Music is both an art and a science involving emotional
appreciation and intellectual understanding. When music
performances are assessed, appropriate criteria should be
used by examiners who appreciate the art and understand
the science. This study examined the effects of training
and experience on the judgements made by individuals who
possessed an understanding of music performance (i.e.
qualified musicians and music educators), from
observations on videotape of three piano performances (by
the same pianist).
The thirty three participants were required to observe the
videotape and complete a separate music performance
assessment (MPA)sheet for each piece, and then rank the
three pieces in order of preference. The MPA sheet
contained (a) thirty three descriptive statements, under
five headings, to which the examiner responded on a . six
point Likert scale, and (b) a section for recording an
overall impression mark, with provision for comment.
There were four examiner categories: (1) untrained and
inexperienced, (2) trained and inexperienced, (3)
untrained and experienced, and (4) trained and
experienced. The term 'experience' was applied to those
participants who had previous involvement as examiners in
any formal music performance assessment situation. The
term 'trained' was applied to those participants who
attended a short preparation course presented as part of
the study. The responses of the four categories of
examiner were tested for significant difference (.05
level) through the use of multivariate analysis of
variance with repeated measures.
One of the performances (piece 1) was recorded digitally
by computer (using MIDI and the 'Vision' program) which
provided a printout of what occurred during the
performance. A comparison of the subjective analysis of
the 'Vision' printout results with the examiner responses
for piece 1, revealed that there was a link between the
judgements made by examiners and the actual performance by
the pianist.
Results of the study indicate that (a) experience and
training effects the criteria used by music examiners in
the assessment of music performances, (b) training
influenced the examiner responses more than experience,
(c) in the 'best' performance, the effects of examiner
training and experience were negligible, and (d) in the
area of 'global' and 'specific' assessment of music
performance, all examiners divorced the two approaches,
however judgements of the untrained examiners were more
obvious in their disparity.
The results of this study suggest that the training a
music examiner receives prior to the performance
assessment session may be more important in producing
consistent and accurate reports than the amount of
previous examining experience. The criteria used by the
music examiner should be clearly presented with
appropriate dimensions for the musical instrument on which
the student performs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219467 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Winter, Neal, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Neal Winter |
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