Randall S. Moore

Effects of Male Timbre, Falsetto, and Sine-Wave Models on Interval Matching by Inaccurate Singers

This study compared the effects of male timbre, falsetto, and sine-wave models on pitch-matching skills of inaccurate boy versus girl singers in Grades K—8. Subjects were 216 inaccurate singers in Grades K-8 (n = 12 boys and 12 girls from each grade). They were presented descending minor thirds sung by a tenor and a bass in their regular octaves (G3—E3) and in falsetto (G4—E4), as well as two sine-wave stimuli in the same octaves. Subjects were recorded singing back the presented intervals. The recordings were digitized and analyzed for pitch and interval cent deviation. Responses to male stimuli were more accurate than were responses to sine waves. Girls responded more accurately to higher stimuli, and boys responded more accurately to lower stimuli. The octaves of the stimuli also affected the octaves of the responses, and the subjects had a tendency to sing intervals that were larger rather than smaller than the minor-third models.

Effect of Differential Teaching Techniques on Achievement, Attitude, and Teaching Skills

This study was designed to investigate the effect of differential teaching techniques on achievement, attitude, and teaching skills of 125 college students enrolled in elementary music education classes. Five teaching techniques included contingency-managed instruction (CMI), independent study, CMI-lecture discussion, contact control, and delay contact control groups. The five treatment groups were taught the same instructional materials, pretested, and posttested on modular units pertainingto the elementary music education competencies and teaching skills. Analyses of the data showed no significant differences among groups on pretests, while CMI groups performed better on posttests and the CMI-lecture discussion group best on teaching skills. CMI groups generally demonstrated higher attitude responses. It was concluded that CMI is effective in teaching elementary music education concepts and skills, and that the combination CMI-lecture discussion method includes the benefits of CMI while adding teacher modeling by way of class lectures. It was conjectured that this teacher modeling perhaps provided the basis for higher scores in actual teaching skills.

Effects of Age, Sex, and Melodic/Harmonic Patterns on Vocal Pitch-Matching Skills of Talented 8-11-Year-Olds.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of age, sex and melodic/harmonic patterns on pitch-matching skills of children. Subjects were 128 talented singers, ages 8-11, equally divided among boys and girls, who sang 16 pitch-matching patterns; 4 patterns were melodic and 12 were harmonic. In 4 harmonic patterns, the upper tone was matched; in another 4, the lower tone was matched, and in the last set, the middle tone was matched. Two judges recorded correct/incorrect responses across 1,536 trials with 85% agreements. Results of a three-factor analysis of variance with repeated measures indicated no differences between age or sex groups and significant differences among pitch-matching tasks. More errors were made on matching the middle pitch of a chord than on any other trials. Singing the lower pitch of two tones was more difficult than matching the higher pitch of two tones or singing back a short melody. A task hierarchy for childrens part-singing is suggested.

Effect of Music Via Television as Reinforcement for Correct Mathematics

The purpose of this study was to determine if music lessons presented via television could effect a subject matter music score gain while also functioning as reinforcement for correct academic responses. An entire first grade served as subjects divided in four groups: (1) Televised music lessons contingent upon correct math responses; (2) Partial contingency of televised music lessons for correct math responses; (3) Contact control; and (4) No-contact control. Results indicated that correct math scores increased as a function of the televised contingency for subjects who were reinforced for correct academic responses, while correct responses did not increase for the control groups. More importantly, subjects evidenced a significant music subject matter gain in direct relationship to their music lesson viewing participation. This study suggests that learning contingencies can be designed that offer a learning gain in both the subject matter used as reward and the subject matter that it is intended to reinforce.

Influence of Multicultural Singing Games On Primary School Children's Attentiveness and Song Preferences in Music Classes

In this study, eight multicultural songs with varying amounts of movement were taught to one hundred ninety-five 4- to 7-year-olds in a school setting during three weeks of daily music lessons. Three observers recorded group and individual attentiveness behavior during 17 hours of music instruction. At the end of the research period, subjects were asked in groups and individually to tell how much they liked the eight songs they had learned. Results indicated over 95% group on-task behavior during music instruction, and attention varied with amount of action in each song. A Spearman correlation of -.90 (p = .01) indicated that as the amount of activity in songs increased, the amount of off-task behavior decreased. Group and individual attitudes correlated moderately highly (r = .75) and confirmed that two forms of attitude assessment, group rating and individual interviewing, showed consistency in preferences. Additional observation of ten individuals showed that on-task behavior for listening was 88%, singing 64%, and moving 84%. It appears that young children enjoy moving and singing together and show preferences for songs with more actions. Music educators are encouraged to use singing games when teaching young children, particularly multicultural songs in foreign languages that might otherwise be eschewed.