The sound of you and me: Novices represent shared goals in joint action

People performing joint actions coordinate their individual actions with each other to achieve a shared goal. The current study investigated the mental representations that are formed when people learn a new skill as part of a joint action. In a musical transfer-of-learning paradigm, piano novices first learned to perform simple melodies in the joint action context of coordinating with an accompanist to produce musical duets. Participants then performed their previously learned actions with two types of auditory feedback: while hearing either their individual action goal (the melody) or the shared action goal (the duet). As predicted, participants made more performance errors in the individual goal condition than in the shared goal condition. Further experimental manipulations indicated that this difference was not due to different coordination requirements in the two conditions or perceptual dissimilarities between learning and test. Together, these findings indicate that people form representations of shared goals in contexts that promote minimal representations, such as when learning a new action together with another person.     

Using equivalence‐based instruction to teach piano skills to college students

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of equivalence‐based instruction (EBI) on the emergence of basic music reading and piano playing skills. Six female college students learned to identify three musical chord notations given their respective dictated names. Participants also learned to play chords on the piano following the dictated name of the chord, and to play the chords to a song on a keyboard. Results are consistent with past research, in that stimuli became substitutable for each other and acquired a common behavioral function. Data suggest that EBI was an effective and efficient procedure to teach adults to read musical notation, as well as play chords and a song on a piano keyboard.     

亚里士多德关于以音乐教育培养少儿道德品行的思想探析

在快乐中培养少儿的道德品行是亚里士多德音乐教育思想的道德目标。在审美通感的基础上,通过道德移情进行理性灵魂的德性活动,是音乐教育培养少儿道德品行的心理机制。“执中”为善、积习成德是音乐教育培塑未来道德公民的基本途径。     

Contributors to this issue

Brigitte Allain-Dupré
Peter Ammann
Reid W. Anderson
Catherine Crowther
André de Koning
Mary Dougherty
Victoria Graham Fuller
Donald E. Kalsched
Véronique Lemaitre-Sillère
Renos K. Papadopoulos
Jan Wiener     

Sound escapes: images of spirituality from music teachers and students

This on-going piece of research seeks to identify what music teachers, performers and students from high school through to university understand by the word spirituality in relation to music. From this it is hoped to be able to look at the relevance of the term spirituality in the music classroom. In this paper, data are presented from qualitative research gained in the form of interviews with 37 respondents and four focus groups of children, and quantitative research from questionnaires completed by 38 trainee music teachers. From these data, we identified five themes relating to the respondents’ understanding of the term ‘spirituality’ in relation to music. These were: to what extent spirituality is seen as a religious concept; whether spirituality is an inner or outer experience; to what extent words are relevant to spiritual experiences; the role that knowledge and emotion play and whether musicians experience a sense of spirituality more when listening or performing. From these data we go on to identify implications for the music classroom.     

TheoArtistry: practical perspectives on ‘theologically informed art’

ABSTRACT

This article reviews the TheoArtistry Composers’ Scheme (2016–2018), in light of the developing concept of ‘theologically informed art’. Based at the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts (ITIA) (University of St Andrews), the scheme partnered emerging theologians and composers to create six new choral settings of Hebrew Bible ‘annunciations’. In addition to producing new music, the project became a practical touchstone for reinvigorating dialogues between theologians and practising artists, as well as Christians and non-Christians. First, the author assesses the scheme’s contributions to the study and practice of theologically informed art in the future. Second, she outlines some methodological issues associated with the scheme’s unique breadth of participants. Finally, she assesses ecclesiological and theological ambiguities within the scheme. The author argues that clarifying these ambiguities expands horizons for future collaborations in theologically informed art.     

The influence of two years of school music training in secondary school on visual and auditory memory

The present study tested the effect of an extended music curriculum (EMC) for two years in secondary school, consisting of musical instrument, auditory perception, and music theory training, on children's visual and auditory memory. We tested 10-year-old children who had just started EMC and children without EMC (T0) in visual and auditory memory and retested the same children two years later (T1) to observe the effects of school music training. Confounding variables, like intelligence, socioeconomic status, extracurricular schooling, motivation to avoid work, and musical aptitude were controlled. Prior to the beginning of the music training no differences in the control variables and the memory variables between children with and without EMC were revealed. Children with EMC improved significantly from T0 to T1 in visual as well as in auditory memory. Such an improvement was not found for children without EMC. We conclude that extended school music training enhances children's visual and auditory memory.     

Music Training and Semantic Clustering in College Students

College students with 5 or more years of music training recalled significantly more words from a 16-item word list than did students with 0-4 years of training. The superior recall of the extensively trained students linked to better application of a semantic-clustering strategy across a series of 3 test trials. Music education and language experience may have similar influences on the development of verbal memory.