Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / A musical task involving pitch discrimination was developed and taught to children and adults. The task was a single tone matching procedure employing three organ tones and keys in the "do, re, mi" configuration, in which individually presented ("heard") tones, served as stimuli controlling selection of keys for tone-matching responses. The design of the study included an exploratory phase, in which sequences of material were manipulated and behavioral (performance) characteristics investigated, and a control experiment, in which reinforcing stimuli (feedback contingencies) were manipulated. Data describing errors as a function of trials and other relationships between stimuli and response events were collected. These were plotted in the form of individual cumulative records and stimuli-response tracking charts, respectively. Pre-adult subjects ranging in age from four to eleven years were recruited from an academic and professional population attending a private school. Adult subjects (ranging in age from 24 to 78 years) were selected on the basis of their claims to (a) not being "musical, " (b) not being able to read music, (c) not having any recent or prolonged music study. All subjects worked at the keyboard of a specially adapted organ by which tones were presented, responses recorded, and feedback provided. The study was primarily concerned with the following questions: 1. Would this key-tone matching task be "easy" or "difficult"? 2. Could performance be improved by employing the objective procedures described? 3. What behavioral characteristics could be revealed by the use of such procedures? Data from the exploratory phase (conducted with youth subjects) indicated that matching "do, re, mi" keys to their associated tones in single tone matching trials was not as "easy" a task as one might have expected. Analyses of stimuli-response tracking charts indicated that the major "pre-solution" behavior patterns were affected by the programmed sequences of material, and by the one, two, three, order inherent in the stimuli themselves. These data also provided evidence of the systematic nature of such performance, and that the relationships between sequence of material and patterns of responding can be subjected to experimental control. In the control experiment (conducted with youth and adult subjects) three different reinforcement procedures (feedback contingencies) were tested on a sequence of material developed in the exploratory phase. Procedure l provided production of the trial tone plus a red light signal for a correct response, and silence (no consequence) for an incorrect response. Procedure 2 was the same as procedure l, with exception that the red light signal was withheld. In procedure 3, correct and incorrect responses produced the associated tones of the keys pressed. Control experiment data (cumulative error graphs) revealed improvement in 13 out of 14 youth subjects, and in 10 out of 15 adult subjects. The procedures in which subjects heard the correct tones and not the incorrect tones in training (l and 2) produced more learning than the procedure (3) in which subjects heard the correct as well as the incorrect tones. Also, more learning was achieved under procedure l, which provided the red light consequence in addition to the tone for correct responding, than under procedure 2, which provided the tone only (no light). A behavioral model of key-tone matching was suggested as the framework for further research. The implications of the study were seen to extend beyond musical learning theory, to auditory learning theory in general. The relevance of the findings to education in general and to adult education in particular was indicated. / 2031-01-01

<p> This study was conducted in order to understand the types of music technologies band educators in the state of Arkansas were using, their attitudes towards technology, and the implications training, during undergraduate and through professional development, had on the frequency of use. Arkansas Music Educators (n = 64) completed an online questionnaire containing demographic information, selection of music technologies, agreeability/disagreeability to statements about music technology, frequency of use, descriptions of technologies, and description of how they felt music technology should be used for the purpose of learning. Regarding training in undergraduate professional development for music technology use, there appeared to be no difference between the increase of music technology usage and the increase of more training. Results suggest that participants have an overall &ldquo;good&rdquo; attitude towards technology with the stipulation that it should be considered a tool, students and teachers receive appropriate training, and it should be used efficiently.</p><p>

