the treatmentgroup completed the Tonal Syntax Tutorial (TST, Estrella, 1990), a musictraining and practice program . A complete printed version of the Tonal SyntaxTutorial is provided in Appendix A. Appendix B provides an outline andcomplete instructions for training procedures . Both appendices are self-explanatory in content and procedures . The training and practice section of thiscomputer program is composed of 26 computer assisted lessons designed tobe completed at a rate of two a week . Each lesson takes approximately 20minutes to complete . Two Macintosh LC computers, placed in individual soundproof practice rooms, were dedicated for student use in this study. Thecomputers were available for students at any time during the school day . Also,students could choose to complete their tutorials during scheduled music classtime.A digitized audio sample of a male voice was used for tonal syllable patternsand a synthesized clarinet timbre was used for the patterns without°tonalsyllables . In the tutorial, students were given instruction on tonal pattern39identification and function as well as training in determining whether twoextended multifunction tonal patterns are the same or different . All of theresponse data were automatically evaluated and stored by the computersoftware . In the tutorial, the length of the tonal patterns was gradually increasedfrom six pitches to fifteen pitches in order to aid in the development of tonalmemory (Estrella, 1990). The examples performed by the synthesized clarinetare similar to those found in AMMA. Major, minor, mixolydian, dorian, phrygian,and Iydian tonalities are all taught and evaluated in the computer softwareinstruction program.At the end of the 13 weeks of instruction, all of the students werereadministered the Tonal subtest of AMMA.AnalysisThe null hypothesis is as follows.H0 : There will be no difference between pretest and posttest tonal aptitudescores, as measured by AMMA, for students who possess high and lowlevels of tonal audiation ability and who received specialized audiationtraining, and students who possess high and low levels of tonalaudiation ability who received no specialized audiation training.To determine the effects of computer instruction on the tonal aptitude of thestudents, the AMMA pretest and posttest scores were organized into amultidimensional design. In the two factor analysis, the A dimension isconsidered as type of instruction (computer assisted and control group), and theB dimension is considered levels of music aptitude (high and low audiationabilities) . In the statistical hypothesis, the dependent variables were the pretestand posttest AMMA Tonal scores. Means and standard deviations of theAMMA Tonal test scores were calculated . A covariate analysis of AMMA scoreswas calculated to increase precision and to control for statistical error in theeffect of differences in tonal aptitude . To determine differences between the40pretest and posttest scores, a MANOVA was employed. Main effects, interactioneffects, and simple main effects were tested at the .05 level of significance .41CHAPTER FOURRESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONAll 48 Grade 11 and 12 students at Matthew McNair Senior Secondaryschool completed thel 3 week study.For the following reasons, the researcher chose to accept the published testreliability : 1) the reliability of the Tonal subtest, as published in the test manual,is high (Gordon, 1989 ; r=.81) ; 2) financial constraints prohibited the researcherfrom calculating a split-halves reliability coefficient ; 3) standardized testinstructions were adhered to ; 4) the researcher is experienced and hasadministered the test on other occasions ; and 5) there were no systematicerrors, constant errors, or dubious testing effects that occured during testadministration . Means and standard deviations for AMMA Tonal pretest scoresare presented in Table 1. Also, means and standard deviations for AMMATonal posttest scores are presented in Table 2.Table 1 . AMMATonal Pretest Means and Standard DeviationsVariable Experimental Control TotalMean 26 .75 Mean 27 .45 Mean 27 .13High SD 1 .76 SD 2.94n 12 n 11 n 23Mean 22 .25 Mean 21 .92 Mean 22 .08Low SD 1 .91 SD 2 .13n 12 n 13 n 25Mean 24 .50 Mean 24 .45Totals n 24 n 2442Table 2 . AMMA Tonal Posttest Means and Standard DeviationsVariable Experimental Control TotalMean 28 .00 Mean 30 .09 Mean 29 .00High SD 5.97 SD 5.71n 12 n 11 n 23Mean 26 .75 Mean 25 .07 Mean 25 .88Low SD 6 .45 SD 