The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of timbral instructions on pitch and timbre production. High school (n = 28) and collegiate (n = 28) trumpeters played sustained tones at two octave levels (written C4 and C5) following three types of timbral instructions (dark-timbre, bright-timbre, or neutral instructions). Presentation orders…

In this study, we examined the effects of multiple reference pitch sources on collegiate singers' accuracy in pitch-matching and intonation tasks. We also investigated which reference pitch source participants preferred and for what reasons. Participants (N = 99) sang a two-measure excerpt of "Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine" after listening…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two pre-tuning vocalization behaviors (humming and singing) on the tuning accuracy of woodwind and brass instrumentalists. Undergraduate collegiate musicians (N = 72) performed a sustained stimulus pitch (concert B-flat) while engaging in one of the two conditions or the control condition…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of wearing earplugs on classical musicians' pitch perception across three experimental conditions: no earplugs, foam earplugs, and Etymotic earplugs. Participants were graduate and undergraduate music majors attending a large school of music in the southeastern United States (N = 72).…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate expertise-related differences in the evaluation of moment-to-moment rehearsal achievement. Nonmusic majors, music education majors, and expert music teachers (N = 60) listened to 18 "before" and "after" pairs of rehearsal trials of various high school bands in their pursuit…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between phonological awareness and music aptitude. I administered the Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation (IMMA) to second-grade students in a rural school in Pennsylvania (N = 17). Speech-language specialists administered a hearing screening and The Phonological Awareness Test 2…

This study investigated correlates that might explain variance in beginning sight-singing achievement, including tonal discrimination, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and academic ability. Both curriculum-based and standardized tests were used, including the Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation, Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, and…

We studied music majors' perception of intonation in accompanied solo performances of trumpet, violin, and voice. We were interested in whether listeners would judge pitch deviations of equal magnitude in the three solo performances as equivalent in intonation. Participants were 150 graduate and undergraduate music majors drawn from two large…

Music education students ("N" = 21) at a university in the southeastern United States took an error detection test that had been designed for this study to determine the effects of tonal contexts versus atonal contexts on the ability to detect performance errors. The investigator composed 16 melodies, 8 of which were tonal and 8 of which…

This study was designed to determine a pitch skill hierarchy for string sight-reading, to determine the effects of key on string sight-reading achievement, and to determine the validity of a tonal pattern system as a measurement of melodic sight-reading skill for string players. High school string students (n = 94) obtained a mean score of 27.28…

The author sought to determine whether self-evaluation instruction had an impact on student self-evaluation, music performance, and self-evaluation accuracy of music performance among middle school instrumentalists. Participants (N = 211) were students at a private middle school located in a metropolitan area of a mid-Atlantic state. Students in…

This study was designed to examine two aspects of sight-singing instruction: (1) solfege syllables versus the syllable "loo" for singing patterns and (2) the use of related songs (songs that began with tonal patterns being studied) as compared with unrelated songs. Second-grade students (N = 193) enrolled in general music classes…

This research examined characteristics of a select group of tonal patterns to identify features that may affect the initial acquisition of skill in sight-singing pitch. Second graders (N = 193) individually read and sang 25 tonal patterns on a sight-singing pretest, posttest, and retention test. Between the pre- and posttest, the students…

The purpose of this study was to standardize the Primary Measures of Music Audiation in Greece ( N = 1,188). Split-halves reliability was acceptable across grade levels (K through 3) for the Tonal and Rhythm subtests, but test-retest reliability was generally unacceptable, especially for the Rhythm subtest. Concurrent validity was mixed, with…

Reports a study that involved the observation of string instrumentalists' performances in an effort to understand the various influences on the ability to perform with accurate intonation. Suggests that further investigation relative to the temporal aspects of intonation performances might be relevant to music education. (KO)