Robert A. Duke

Focus of Attention Affects Performance of Motor Skills in Music.

To test the extent to which learners performing a simple keyboard passage would be affected by directing their focus of attention to different aspects of their movements, 16 music majors performed a brief keyboard passage under each of four focus conditions arranged in a counterbalanced design—a total of 64 experimental sessions. As they performed the test passage, participants were directed to focus their attention on either their fingers, the piano keys, the piano hammers, or the sound produced. Complete MIDI data for all responses were digitally recorded by software written specifically for this experiment. Consistent with findings obtained in tests of other physical skills, the results show that performance was most accurate and generalizable when participants focused on the effects their movements produced rather than on the movements themselves, and that the more distal the focus of attention, the more accurate the motor control.

Empirical Description of the Pace of Music Instruction.

The present study was designed to assess novice teachers* perceptions of timing in music instruction and to identify the aspects of timing that are associated with positive perceptions of instructional pacing. We selected eight 1-3-minute excerpts from teaching-practicum videotapes of four novice teachers teaching in a choral rehearsal, a band rehearsal, and two elementary music classrooms. Each teacher appeared in two excerpts that differed with regard to the pace of instruction depicted in each. Novice teachers (N = 44) viewed the videotaped excerpts and evaluated the pace of instruction along six semantic differential scales: fast—slow; appropriate—inappropriate; tense—relaxed; smooth-uneven; too fast-too slow; good-bad. Subjects discriminated among the faster and slower examples on five of the six evaluation dimensions, and among teachers on all six dimensions. Subjects rated the pace of instruction more positively when the rates of student performance episodes and teacher activity episodes were higher rather than lower, and when the mean durations of teacher and student activity were shorter rather than longer. These variables may function as operational measures of the pace of instruction in music performance.

Wind Instrumentalists' Intonational Performance of Selected Musical Intervals

The purpose of the study was to examine intonation patterns concerning melodic and harmonic musical intervals compared to equal temperament. Forty-eight junior high school, high school, and college undergraduate musicians were assigned to one of four experimental conditions in a split-plot design. Subjects performed four diatonic intervals (major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, and major sixth) both melodically and harmonically. Results indicated no significant differences in overall intonation accuracy in relationship to performed ascending and descending directions or among the four test intervals. In relationship to sharpness versus flatness there were significant, if musically inconsequential, differences: when subjects descended, intervals were performed slightly sharper; when subjects ascended, intervals were performed slightly flatter. Junior high school subjects performed slightly sharper compared to college subjects. Differential verbal feedback and a headphone listening condition produced no significant differences.

Effects of Sleep on Performance of a Keyboard Melody.

Recent research has shown that both the speed and accuracy of novel motor skills improve during sleep in a process called consolidation. Such off-line learning in the absence of practice as yet has been experimentally observed only with learners performing relatively simple tasks. In the experiment we report here, we tested whether experienced learners performing a music skill obtain similar sleep-dependent improvements. Participants learned a 12-note melody on the piano, and recalled the melody following 12- or 24-hour intervals that either did or did not include sleep. We found significant sleep-dependent improvements in performance accuracy in the retests that followed intervals of sleep, and no significant improvements following intervals that did not include sleep. This is the first demonstration of consolidation-based enhancement of motor skills in the context of music. We did not find consistent sleep-dependent enhancements in performance speed, but we observed that temporal evenness improved in the absence of practice 24 hours after training.

Effect of Melodic Rhythm on Elementary Students' and College Undergraduates' Perceptions of Relative Tempo.

The present study examined the effect of melodic rhythm on the perception of tempo in music. Three hundred fourth graders (n = 100), fifth graders (n = 100), and undergraduate nonmusic majors (n = 100) heard 36 pairs of brief musical examples and indicated whether the second example in each pair was “faster,” “slower,” or “neither faster nor slower” than the first example in the pair. Musical excerpts were four variations of a chaconne theme in which the upper voices moved in quarter-note, eighth-note, eighth-note triplet, or sixteenth-note values. Each variation was scored in four voices and presented via microcomputer at two different tempi: MM = 100 and MM = 112. The perception of relative tempo was significantly affected by melodic rhythm (p < .001), which indicates that subjects responded to the melodic rhythm as well as the beat when making tempo judgments. The results seem important in relation to perception, performance, and the teaching of music to young children.

