Psychology of Music Learning

1
Psychology of Music Learning

• Miksza - Spring 08
• WEEK THIRTEEN
• MUSICAL ABILITY

2
R B - Definitions

• Ability - often used as a slippery term
  fluctuating among talent, musicality, capacity,
  aptitude, achievement
  
• Finer definitions (see pg. 384-385)
• Ability - being able to do something, regardless
  of how a person became able
  
• Aptitude - potential success prior to specialized
  music learning
  
• Capacity - ability that is a result of heredity
  and maturation
  
• Achievement - specific musical accomplishments
  often the result of instruction
  
• Development - growth and maturation process
• Learning - observable change in behavior (?)

3
R B - Influences on Ability

• Hearing acuity - sufficient sensitivity is
  important
  
• Genetics - hereditary capacities (although not
  necessarily specific skills), advantageous
  physical characteristics, brain characteristics,
  handedness
• Musical Home - critical development periods,
  expectancies, brain plasticity, balancing early
  musical experiences at very early ages
  
• Physical features - cupids bow example
• Creativity - an obvious element of composition
  and performance, does not necessarily explain
  musical ability
  
• Intelligence - definitional issues, lack of
  relationships with music aptitude measures,
  asymmetric relations, savants as evidence for
  separate abilities
• Gender and race - stereotypes persist in some
  areas, cultural differences

4
R B - Learning Theory

• See summaries of Behaviorist and Cognitivist
  approaches to understanding learning

5
R B - Development

• Innate musical responses
• Reacting to musical stimuli in utero
• Cooing and babbling varying in loudness, contour,
  etc.
  
• Experiments of infant attendance to stimuli
• Especially beat and tempo
• Spontaneous song
• Replaced by learned song by four
• Varies with cultural differences
• Concept of tonality may stabilize around
  five/six years old
  
• Notation developing from abstract-iconic-symbolic

6
R B - Abnormalities

• Amusia - without music - an inability to
  produce or recognize music
  
• Often studied in relation to brain trauma
• For some unrelated to speech and other auditory
  processes
  
• Monotonism - singing one tone regardless of
  situation
  
• Related to vocal difficulties
• Synesthesia - simultaneous experiencing a
  stimulus
  
• Chromosthesia - blend of color and sound
  perception

7
R B - Measurement

• Aptitude
• Seashore Measures of Musical Talents (1919)
• Pitch, loudness, time, timbre, rhythm patterns,
  tone patterns
  
• No total score
• Wing Standardised Test of Musical Intelligence
  (1954)
  
• Melodic, harmonic, rhythm discrimination chord
  analysis, pitch, memory, rhythm, harmony,
  intensity, phrasing
  
• One total score
• Gordon Musical Aptitude Profile (1965)
• Tonal imagery, rhythmic imagery, musical
  sensitivity
  
• One total score
• PMMA, IMMA, AMMA
• Later versions of Gordon aptitude approach
• Based on audiation concept