The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of changes in tone quality on the perception of pitch and to determine the extent to which the same tone-quality conditions would affect the performance of pitch. The experiment was conducted in two segments: a perception task that involved judgments of paired comparisons of tones, and a performance task that involved tone matching. High school and university wind instrumentalists participated in perception and performance tasks that were similar to provide a basis for comparison. Results indicated that tone-quality conditions had significant effects on the perception and performance of pitch. Subjects judged “bright” tones “brighter” in tone quality and sharper in pitch than reference tones and performed sharp when matching “bright” stimuli. Subjects judged “dark” tones “darker” in tone quality and flatter in pitch than reference tones and performed flat when matching “dark ” stimuli.

We investigated the effects of variations in tone quality on listeners' perception of both tone quality and intonation. University music and nonmusic major instrumentalists and high school students participating in instrumental ensembles served as listeners (N = 116). High-quality digital samples of clarinet, trumpet, and trombone tones were used. The original tone quality of each instrument was manipulated to produce experimental stimuli of "bright" and "dark" relative to the unaltered tone quality. Results indicated that the more inexperienced instrumentalists rated stimuli that were relatively "brighter" in tone quality as sharper in intonation, and conversely, stimuli of relatively "darker" tone quality were judged to beflatter in intonation. For the brass instruments, listeners judged the unaltered and bright tones as better in tone quality than tones that were relatively dark. However, for the clarinet tones, the bright tone quality was judged to be worse than unaltered or dark-quality stimuli.

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The purpose of this study was to identify common characteristics among expert teachers in beginning band settings. Three subjects were observed across three consecutive classes for a total of approximately 370 minutes. Data sources included on-site and videotape observations, field notes, analysis of instructional goals, and frequency and duration data collected on specified teacher and student behaviors. Organizing field notes using thematic headings revealed that the teachers were proactive in managing student behavior, they prioritized the development of characteristic tones via fundamental concepts of breathing, embouchure, and posture and instrument carriage, and they provided musical models on wind instruments. Twenty-five rehearsal frames were identified and analyzed to determine their instructional targets and the frequency and duration of specified teacher and student behaviors. Pitch Accuracy, Multiple Targets, and Posture/Instrument Carriage were the most frequently observed rehearsal frame target categories. Instructional pace differed from what has been reported in middle school, high school and college settings; subjects talked and modeled for greater proportions, longer durations and lower rates, while students performed for smaller proportions, shorter durations and lower rates than what has been observed in other settings.

This article, which addresses the development of Canadian and US school ensembles from the early twentieth century to the present, identifies patterns of historical growth and speculates about larger successes and failures. In both countries, early school ensembles were regarded as a necessary part of an expanding secondary curriculum, emerging as they did in the midst of a reformist ethos positively disposed toward music. US and Canadian ensemble culture produced strong local leaders and administrators, who saw value in school ensembles in the education of children, and who worked with persistence and evangelical fervor to establish them in schools.