Effects of Music Self-Perception on Music Education and Nonmusic Majors’ Ensemble Participation

In this study, I examined the relationship between undergraduate music education and nonmusic education majors and their music self-perception, or how they perceived themselves as musicians. A secondary purpose of the research included investigating the relationship between music self-esteem, gender, concentration, year in school, and continued arts participation. Participants ( N = 66) were music education and nonmusic education undergraduate volunteers from one band, one chorus, and four music education classes at a large, public university in the Northeastern United States. The participants completed a shortened version of Schmitt’s Self-Esteem of Musical Ability Scale, along with questions about gender, ensemble participation, major, and instrument. Results indicated no significant difference between music self-esteem in music education majors and nonmusic education majors who participated in college ensembles. There were significant differences in music education majors’ comparison of themselves to their high school peers, self-comparisons over 1 year, and planned future ensemble participation. More years of experience in ensembles predicted higher Schmitt’s Self-Esteem of Musical Ability Scale scores.

Starting Pitch Selection is Precise in Exploratory Study of Collegiate Nonmusic Majors

Starting pitch selection—whether intentional or habitual or otherwise— has been theorized to vary according to multiple variables. The purpose of this study was to explore starting pitch selection in undergraduate nonmusic major singers by using four well known songs and nonsinging tasks. Participants were actively singing in a college choir and majoring in fields outside of music. Performances indicated very small deviations in the median starting pitch for each criterion song (100–200 cents). Data indicated discrimination in starting pitch selection between songs. Active singers may place songs in the middle portion of the vocal range compared with the tendency toward lower range in nonsingers in previous research. A history of voice lessons was significantly associated with a positive response to a follow-up questionnaire item “I chose an intentional range for my voice.”

A Comparison of Self-Reported Anxiety and Depression Among Undergraduate Music Majors and Nonmusic Majors

The purpose of this exploratory research study was to compare anxiety and depression levels reported by music majors and nonmajors at a small, private liberal arts university. Study participants completed the Burns Anxiety Inventory and Burns Depression Checklist. Anxiety and depression levels were significantly higher among music majors, and there was a strong, positive relationship between anxiety and depression. Regardless of major, self-reports were not affected by year in school. Implications for additional mental health resources and strategies for improving music major health and self-care are discussed, along with a need for increased music faculty awareness of perceived anxiety and depression leading to modified programs of study.

Listeners’ Perceptions of Choral Performances With Static and Expressive Movement

We examined how movement impacted listeners’ perceptions of choral performances. Participants ( N = 115; n = 60 nonmusic majors, n = 55 music majors) viewed excerpts of Moses Hogan’s “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel” under four conditions: good tone/expressive movement (GT/EM), good tone/static movement (GT/SM), poor tone/expressive movement (PT/EM), and poor tone/static movement (PT/SM). They rated tone quality and overall expressivity for each excerpt. We found a significant multivariate main effect for the examples. For both tone quality and expressivity, participants rated the examples in the following order from highest to lowest: GT/EM, GT/SM, PT/SM, and PT/EM. There was a significant interaction between the examples and participants’ major. Music majors rated the GT/EM example higher than the nonmusic majors but rated the other three examples lower than the nonmajors. Expressive movement seemed to enhance ratings of expressivity when performed with good tone but detracted when the tone was poor. In written responses, majors distinguished between expressive movement and tone consistently, while nonmajors could not consistently separate what they were seeing from what they were hearing.

Effects of Visual and Aural Presentation Styles and Rhythm on Working Memory as Measured by Monosyllabic Sequential Digit Recall

Although information is frequently paired with music to enhance recall, there is a lack of basic research investigating how aspects of recorded music, as well as how it is presented, facilitate working memory. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of visual and aural presentation styles, rhythm, and participant major on working memory as measured by sequential monosyllabic digit recall performance. We isolated visual and aural presentation styles and rhythm conditions during six different treatment stimuli presented on a computer screen in the study: (a) Visual Rhythm; (b) Visual No Rhythm; (c) Aural Rhythm; (d) Aural No Rhythm; (e) Visual + Aural Rhythm; (f) Visual + Aural No Rhythm. Participants’ ( N = 60; 30 nonmusic majors and 30 music majors) task was to immediately recall the information paired with music within each condition. Analyses of variance indicated a significant difference between the visual and visual + aural presentation style conditions with the visual + aural condition having more accurate recall. While descriptive data indicated that rhythm tended to facilitate recall, there was no significant difference between rhythm and no rhythm conditions. Nonmusic major participants tended to have slightly more accurate recall than music major participants, although this difference was not significant. Participants tended to have higher recall accuracy during primacy and recency serial positions. As participants had most accurate recall during the visual + aural presentation style conditions, it seems that the multi-sensory presentation modes can be effective for teaching information to be immediately recalled as long as they do not contain too much information and overload the limited storage capacity of working memory. Implications for clinical practice, limitations, and suggestions for future research are provided.

The Effect of Implied Performer Age and Group Membership on Evaluations of Music Performances

This study examined the effects of implied performer age and group membership on listeners’ evaluations of music performances. Undergraduate music majors ( n = 23), nonmusic majors ( n = 17), and members of a New Horizons ensemble ( n = 16) were presented with six 30-second excerpts of concert band performances. Excerpts were presented to all respondents in three implied performer age conditions: audio-only (no implied age), audiovisual presentations that featured digital images of middle school concert bands, and audiovisual presentations that featured digital images of older adult concert bands. Respondents ( N = 56) used 10-point scales to rate each performance on tone, rhythmic precision, and dynamic contrast. Results of a repeated-measures analysis of variance indicated that audio-only presentations were rated significantly lower than audiovisual presentations, and music majors rated performances significantly lower than other respondents.

Personality and world music preference of undergraduate non-music majors in South Korea and the United States

We investigated contributors of undergraduate nonmusic majors’ preferences for world musics, specifically those from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Drawing upon the reciprocal feedback model as a theoretical framework, we determined the extent to which predictor variables (familiarity with the music, personality, and music absorption) were related to music preference. Participants were 401 undergraduate nonmusic majors from South Korea ( n = 208) and the USA ( n = 183). Participants took an online survey via Qualtrics that included demographic information, the World Musics Preference Rating Scale, the Big-Five Inventory, and the Absorption in Music Scale. Results indicated that, familiarity, followed by openness to experience, was the strongest predictor of participants’ preferences for world musics. For the U.S. participants, familiarity, followed by openness to experience, was the strongest predictor of participants’ preference for musics from each continent. By contrast, for the South Korean participants, although familiarity was also the strongest predictor for African, Latin American, and Asian musics, openness to experience was not consistently the second strongest contributor. For African music, openness to experience was ranked second; for Latin American and Asian music, agreeableness and music absorption were ranked second, respectively.