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The topic of assessment has attracted wide-spread attention in the discipline of music education in recent decades. However, most research centres on school-based assessment, and then mainly on the assessment of practical music subjects. Current assessment practices in music literacy programmes (such as 'paper-and-pencil' and standardized tests) counteract what is arguably the most important goal of music education, namely the development of musicianship. Therefore, in this study, my aim is to investigate assessment practices in music literacy courses for young adults, and to show how assessment in these courses can contribute to the development of musicianship. In order to reach these aims, the terms 'musicianship' and 'music literacy' are defined. The importance of a guiding philosophy for assessment is highlighted and constructivism is discussed as an example of such a philosophy, since constructivist principles largely correspond with the principles of assessment and adult education. Principles for effective assessment are subsequently established before being applied to the assessment of music literacy outcomes. Finally, the need for further research about various topics that can inform assessment practices in music subjects is pointed out. / Thesis (M.Mus.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

<p>Composing music is something a lot of people have wished they could be able to do. Unfortunately, to be able to compose music, people often need several years of training and study to acquire the necessary knowledge: first to learn how to use the traditional musical representation and then to learn the rules for composing different kinds of music. </p><p>This thesis describes research to develop and evaluate a representation and system for musical composition. The system provides users with a simple and specific language to create and interact with the artificial world; and by creating animals and giving them behaviors, users are composing music. The user study conducted at the end of this project showed that this program ("CompositionALife") could make it easier for people without previous knowledge in music and/or composition to compose interesting music.</p>

Thesis (M.Mus.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

The topic of assessment has attracted wide-spread attention in the discipline of music education in recent decades. However, most research centres on school-based assessment, and then mainly on the assessment of practical music subjects. Current assessment practices in music literacy programmes (such as 'paper-and-pencil' and standardized tests) counteract what is arguably the most important goal of music education, namely the development of musicianship. Therefore, in this study, my aim is to investigate assessment practices in music literacy courses for young adults, and to show how assessment in these courses can contribute to the development of musicianship. In order to reach these aims, the terms 'musicianship' and 'music literacy' are defined. The importance of a guiding philosophy for assessment is highlighted and constructivism is discussed as an example of such a philosophy, since constructivist principles largely correspond with the principles of assessment and adult education. Principles for effective assessment are subsequently established before being applied to the assessment of music literacy outcomes. Finally, the need for further research about various topics that can inform assessment practices in music subjects is pointed out. / Thesis (M.Mus.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

This thesis explores the interplay between repeatability and contingency in a series of instrumental and electro-instrumental compositions, through a practice that involves the devising and development of unique notational strategies and the use of bespoke real-time digital signal processing software. In particular, this study examines the praxis of comprovisation, i.e. practices situated between the poles of composition and improvisation, and it is framed by three main research topics: 1. An exploration of musical time and form as components of a dynamic system between events and musical gestures, involving structures of variable and/or indeterminate temporal durations. 2. An investigation of the ways in which the temporal organization and the in-time trópos (τρόπος - ”way, mode, modality, manner”) of an improvisational performance-practice for solo violin can be transduced into the symbolic level so as to be explored as compositional material. 3. An examination of the conditions in which Middle Eastern makam music composition and improvisation traditions can inform the development of contemporary notational devices for a comprovisation practice involving other performers. In addition to the scores, software, and recordings of the compositions, a relevant portfolio of recorded solo-violin improvisations and two published papers examining the above topics are included to further illustrate the discussion.

Composing music is something a lot of people have wished they could be able to do. Unfortunately, to be able to compose music, people often need several years of training and study to acquire the necessary knowledge: first to learn how to use the traditional musical representation and then to learn the rules for composing different kinds of music. This thesis describes research to develop and evaluate a representation and system for musical composition. The system provides users with a simple and specific language to create and interact with the artificial world; and by creating animals and giving them behaviors, users are composing music. The user study conducted at the end of this project showed that this program ("CompositionALife") could make it easier for people without previous knowledge in music and/or composition to compose interesting music.