3 .66n 12 n 13 n 25Mean 24 .37 Mean 27 .37Totals n 24 n 24The MANOVA summary for the AMMA pretest and posttest scores ispresented in Table 3 . A covariate analysis of AMMA pretest scores revealedthat a significant difference existed (p<.006) between the students whopossessed high tonal aptitude and students who possessed low tonal aptitudebefore the study began.Table 3 . MANOVA Summary Table for the AMMA Pretest andPosttest ScoresSum of Squares df Mean Square F pSourceTreatment (A effect) .203Aptitude (B effect) 116.813Trt .x Apt. (AxB effects) 21 .225Explained 357.944Residual 1139.306Total 1497.2501 .203 .008 .9311 116 .813 4.409 .0421 21 .225 .801 .3764 89.486 3 .377 .01743 26.49547 31 .85643As can be seen in Table 3, there was no significant difference between thetreatment and control group tonal aptitude scores . Even though there was asignificant difference between levels of aptitude, the difference between thestudents who possess high tonal aptitude and students who possess low tonalaptitude is not a real difference because the difference actually existed in thepretest scores (significant at the p<.006 level with AMMA pretest scores used acovariate) before the study began .44CHAPTER FIVESUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONSSummaryWith the intent of learning more about the process of assessing music ability,the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of music learning on musicaptitude scores and tonal skills . The problem of this study is to determine ifthere is a difference between pretest-posttest tonal aptitude scores, asmeasured by Advanced Measures of Music Audiation (AMMA, 1989), forstudents who possess high and low levels of tonal audiation ability and whoreceived either specialized audiation training or no audiation training.Forty-eight Grade 11 and 12 students from Matthew McNair SeniorSecondary school in Richmond, British Columbia participated in the study.Students were enrolled in scheduled school music classes and their agesranged from 16 through 19. Matthew McNair Senior Secondary school is amiddle class school located in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia with anenrollment of approximately 1100 students . Over 25 percent of the schoolpopulation is made up of ESL (English as a Second Language) students.Neither group of students had received any specialized audiation trainingprior to the pretest of AMMA. Students who participated in the Estrella study in1991 had graduated and were not an influence on this study . Attrition was not afactor in this study because of the thoughtful, yet demanding approach of theinstructor . Also, fortunately, none of the students moved to anothergeographical location during the study. Members of the experimental group(T1) were chosen from an intact music composition class . This classrepresented a sample of 24 students of various exhibited abilities and45experience. Before students enrolled in this class during February 1992, theywere instructed that they would complete the computer program as a partialfulfillment of the course objectives . Members of the control group (T2) wererandomly selected, through the use of random number table, from a group of allstudents enrolled in music classes. Twenty-four students were randomlyselected from a population of 140.AMMA was administered to all of the students as a pretest . Tonal subtestscores were used as the criterion measures for this study . The subtest iscomposed of 30 questions . The experimental treatment consisted of acomputer assisted software program, Tonal Syntax Tutorial (Estrella, 1991),which provided audiation practice for high school and college students . Thecontrol group only received regular music class instruction.The training and practice section of the computer program is comprised of26 computer assisted lessons designed to be completed at a rate of two perweek. Each lesson takes approximately 20 minutes to complete . TwoMacintosh LC computers were dedicated to this study and placed in individualsound proof practice rooms . The computers were available for students at anytime during the school day . Most students chose to complete their lessonsduring scheduled class time . Students in the experimental group were givencomputer instruction on tonal pattern identification and function as well astraining in determining whether two tonal patterns are the same or different.The length of the patterns is gradually increased from six pitches to fifteenpitches in order to