Critical review of performance is today one of the most common professional and commercial forms of music written response. Despite the availability of representative material and its impact on musicians' careers, there has been little structured enquiry into the way music critics make sense of their experience of performances, and no studies have to date broached the key question of how music performance is reviewed by experts. Adopting an explorative, inductive approach and a novel combination of data reduction and thematic analysis techniques, this thesis presents a systematic investigation of a vast corpus of recorded performance critical reviews. First, reviews of Beethoven's piano sonata recordings (N = 845) published in the Gramophone (1923-2010) were collected and metadata and word-stem patterns were analysed (Chapters 3 and 4) to offer insights on repertoire, pianists and critics involved and to produce a representative selection (n = 100) of reviews suitable for subsequent thematic analyses. Inductive thematic analyses, including a key-word-in-context analysis on 'expression' (Chapter 5), were then used to identify performance features (primary and supervenient) and extra-performance elements critics discuss, as well as reasons they use to support their value judgements. This led to a novel descriptive model of critical review of recorded performance (Chapters 6, 7, and 8). The model captures four critical activities - evaluation, descriptive judgement, factual information and meta-criticism - and seven basic evaluation criteria on the aesthetic and achievement-related value of performance reliably used by critics, plus two recording-specific criteria: live-performance impact and collectability. Critical review emerges as a highly dense form of writing, rich in information and open to diverse analytical approaches. Insights gained throughout the thesis inform current discourses in philosophy of art and open new perspectives for empirical music research. They emphasise the importance of the comparative element in performance evaluation, the complexity and potentially misleading nature of the notion of 'expression' in the musical discourse, and the role of critics as filters of choice in the recording market. Foremost, they further our understanding of the nature of music performance criticism as a form of reasoned evaluation that is complex, contextual and listener specific.

Taiwan has many high-level music colleges that prepare students for performance and teaching careers. These music colleges are competitive environments in which students are potentially learning to cope with musical performance anxiety (MPA). MPA has been widely researched in recent years. Studies have found that college musicians use their own unique coping strategies or rely on past experiences of coping with MPA to manage it. Nevertheless, literature that focuses on MPA self-management is still limited. The aim of this thesis is to fill this gap by investigating the ways in which MPA is self-managed by Taiwanese college musicians (TCMs). The research questions are: 1) How do TCMs define and perceive MPA? 2) How do TCMs self-manage MPA? 3) What strategies for managing MPA do the TCMs believe they will use with their students when they carry out teaching as part of their future portfolio careers? Fifty-three undergraduates were recruited from a music college in Taiwan. Each participant was interviewed before all of their performances taking place in one semester: formal concert, exam, and graduate recital. The data was analysed through a qualitative approach by using thematic analysis in order to examine the strategies used and the process of managing MPA. The findings are presented as four themes: 1) Strategies used in preparation for different types of performance, during different time periods of preparation and performance. 2) Strategies in context: people and places. 3) Understanding the strategies: metacognition in musical learning and managing MPA. 4) MPA self-management and the teaching-learning cycle. Results revealed that it is possible for TCMs to self-manage their MPA through developing metacognitive processes with support networks in the conservatoire environment and with various external resources. However, information on MPA-coping strategies are like pieces of a puzzle that are scattered rather than being coherently fitted together. Therefore, recommendations for further research and applications to practice are made.

Orientador: Dorotéa Machado Kerr / Banca: Marisa Fonterrada / Banca: Luis Soares de Camargo / Resumo: Este trabalho pretende apresentar uma possível abordagem teórica para as questões que o conhecimento musical cotidiano impõe à Educação Musical Formal. A intenção é propor uma leitura interpretativa desse conhecimento, a partir dos fundamentos teóricos das obras de Agnes Heller, Berger & Luckmann e Lev Vigotski. A partir dessa fundamentação teórica, pretende-se analisar a natureza e as especificidades da esfera social cotidiana e do conhecimento musical cotidiano a ela pertencente, situando o lugar e o papel desse conhecimento no processo formal de ensino-aprendizagem de música. Utilizando alguns dos conceitos desses teóricos ligados ao materialismo histórico, discute-se como esse conhecimento musical informal/espontâneo pode ser abordado do ponto de vista teórico (filosófico e sociológico); qual a importância dele para as crianças; qual sua função e suas influências no aprendizado formal de música; e como tem sido tratado, ou considerado, nos currículos das escolas formais. Para delimitar o que é cotidiano e conhecimento cotidiano foram utilizados os conceitos de Heller das esferas cotidiana e não-cotidiana da vida social humana e formas de pensamento cotidianas; para problematizar a questão do aprendizado espontâneo cotidiano e sua importância para a formação do indivíduo foi utilizado o conceito de socialização primária de Berger & Luckmann; para discutir a questão da relação entre o conhecimento cotidiano, o desenvolvimento cognitivo e o aprendizado escolar, são utilizados os conceitos de apropriação, aprendizagem e desenvolvimento de Vigotski; para situar essas questões na área da educação e da pedagogia são utilizados alguns pressupostos da Pedagogia Histórico-Crítica, aqui representada pelas as idéias dos filósofos Dermeval Saviani e Newton Duarte. / Abstract: Abstract. This work intends to introduce a possible theorist approach for the questions that the everyday music knowledge imposes to Formal Music Education. The purpose is to propose an interpreting reading about this knowledge, using the theorist foundation of authors Agnes Heller, Berger & Luckmann and Lev Vigotski. From this theorist foundation, this works intends to analyze the particularizations of everyday life and its musical knowledge, situating the place and function of this knowledge to the formal music teaching-learning. Using some concepts of this authors related of the historic materialism, examines how this informal music knowledge can be approached by the theorist view (philosophical and sociological); what this importance to the children; what its influence and function to the formal music learning; and how it has approaching by the formal music education. The Heller's concepts of social everyday space and everyday forms of thoughts were used to situate what is everyday life and everyday knowledge; the Berger & Luckmann's concept of primary socializing was using to situate the importance of spontaneous everyday learning to the human formation; the Vigotski's concepts about learning and development were using to examines the relations between the everyday knowledge, cognitive development and formal education; at last, this work uses some concepts of the Critic-Historic Pedagogy, represented here by education philosophers Dermeval Saviani and Newton Duarte, to situate these questions in the educational area. / Mestre

