Attention to Elements of Music and Effect of Instruction in Vocabulary on Written Descriptions of Music by Children and Undergraduates

Abstract

The purposes of this study were twofold: Experiment 1 was designed to assess which elements of music were described by third graders, fourth graders and undergraduate non-music majors in a listening task. Experiment 2 examined the effect of instruction in music vocabulary on children's subsequent descriptions of music. It was found that children differed significantly from undergraduates in overall pattern of descriptions of musical elements. Most children made reference to extramusical, timbre and tempo characteristics; undergraduates commonly referred to extramusical, tempo and pitch/ melody. Instruction in vocabulary produced a significant increase in attention to specified elements of music by thirdand fourth-grade children on a post-test. It was noted that children demonstrated a tendency to limit their responses in number of musical elements described.

Children's invented notations and verbal responses to a piano work by Claude Debussy

“…It appears that the acquisition of a formal musical vocabulary and the use of stylistic label (such as 'pop', 'folk' or 'jazz') are dependent upon instruction intended for that very purpose, as was found in other studies (e.g. Flowers 1983Flowers , 1984. Further study is needed to ascertain these speculations.…”

“…Conversely, scholars emphasised the limitations of verbal forms of response to art and music (Gibbs 1994;Flowers 1983Flowers , 1984McMahon, Scott-Kassner in: Sims and Nolker 2002). A survey of studies carried out by Gibbs (1994) shows that children under age 10-12 are not able to think metaphorically, and that metaphoric expression develops late in life.…”

“…Music researchers found that compared with other modes of representation, verbalisation is less effective and natural for children as a means for describing pitch direction and expressive elements (Webster & Schlentrich, Gibson, cited in Rodriguez and Webster 1997). Flowers (1983Flowers ( , 1984 found that the acquisition of an extensive musical vocabulary is dependent upon instruction geared for that specific purpose.…”

What Was That?—Talking About What We Hear in Music

“…What is interesting is that when a category or means of description is selected, there isn't much flexibility for the young or inexperienced listener. I learned this in a study in which children described eight brief music selections that had been recorded to highlight contrasts in tempo, dynamics, and articulation (Flowers, 1984 There was no question that the children could hear the selected contrasts plus much more, but many limited their written responses to a single category of identification. In comparison, college undergraduates showed more flexibility by mentioning other musical elements as well, or by mixing in a few metaphors with their descriptions of analytical elements.…”

A descriptive study of high school and university students' focus of attention in fast and slow orchestral excerpts

“…It has been proposed that the most important task concerning music listening is to keep the listener on-task to the music (Madsen & Geringer, 2000/2001 and to teach appropriate labeling as suggested by Flowers (1983Flowers ( , 1984. The task of attending to music seems to be the most difficult to teach as most people, in particular adolescents, often seem to be bathed in sound continuously without regard to active focused listening.…”