aid in the development of tonal memory. The examplesperformed by the synthesized clarinet are similar to those found in AMMA.After 13 weeks of computer or non-computer instruction, the Tonal subtest ofAMMA was readministered to all students . The researcher found no significantdifference between the treatment and control group tonal aptitude scores,46however, there was a significant difference between levels of aptitude . It wasinterpreted that the difference between the students who possessed high tonalaptitude and students who possess low tonal aptitude was not a real differencebecause the difference in student tonal aptitude levels actually existed beforethe study began.ConclusionsBased on the results, the researcher believes that senior level high schoolstudents possess stabilized tonal aptitude . These findings are consistent withother research studies (Tarrell, 1965 ; Fosha, 1960) of music aptitude as definedby audiation . Because of the findings, this researcher believes that AMMA canbe a useful instrument in assessing high school student music abilities . Also,based on our present knowledge of computer assisted instruction, that type ofinstruction alone is not sufficient to affect a change in music audiation ability.RecommendationsBased on observation, computers are a useful teaching tool for drill andpractice, but they are not a substitute for either the instruction or musicianshipthat can be provided by a music teacher . Moreover, without an instructorpresent, the motivation of some students may be adversely affected bycomputer instruction, in that they are unable to focus consistently on music taskspresented by computers. Perhaps future improvements in technology, on botha software and hardware level, will allow students to work more interactivelyand provide better delivery of music instruction.Senior Secondary music teachers should feel confident to use AMMA as anassessment instrument . Through the use of AMMA, music teachers will bebetter prepared to determine the achievement potential of individual studentsand to base future instruction on various music abilities .47In the future, researchers may wish to study the effect of different types oftonal training on students who possess low tonal aptitude to determine ifspecialized training will significantly increase their audiation levels . Withdirected study, students who possess low tonal aptitude may have a greateropportunity to better share in the joy of listening to and creating music . Ifmotivation is considered as a primary factor in the music learning process,longitudinal validity studies may be undertaken to study the effect of instructionover extended periods of time on stabilized music aptitude and musicachievement test scores .48BIBLIOGRAPHYAzzara, C. (1991). Audiation, improvisation, and music learning theory . TheQuarterly, Volume Il, Numbers 1&2 . 106-109.Colwell, R . (1979) . Silver Burdett Music Competency Tests . Morristown, N J:Silver Burdett Co.Colwell, R . and Abrahams, F. (1991) . Edwin Gordon's contribution : anappraisal . The Quarterly, Volume II, Numbers 1&2. 19-36.Estrella, S . G . (1990) . A pilot study to determine the effectiveness of acomputer based aural skills training program . Unpublished paper,Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.Estrella, S. G. (1992) . A study to determine the effects of training and practiceon advanced measures of audiation . Doctoral Dissertation, TempleUniversity, Philadelphia, PA .Estrella, S. G. (1991) . Tonal Syntax Tutorial. Unpublished computerapplication, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA .Ferrell, J . (1961) . A validity investigation of the Drake Music Aptitude Tests.Doctoral Dissertation, Iowa City : The University of Iowa.Fosha, R. V. (1960) . A study of the concurrent validity of the Musical AptitudeProfile . Doctoral Dissertation, Iowa City : The University of Iowa.Flohr, J . W. (1981) . Short-term music instruction and young children'sdevelopmental music aptitude ." Journal of Research in Music Education,29, 219-223 . Chicago : G.I .A. Publications.Gesell, A. L. (1929) . Maturation and infant behavior pattern . PsychologicalReview, 36., 307-319.Grunow, R. F. (1991) . The evolution of rhythm symbols . The Quarterly, VolumeII, Numbers 1&2. 97-105.Gordon, E. (1965) . Music Aptitude Profile . Boston : Houghton-Mifflin.Gordon, E. (1970) . First year results of a five year longitudinal study of themusic achievement of culturally disadvantaged students . Journal ofResearch in Music Education, Vol . 