Stress in music performance shows an intrinsic relationship with changes in cardiovascular functioning and emotions, yet to date, studies analysing these stress indicators are few and far between. The overarching aim of this thesis is therefore to investigate performance stress through the lens of both self-reported anxiety and physical stress signatures in heart rate variability. For rigour, this is achieved through a close examination of the relationship between stress and structural complexity of heart rate variability in response to different conditions musicians underwent: (1) a low- and high-stress performance and (2) a simulated performance environment. In my thesis I approached the problem in a comprehensive way and investigated five Studies. Studies 1 and 2 (Chapters 3 and 4) employ new heart rate variability methods to analyse physical stress. Study 3 (Chapter 5) compares heart rate variability responses before and during a performance in a simulated and a real-life performance environment; Study 4 (Chapter 6) qualitatively addresses further enhancements related to simulated performance environments. Study 5 (Chapter 7) examines heart rate variability responses to simulated performance feedback of different emotional valence. Results provide conclusive evidence that musicians performing in high-stress conditions display lower levels of structural complexity in the heart rate variability (signature of high stress), in particular prior to the performance, and a statistically significant elevation of subjective anxiety. The findings show that both simulated and real performance scenarios create similar physical and emotional responses. Interviews with musicians reveal the benefits of simulations in combination with complementary training methods. More immediate follow-up research may focus on heart rate variability responses to other training strategies, such as Alexander Technique and physical exercise; use a greater selection of standardised self-assessments; and evaluate musicians experiencing severe performance stress, for which this thesis has paved the way.

High school marching bands have several performance options beyond the Friday night football game. These options range from non-competitive regional festivals to performance circuits that culminate in a final national contest. All of these extra-curricular events require resources such as funding, equipment, staffing, and parental involvement (Corral, 2001). The fundamental question was created to investigate opportunities available for participation in music regardless of socioeconomic status, geographic location, etc. Participation in music was explored from the vantage point of marching band – one of the most resource intensive programs in music. Marching band was used in this study because the activity often requires resources that go above and beyond what many administrators, parents, and some directors claim justifiable. The purpose of this causal-comparative study was to examine the effects that resources, financial and otherwise, have on directors’ decisions to participate in marching band competitions. High school marching bands from across the United States were compared to determine the amount of finances and resources invested by each program. The purpose was to find out if resources play a role in a band director’s decision to compete at various national or non-national events. Students who desire to participate in music should have the opportunity to participate in any extra-curricular event without regard to economic distinction. Even though marching arts are not offered at all high schools, those who do commit to investing extreme time and resources to the activity. The nature of marching band, coupled with the relatively small amount of scholarly research on marching bands and resources, made it a unique scenario worthy of further inquiry.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.