Research Studies in Music Education

Recent advances in computer-controlled devices combined with the advent of audio compact discs have opened wide ranging possibilities for applications in music education. Students from an undergraduate music literature class were chosen to participate in a study (n=34). Students in the experimental group (n=17) utilised a computer-driven listening station while students in a control group utilised a typical repeated-hearing strategy. A Likert-scale questionnaire served as a pretest and assessed the students' knowledge of composers and works with no significant difference being found between the experimental and control groups. At the conclusion of the study, a recognition test was administered. Subjects in the experimental group had a significantly higher score (p >.001) on the posttest than the control group. The results suggest that listening station use improves the ability of undergraduate music majors to develop a recognition ability for basic music repertoire.

The use of computer hardware and software in the music classroom setting is becoming commonplace. For software to be effective at a primary school level, it must take into account the way that children use sound and the way that they notate those sounds. This paper describes part of a study which examined the way in which primary school children notated music to determine if this was adaptable to a software interface. The study involved 179 children and results suggest that the children appeared to have their own symbol system which (a) appears to be pitch based, (b) caters for loudness and duration of notes, and (c) does not appear to follow melodic contour. A pilot learner interface, based on this method of notation, is described.

This paper describes research focusing on the teaching of synthesizer as a musical instrument. The teaching of synthesizer performance in Australian schools is in its infancy but is currently expanding. There is a need to promote excellence and encourage comprehensiveness in this fledgling area. The research reported here used a case study approach to establish initial guidance in the hope that synthesizer performance may grow strongly and contribute constructively to the overall fabric of music education activities in Australia. In particular, it. identifies areas of study which should be included in a synthesizer curriculum and highlights teaching and learning methods which seem to be effective. The paper concludes by addressing the institutional responsibilities, including resource and environment considerations, which support the teaching of synthesizer.

Traditional playback media do not permit students to tailor the playback of music examples to any significant degree. This lack of adaptability has made it very inconvenient for students to listen critically to brief music examples assigned for close aural study. A recently-introduced piece of MIDI hardware called a sequencer/sound module offers many possibilities for instructors to design software to support college-level courses requiring traditional music analysis and critical listening. This hardware was originally introduced to support performance instruction to allow students to capture their performances and hear them played back. However, the sophistication of these units makes them valuable for supporting more complex instructional applications. This article describes three applications where use of the sequencer/sound module was extended to support three non-performance learning activities: music dictation, harmonic error detection, and aural comparisons of historical tuning systems. Each application was used by music majors at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

This pilot study was conducted as a preliminary to a more extensive investigation. Despite evidence of group piano teaching dating back as far as 1816, few studies have demonstrated best practice under these conditions. Technological changes, including the recent incorporation of synthesizer and sequencer into music laboratories, have created opportunities for a radical shift to occur in group keyboard teaching whereby students may be encouraged to take greater control of their learning and to progress at their own pace within a group structure. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the technology might be utilised by both teacher and students and to further determine whether pre-existing attitudes might impinge on the use of the technology. The qualitative focus of the study facilitated participant observation to provide enriched data. Results indicated that students who were keyboard novices appeared to benefit most from the technology while those with prior instrumental experience made less use of the technology, apparently being predisposed to a more traditional approach.

This article considers the advantages and disadvantages of using a computer-interactive format for assessment. It is written in the light of experiences involving the adaptation of an existing music test designed for use at the beginning of secondary school to a computer-interactive format requiring only the basic hardware that is likely to be available in Australian secondary schools.