18, no.3, Fall 1970.Gordon, E . E. (1970) . Iowa Tests of Musical Literacy. Iowa City : The Bureau ofEducational Research and Service of the University of Iowa.Gordon, E. E. (1971) . The Psychology of Music Teaching . Englewood Cliffs:Prentice Hall .49Gordon, E. (1979) . Developmental aptitude as measured by the PrimaryMeasures of Music Audiation . Psychology of Music, 7, 42-29.Gordon, E. E. (1979) . Primary Measures of Music Audiation. Chicago: G .I .A.Publications.Gordon, E. E. (1982) . Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation . Chicago:G.I.A. Publications.Gordon, E . E . (1986) . The Nature, Description, Measurement, and Evaluationof Music Aptitudes. Chicago : G .I .A. Publications, Inc.Gordon, E. E. (1986) . Manual for the Primary Measures of Music Audiation andthe Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation . . Chicago : G .I .A.Publications.Gordon, E. (1989) . Advanced Measures of Music Audiation . Chicago : G .I .A.Publications, Inc.Gordon, E. (1990) . Predictive Validity Study of AMMA . Chicago : G .I .A.Publications, Inc.Gouzouasis, P . J. (1987) . The comparative effects of three types ofaccompanimemt media on the singing achievement and developmentaltonal aptitude of young children. Unpublished master's thesis . TempleUniversity, Philadelphia, PA.Gouzouasis, P . (1990) . An investigation of the comparative effects of two tonalpattern systems and two rhythm pattern systems for playing the guitar.Doctoral Dissertation, Temple University . Dissertation AbstractsInternational, 51 : 2672-A.Heads Music Data Summaries of the Higher Education Arts Data Service(Heads) . (1986-87). Prepared for the National Association of Schools ofMusic.Hohn, R.L. (1991) . An educational psychologist considers the work of EdwinGordon. The Quarterly, Volume ll, Numbers 1&2. 10-18.Holmes, J . (1954). Increased reliabilities, new keys and norms for a modifiedKwalwasser-Dykema Test of Musical Aptitude. Psychology of Music, 85.38-56.Jessup, L. L. (1984) . The comparative effects of indirect and direct musicteaching upon the developmental music aptitude and musicachievement of early primary children. Doctoral Dissertation, TempleUniversity, Philadelphia, PA. Dissertation Abstracts International, 45:1678-A . °50Kwalwasser, J. and Dykema, P. (1930) . Kwalwasser-Dykema Music Tests (K-D) . New York : Carl Fischer.Levinowitz, L . M. (1985) . An experimental study of the comparative effects ofsinging songs with words and without words on children in kindergartenand first grade. Doctoral Dissertation, Temple University, Philadelphia,PA . Dissertation Abstracts International, 48, : 863-A.McDonald, J . C. (1991) . Teaching the recorder . The Quarterly, Volume II,Numbers 1&2. 110-117.Pear, T. H. (1911) . The classification of observers as 'musical' and 'unmusical'.British Journal of Psychology, 4 . 89-94.Piaget, J . (1952) . The Origins of Intelligence in Children . (Margaret Cook,trans.). New York: International Universities Press.Revesz, G ., (1953) . Introduction to the Psychology of Music. (G.I .C . de Courcy,trans .) Norman : University of Oklahoma Press.Saunders, T.C . (1991) . The stages of music audiation . The Quarterly, Volumell, Numbers 1&2. 131-137.Schuler, S . C. (1991) . Music learning theory to the music educationprofessional . The Quarterly, Volume ll, Numbers 1&2. 37-58.Seashore, C . (1919) . Seashore Measures of Musical Talent . New York:Columbia Phonograph Company.Schuter-Dyson, R. and Gabriel, C . (1981) . The Psychology of Music Ability.London : Metheun.Silver Burdett Music Series : Book Two . (1981) . Crook, E., Reimer, B., andWalker, D . S. General Learning Corporation, Morristown, N J . : SilverBurdett Co., 24-38.Stanton, H . (1922) . The inheritance of specific musical capacities.Psychological Monographs ,31, 157-204.Tarrell, V. V. (1965) . An investigation of the validity of the Musical AptitudeProfile. Journal of Research in Music Education, 13.Trusheim, W. H . (1991) . Audiation and mental imagery . The Quarterly, VolumeII, Numbers 1&2. 138-147.Walters, D. L. (1991) . Edwin Gordon's music aptitude work . The Quarterly,Volume ll, Numbers 1&2. 