Effect of Tempo on Pitch Perception

The purpose of the study was to investigate the perceptions of music majors and nonmusic I majors concerning combined frequency and tempo changes in music across a range of musical tempi. The subjects, 200 music majors and 200 nonmusic majors, heard 10 consecutive presentations of an orchestral excerpt, each of which had been altered by changing the frequency or tempo (or both) of the original version in various combinations. The task was to compare each example to the preceding version and indicate perceived pitch and tempo changes. This comparison procedure was replicated using four different music excerpts, in which the speeds of the fastest moving voices were approximately 50, 100, 150, and 200 per minute. Each of the 400 subjects was randomly assigned to two of the four replications. Results indicated that (a) music majors and nonmusic majors responded similarly across conditions and replications; (b) changes in tempo were discriminated more accurately than frequency changes of the same magnitude; (c) tempo changes seemed to affect pitch perception to a greater extent than frequency changes affected the perception of tempo; and (d) the speed of subdivided beats apparently affected the perception of changes in frequency and tempo across replications.

Effects of Early and Late Rest Breaks during Training on Overnight Memory Consolidation of a Keyboard Melody

In two experiments, we tested the extent to which overnight procedural memory consolidation is affected by extended rest breaks during training. In the first experiment, nonmusicians practiced a 5‐element keypress sequence with their nondominant hand in 12 30‐s practice intervals separated by 30‐s pauses. In the second experiment, nonpianist musicians practiced a 13‐note keyboard melody using the same procedures. In both experiments, approximately one‐third of the subjects took a 5‐min break after the first three blocks of practice; another third took a break after nine blocks of practice; the remaining participants did not take an extended break. All were trained in the evening and were retested the following morning. Participants in both experiments made dramatic improvements over the course of the training and retest sessions, and participants who took an extended rest break early in practice made the largest gains in performance between the end of training and the beginning of retest.

First Remembered Responses to Music.

ascinating aspects of memory concern our earliest childhood recollections. It seems that demographic and cultural factors are apparently involved in this process (Mullen, 1994), yet responsiveness to music might be unique. Indeed, it appears unlikely that any person has not had numerous experiences with music. Yet, have you ever wondered what kind of musical experiences your students bring to school? What early experiences they remember? Perhaps this information could help us better teach our students. It has been suggested that one method of researching issues in music education, as well as in establishing important research questions, is to investigate a persons first remembrances of music (Edenfield, 1989; Madsen, 1994). The rationale for this line of investigation is based upon the premise that important information is contained in the strong

Effects of Model Performances on Music Skill Acquisition and Overnight Memory Consolidation

This study was designed to investigate the extent to which the presentation of an auditory model prior to learning a novel melody affects performance during active practice and the overnight consolidation of procedural memory. During evening training sessions, 32 nonpianist musicians practiced a 13-note keyboard melody with their left (nondominant) hand in twelve 30-s practice intervals separated by 30-s rest intervals. Participants were instructed to play the sequence “as quickly, accurately, and evenly as possible.” Approximately half the participants, prior to the first practice interval, listened to 10 repetitions of the target melody played at 552 tones per minute (half note = 138). All participants were tested on the target melody the following morning, approximately 12 hr after training, in three 30-s blocks separated by 30-s rest intervals. Performance was measured in terms of the mean number of correct key presses per 30-s block (CKP/B). Consistent with previous research, participants made considerable improvements in CKP/B during the evening training sessions and between the end of training and the morning test sessions. Learners who listened to the model made significantly larger gains in performance during training and between the end of training and test than did those who did not hear the model.

Intelligent Assessment in General Music: What Children Should Know and (Be Able To) Do.

he recent adoption of the National Standards for Arts Education and increasing demands for revised assessment of student accomplishment have the potential to influence positively and profoundly the way music instruction is delivered to children in schools, but the extent to which this potential is realized is in many ways dependent upon the assessments by which the Standards will be measured. Whether designed by state boards, district curriculum committees, or individual teachers for use only in their own classrooms, the assessments inevitably will influence what teachers and students consider most important about music instruction. Assessments related to the National Standards can do very good things for children (and