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Abstract

This mixed-method case study examined effects of high school musicians' participation in the jam session, a student-directed, extracurricular music activity. The single case study site was a rural British Columbia high school exceptional for its support of jamming. Forty-four subjects, including 21 who fully met stated criteria for jammers, and 13 non-jamming subjects, were studied over a period of four months. The general research question was: Does participation in a band room jam session benefit students cognitively and motivationally? Specific research questions were: Do students who informally jam on various forms of music enhance their music skills in the perception and meaningful manipulation of music elements, and if so, how? In what ways does Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory explain the continued participation of students in the jam session? Three quantitative instruments were administered to 13 jammers capable of playing a Bb Concert scale on a melody instrument as well as to a comparable group of 13 non-jammers. These instruments included Gordon's Advanced Measures of Music Audiation (AMMA), Froseth's Test of Melodic Ear-to-Hand Coordination (TMEHC), and a researcher-developed test of ear-to-hand coordination (SOR). An ANOVA test showed no significant difference between jammer and non-jammer groups on AMMA scores (p