65-72 .51Woodruff, L . C . (1983) . A predictive validity study of the Primary Measures ofMusic Audiation . Doctoral Dissertation, Temple University, Philadelphia,PA . Dissertation Abstracts, 45, 01 A .52APPENDIX ATESTS OF TONAL PATTERN DISCRIMINATIONAND TONAL FUNCTION IDENTIFICATIONConventions : Text in Italics indicates words displayed by the computer to beread by the student. Text in Bold indicates words spoken by the computerusing sound samples of the researcher's voice. Text in Bold Italics indicateswords displayed and spoken by the computer to be read and heard by thestudent. All music notation contained here is for the reader's convenience. Thecriterion measures contained no music notation component.Welcome to the Tonal Syntax Tutorial . You will be given two teststo measure your aural skills. Relax and concentrate. Use yourintuition and do your best. Begin.Directions for Test 1Tonal Pattern DiscriminationI will play two extended tonal patterns on my clarinet. You must determine if thetwo patterns are the same or different. There will be 30 questions. Good luck.Begin.TPD questions 1-30 follow. In each item the two extended tonal patterns areseparated by a barline.Item 1Item 2Item 3Item 4ff•. P . .•♦ •- ♦ •- #• .Item 553•4-•Item 6. .•41-•Item 7Item 8. .Item 9Item 10♦ ♦.Item 11•• 0•.0• • • •• .. _p•Item 12Item 13Item 14 • • •.•Item 16i..54Item 17•Item 18•1. • • . .•.•Item 19•Item 20 • . • •Item 21l•Item 23• .•Item 24• #. .Item 25Item 2741-55Item 28 . ••. ..•. .Item 29Item 30Directions for Test 2 Part 1Tonal Function Identification in Major TonalityI will play three tonal patterns in major tonality on my clarinet . The first patternwill be tonic, the second pattern will be dominant. Your task is to identify thethird pattern as tonic, dominant, or subdominant.If the third pattern is tonic, then it will contain the same pitches you heard in thefirst pattern but they might be in a different order. If the third pattern is dominant,then it will contain the same pitches you heard in the second pattern but theymight be in a different order. If the third pattern is subdominant, then it willcontain a grouping of pitches that is not present in either of the first two patterns.Listen to this sample question....Click on the function of the last patternSubDominant Dominant TonicIf the student answers correctly the computer responds as follows.Correct. The third pattern is tonic, because it contained the same pitches thatwere present in the first pattern but in a different order.If the student answers incorrectly the computer responds as follows .56Incorrect. The third pattern is tonic, because it contained the same pitches thatwere present in the first pattern but in a different order.Listen to another sample question.i.60Click on the function of the last patternSubDominant Dominant TonicIf the student answers correctly .the computer responds as follows.Correct. The third pattern is dominant, because it contained a grouping ofpitches that were present in the second pattern but in a different order.If the student answers incorrectly .the computer responds as follows.Incorrect. The third pattern is dominant, because it contained a grouping ofpitches that were present in the second pattern but in a different order.Listen to a final sample question.••wrClick on the function of the last pattern.SubDominant Dominant TonicIf the student answers correctly .the computer responds as follows.Correct . The third pattern was subdominant, because it contained a groupingof pitches not present in either of the first two patterns .57If the student answers incorrectly .the computer responds as follows.Incorrect. The third pattern was subdominant, because it contained a groupingof pitches not present in either of the first two patterns.There will be 15 questions.First listen to the preparatory pattern.BeginTFI items 1-15 follow. In each item the first two patterns presented are alwaysthe following.•TonicThe third pattern for each item is listed belowItem 1Item 2Item 3Item 4.•Dominant.Item 5.58Item 6Item 7Item 84Item 9Item 10.Item 11..Item 12•Item 13.Item 1460Item 15.Directions for Test 2 Part 2 — Tonal Function Identification in Minor TonalityI will play three tonal patterns in minor tonality on my clarinet. The first patternwill be tonic, the second pattern will be dominant. Your task is to identify thethird pattern as tonic, dominant, or subdominant..59If the third pattern is tonic, then it will contain the same pitches you heard in thefirst pattern but they might be in a different order. If the third pattern is dominant,then it will contain the same pitches you heard in the second pattern but theymight be in a different order. If the third pattern is subdominant, then it willcontain a grouping of pitches that is not present in either of the first two patterns.Listen to this sample question..