The purpose of this study was to determine whether beginning instrumental students taught with a modeling (aural and kinesthetic) mode of instruction would develop better aural musicianship and instrumental performance skills than would beginning instrumental students taught with a comprehensive (aural, kinesthetic, and visual) mode of instruction. The author randomly assigned students from four intact instrumental classes (N = 76) to either a modeling or a comprehensive treatment. The instructional activities for these treatments consisted of a sequence of imitation, discrimination, and association activities. The primary difference between the groups was that the comprehensive treatment included music reading activities but the modeling treatment did not. Test score analyses indicated that differences between the groups were not significant on the ear-to-hand coordination test and the performance test but were significant, favoring the comprehensive treatment, on the verbal association test and the sight-reading test. The data indicated that the introduction of music reading activities did not impede the development of students' aural and instrumental performance skills.
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