The prejudice that guitar players do not know how to read traditional western music notation has been around for a long time. That seems to also have had its affect on guitar education. For many guitarists the obvious choice is instead tablature. This study examines the attitude towards sheet music among guitar teachers at the Swedish kulturskola. The subject has been chosen primarily for the fact that the Swedish municipal music school does not have any guidelines regarding whether or not to use sheet music in the education. The purpose of this study is to examine how six guitar teachers view the use of traditional western music notation versus tablature in kulturskolan. The study is based on interviews with the teachers. The analysis has been made with a phenomenographic approach. The result reveal that all the participants prefer tablature due to it is more direct and quick implementation. Using tablature is a pedagogic strategy to keep the studentes interests in their instrument rather than an act of choice. Even if some of the teachers themselves would like to be using traditional western music notation to a greater extent they mean that it’s not possible. / Länge har fördomen funnits att gitarrister inte kan läsa noter, något som också tyckts påverka gitarrundervisningen. För många gitarrister är istället det vedertagna verktyget tabulatur. Den här studien undersöker attityden till notläsningsmetoder hos gitarrlärare på kulturskolan, just eftersom kulturskolan inte har några styrdokument. Syftet med detta arbete är att undersöka hur sex stycken gitarrlärare uppfattar att det fungerar att arbeta med notläsning respektive tabulatur i kulturskolan. Undersökningen har genomförts med kvalitativa forskningsintervjuer kring gitarrlärarnas användning av notläsningsmetoder i den egna undervisningen. Analysarbetet har utgått från en fenomenografisk ansats. Resultatet visar att lärarna föredrar tabulatur för den direkta och snabba implementeringen. Att använda sig av tabulatur är en pedagogisk strategi för att få eleverna att hålla fast vid sitt instrument, snarare än ett aktivt val. Även om lärarna själva i vissa fall hade velat använda sig av notläsning i större utsträckning så uppfattar de av olika anledningar att det inte är möjligt.

Neuere Forschungsergebnisse aus dem Bereich der Musikpsychologie zeigen, dass die subjektive Beurteilung, ob jemand spricht oder singt, nicht nur von Eigenschaften des empfangenen akustischen Signals abhängt. Obwohl die Tonhöhe beim Sprechen anders moduliert wird als beim Singen, kann der Tonhöhenverlauf einer gesprochenen Äußerung vom Rezipienten als eine musikalische Tonfolge wahrgenommen werden. Dieser Eindruck brachte Musikschaffende und Sprachwissenschaftler bereits seit Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts dazu, Sprechmelodien in Form musikalischer Notenschrift aufzuzeichnen. Im aktuellen Diskurs der Linguistik setzte sich diese Art von Notation nicht durch. Für die Beschreibung der grammatikalisch relevanten Eigenschaften der Sprechmelodie in Intonationssprachen wie Deutsch und Englisch werden schematische Darstellungen eingesetzt, in denen es im Wesentlichen auf die binäre Unterscheidung zwischen Hoch- und Tieftönen ankommt. Um die Sprechmelodie aus musiktheoretischer Sicht zu betrachten, kann sich jedoch die Transkription in musikalische Notenschrift als ein wertvolles Werkzeug erweisen. Durch die Notation wird die Vielfalt der intervallischen Strukturen von Sprechmelodien erfassbar und eine Grundlage für deren musikalische Analyse geschaffen. In diesem Artikel wird zunächst ein methodischer Ansatz zur gehörmäßigen Erfassung von Sprechmelodien erprobt. Der Vergleich zwischen der exemplarisch transkribierten Sprechmelodie und den Messwerten der Grundfrequenz des Sprachsignals deutet darauf hin, dass das Gehör die verfügbare Tonhöheninformation selektiert, um daraus die Vorstellung einer musikalischen Tonfolge zu konstruieren. Im Bereich von Tonhöhenakzenten orientiert sich die Wahrnehmung scheinbar nach dem lokalen Maximum der Grundfrequenzfunktion, während sich in den übrigen Silben deren Mittelwert als auschlaggebend herausstellt. Anhand der Transkription werden mögliche analytische Ansätze dargelegt, die strukturelle Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen sprachlichen und musikalischen Melodien veranschaulichen. / Recent research results from the field of music psychology show that the subjective assessment of whether someone speaks or sings does not only depend on the characteristics of the received acoustic signal. Although the pitch is modulated differently when speaking than when singing, the recipient can perceive the pitch of a spoken utterance as a musical tone sequence. This impression has since the end of the 18th century led musicians and linguists to record speech melodies in the form of musical notation. In the current discourse of linguistics, this kind of notation has not prevailed. For the description of the grammatically relevant characteristics of the speech melody in intonation languages such as German and English, schematic representations are used in which the main focus lies on the binary distinction between high and low tones. However, to approach speech melody from the perspective of music theory, the transcription in musical notation can be a useful tool. Notation allows to capture the variety of intervallic structures of speech melodies and provides a basis for their musical analysis. This paper introduces a methodical approach to the aural recording of speech melodies. The comparison between the transcribed speech melody and the measured values of the fundamental frequency of the speech signal suggests that the auditory system selects the available pitch information in order to construct the representation of a musical tone sequence. In the area of pitch accents, the perception seems to be driven by the local maximum of the fundamental frequency function, while in the remaining syllables, its mean value appears to be determinant. Based on the transcription, possible analytical approaches are presented, illustrating structural similarities between linguistic and musical melodies.