• frClick on the function of the last patternSubDominant Dominant TonicIf the student answers correctly the computer responds as follows.Correct. The third pattern is tonic, because it contained the same pitches thatwere present in the first pattern but in a different order.If the student answers incorrectly the computer responds as follows.Incorrect. The third pattern is tonic, because it contained the same pitches thatwere present in the first pattern but in a different order.Listen to another sample question..•4Click on the function of the last patternSubDominant Dominant Tonic.60If the student answers correctly the computer responds as follows.Correct . The third pattern is dominant, because it contained the same pitchesthat were present in the second pattern but in a different order.If the student answers incorrectly the computer responds as follows.Incorrect. The third pattern is dominant, because it contained the same pitchesthat were present in the second pattern but in a different order.Listen to a final sample question.Click on the function of the last patternSubDominant Dominant TonicIf the student answers correctly the computer responds as follows.Correct. The third pattern was subdominant, because it contained a groupingof pitches not present in either of the first two patterns.If the student answers incorrectly the computer responds as follows.Incorrect. The third pattern was subdominant, because it contained a groupingof pitches not present in either of the first two patterns.There will be 15 questions.First listen to the preparatory pattern.Begin061TFI questions 16-30 follow. In each item the first two patterns presented arealways the following.TonicThe third pattern for each item is listed below.Item 16•DominantD•Item 17.Item 18Item 19.Item 206 0Item 22Item 23Item 24fItem 21fr .lk-62Item 25..Item 264 0Item 27. b••Item 28.Item 29.Item 304 ..It has been a pleasure working with you. Goodbye .63APPENDIX BProcedures for the Training Mode1. A preparatory pattern in major tonality is delivered, using tonalsyllables.2. The computer informs the student that any combination of "do, mi,and so" is called a tonic pattern.3. Two tonic patterns are demonstrated, using tonal syllables.4. The computer informs the student that any combination of "so, fa,re, and ti" is called a dominant pattern.5. Two dominant patterns are demonstrated, using tonal syllables.6. The computer informs the student that any combination of "do, fa,and la" is called a subdominant pattern.7. Two subdominant patterns are demonstrated, using tonalsyllables.8. Each function is demonstrated for review.9. The computer informs the student that he/she is about to hearthree tonal patterns sung with tonal syllables . The first and secondpatterns are identified as tonic and dominant, respectively . Thethird pattern is identified by the student as tonic, dominant, orsubdominant.10. If the student answers correctly, another exercise of the sameformat is presented. If the student answers incorrectly, thecomputer adds one (1) to the tally of incorrect responses andanother exercise of the same format is presented . After tenexercises are presented, the computer presents a number ofadditional exercises equal to the number of incorrect responsesrecorded.11. The computer informs the student that he/she is about to hearthree tonal patterns played with a clarinet timbre . The first andsecond patterns are identified as tonic and dominant, respectively.The third pattern is identified by the student as tonic, dominant, orsubdominant.12. If the student answers correctly, another exercise of the sameformat is presented. If the student answers incorrectly, thecomputer adds one (1) to the tally of incorrect responses andanother exercise of the same format is presented . After tenexercises are presented in this format, the computer will present anumber of additional exercises equal to the number of incorrectresponses recorded.13. The computer explains to the student that sometimes two tonalpatterns are almost the same . Two slightly different tonal patternsare played with a synthesized clarinet timbre . The computer thenexplains why the two patterns are different . The two patterns maybe different for a variety of reasons:a. the second pattern contains the same tonal functions but withone or more different notes,64b. the second pattern contains a large skip not found in the firstpattern,c. the second pattern involves a different approach to the