The Effects of Short-Term Instruction on the Ability of College Nonmusicians to Discriminate Meter.

Abstract

Subjects for the study were college nonmusicians (N = 128) enrolled in six introductory music classes. Students from five of the classes were assigned to one of three instructional strategies; instruction occurred during one regular class period. Subjects in the first treatment group were given a definition of meter, then listened to recorded musical examples. Subjects in the second group listened to the same examples altered by the addition of a click track that reinforced the beat and meter. Subjects in the third group responded to unaltered examples by marking beat groupings with large muscle movements. The sixth class was designated as a control group that received no instruction regarding meter. Posttest scores from an author-designed Meter Discrimination Test were analyzed by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) using pretest Meter Discrimination Test scores as covariate. Results showed that all treatment groups differed significantly from the control group and from each other (p < .01). Because the music backgrounds of students who enroll in college introductory music courses for nonmusic majors are often quite diverse, differing not only in previous experience with music performance, but also in the quality, quantity, and type of general music instruction received prior to college, a common base of knowledge among these students about the basic elements of music cannot be assumed. Therefore, most textbooks written for college introductory music courses include an overview of the basic elements of music intended to acquaint students with basic music terminology and to help them listen to music with greater perception (Bamberger & Brofsky, 1988; Dallin, 1986; Ferris, 1991; Hoffer, 1988; Kamien, 1988; Kerman, 1987; Machlis, 1990; O'Brien, 1987; Politoske, 1988; Reimer, 1985; Sadie, 1990). Among the basic elements included in these discussions is meter. As teachers of introductory music classes, we have observed that some students experience difficulty when asked to discriminate meter. This may be, in part, because nonmusicians tend not to attend to rhythm and meter This content downloaded from 207.46.13.178 on Wed, 15 Jun 2016 06:53:25 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 36 Effects of Short-Term Instruction on the Ability of as they listen to music. Madsen and Geringer (1990) found that when college nonmusicians listened to excerpts from compositions that prominently featured the elements of rhythm, melody, dynamics, and timbre, the nonmusicians spent consistently less time focusing their attention on rhythm than they did on the other elements. In a study conducted by Bartlett (1969), college nonmusicians were asked to make discriminations about the elements of music they observed while listening to a particular composition. When the 11 categories of discriminations made by the subjects were ranked according to frequency of report, meter ranked 10th. The categories of discriminations that received higher rankings were (a) instruments/voices, (b) dynamics, (c) melody, (d) tessitura, (e) tempi, (f) harmony, (g) form, (h) instrumental/vocal techniques, and (i) rhythm. The only discriminations reported less frequently than those concerning meter were those concerning mode. Most of the previous research concerning the development of the meter concepts has been conducted with children. Several researchers have applied Piaget's theories of cognitive development in investigating the development of children's ability to conserve meter (Jones, 1976; Nelson, 1980; Perney, 1976; Pflederer, 1964; Serafine, 1979; Zimmerman & Sechrest, 1968). In Serafine's study, the ability to recognize the invariance of the underlying steady beat despite changes in rhythm patterns was considered to constitute conservation of meter. Other studies required children to discriminate between beat groupings of two or three to demonstrate conservation of meter (Jones, 1976, Nelson, 1980; Pflederer, 1964; Zimmerman & Sechrest, 1968). These studies suggest that conservation of meter develops in most children some time between the ages of 8 and 9 Vz years. Other researchers have examined the effects of movement-based instruction on the development of meter concepts as well as other music concepts $nd skills. Lewis (1988) found that meter discrimination posttest scores for firstand third-grade students who participated in movement activities during two 30-minute class sessions focusing on meter did not differ from those of firstand third-grade students who received instruction without movement activities. Schmidt and Lewis (1987) reported that fourth-grade students made no significant gain in Music Aptitude ProfileMeter test scores after eighteen 30-minute class sessions in which body movement was used to reinforce rhythm concepts. In contrast, Cheek (1979) found that fourth-grade students who received instruction that included movement activities scored significantly higher on the meter subtest of the Music Achievement Test (MAT) than did the students who received instruction without movement activities. The mixed findings regarding the effectiveness of movement-based instruction in the above studies are not surprising when considered in light of the research in This content downloaded from 207.46.13.178 on Wed, 15 Jun 2016 06:53:25 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

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