restingtone,d. one of the patterns contains a subtonic and the other patterncontains a leading tone,e. the second pattern is in a tonality different from that of the firstpattern, orf. the second pattern contains a reordering of pitches found in thefirst pattern.The two patterns are then played again . Three examples of thistype are demonstrated for the student . During the twenty-sixinstructional sessions, the six conditions were rotated in groups ofthree so that by the end of training each student experienced eachcondition four times.14 . The computer informs the student that he/she is about to hear twotonal patterns that are slightly different . The student is then askedto determine why the two patterns are different. If the studentanswers incorrectly, the computer reveals the correct answer andplays the two patterns again . Five exercises of this type arepresented.Procedures for the Practice Mode1. A preparatory pattern in major tonality is delivered using asynthesized clarinet timbre.2. Each tonal function is demonstrated once for review.3. The computer informs the student that he is about to hear threetonal patterns played with a clarinet timbre . The first and secondpatterns are identified as tonic and dominant, respectively . Thethird pattern is identified by the student as tonic, dominant, orsubdominant . The specific tonal functions vary depending on thetonality being taught . Table 1 shows the tonal functions to be usedfor each of the seven tonalities . Twenty items are presented in thisformat.4. The computer informs the student that he/she is about to hear aseries of two tonal patterns . The first and second patterns may bethe same or may differ in one or more pitches . The student mustdecide if the first and second patterns are the same or different.Twenty items are presented in this format . The first four items arein the same tonality as the tonal patterns in practice procedures 1-3. The tonalities of four of the remaining sixteen items are also inthe same tonality as the tonal patterns in practice procedures 1-3.The tonalities of the remaining twelve items were selectedaccording to the distribution of tonalities outlined in Table 2.5. The computer informs the student that he/she is about to hear twosongs played with a clarinet timbre . The first and second songsmay be the same or may differ in one or more pitches . The studentmust decide if the first and second songs are the same or different.Twenty items are presented in this format . The first four items are65in the same tonality as the tonal patterns in practice procedures 1-3 . The tonalities of four of the remaining sixteen items are also inthe same tonality as the tonal patterns in practice procedures 1-3.The tonalities of the remaining twelve items were selectedaccording to the distribution of tonalities in Table 5.Table 4. Tonal Functions used in Practice Procedures 1 through3 for Practice in each of the Seven TonalitiesMajor Minor Aeolian Mixolydian Dorian Phrygian LydianTonic Tonic Tonic Tonic Tonic Tonic TonicDominant Dominant Subtonic Subtonic Subtonic Subtonic DominantSubdom . Subdom . Subdom . Subdom . Subdom . Supertonic SupertonicTable 5. Distribution of Exercises in Practice Procedures 4 and5 for Practice in each of the Seven TonalitiesMajor Minor Aeolian Mixolydian Dorian Phrygian Lydian20 major 8 major 6 major 4 major 3 major 2 major 1 major12 minor 6 minor 4 minor 3 minor 2 minor 1 minor8 aeolian 4 aeolian 3 aeolian 2 aeolian 2 aeolian8 mixolyd . 3 mixolyd . 3 mixolyd . 2 mixolyd.8 dorian 3 dorian 2 dorian8 phrygian 4 phrygian8 lydianEach of the functions presented in Table 4 serves a different purposewithin its relevant tonality . In each tonality the tonic is the most stable harmonybecause it is an extension of the resting tone . The subtonic or dominantfunction is the least stable harmony and requires resolution to the tonic . Thesubdominant and supertonic are important because they contain thecharacteristic tones of several of the tonalities . By incorporating only thesefunctions into the training program, students were given the opportunity toexperience the syntax of each tonality without having to learn the names andsounds of every possible function (Estrella, 1990).
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Music Education
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The effects of computer music learning activities on the tonal aptitudes of Canadian students
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