Volume 12, No. 2

PERCEPTION SPECIAL RESEARCH INTEREST GROUP

Newsletter Vol. 12, No. 2

Fall 1996

Kimberly C. Walls, Editor

Perceptions:

A Dialogue on Issues of Importance to Perception Researchers

Busy music educators rarely have the opportunity to discuss issues in 

perception research with others who have experience in the area. This 

column is an opportunity to share ideas about directions in perception 

research. While contributions are not limited by depth of expertise, 

only by interest in participation, it is gratifying to hear from those in 

the profession who have much to offer younger researchers. It is 

encouraging to know that senior researchers such as Peter Webster and 

Rudy Radocy are willing to take the time to communicate their thoughts in 

this forum. Thanks!

For this issue, questions regarding the design validity of music 

perception research were sent to members via email. Often music 

perception studies use a listening design in which subjects listen to 

stimuli of varying degrees of musical content but the subjects do not 

create music themselves during the study. This type of procedure may 

place subjects in an audience stance instead of a participatory 

performance and often constrains responses to those of a type not usually 

encountered in a music teaching/learning situation, that is, responses 

other than singing, playing, improvising, composing, or conducting. 

Specifically, members were asked the following questions.

In "Music Matters," David J. Elliott asserts that music listening

skills are best taught and learned as part of music-making activities

(performing, improvising, composing, conducting) instead of listening

lessons. As music educators who conduct perception research, we are

concerned with the musical validity of our stimuli. How may we also

address design validity for the performance-based music classroom? That

is, how can we measure the effects of engaging in music-making on music

perception (as opposed to outwardly passive listening)?

------------from Peter Webster, Northwestern University---------------

Elliot's notion that music listening skills are best learned by music 

making is worth consideration. It's really not the actual experience 

that teaches these skills, but rather the WAY the teacher encourages kids 

to think in sound during the experience. Whether it be listening or 

actual music making is not the issue, but how we ask kids to think is.

It seems to me that compositional activities offer an especially powerful 

way to study perception and thinking in sound IF we encourage revision of 

initial musical gestures and ask kids to explain why they are making the 

decisions that they are making. As perception researchers, we might 

learn far more about how people really process sound if we study (both 

quantitatively and qualitatively) the results of such instruction. This 

can be studied not only with composition but will all other music 

experiences as well. With listening, it is harder to do this, but still 

worth trying.

I also believe that, on a certain level, active listening IS music 

making, but that is perhaps an issue for another debate.

--------------------from Rudy Radocy, University of Kansas-------------

Elliott has struck a nerve with his book. He has irritated fans of 

aesthetic education in the Reimer tradition, but he has given 

philosophical ammunition to people who equate music education with making 

music. As far as research is concerned, the principles of experimental 

design are the same whether treatments are performance-based or based in 

passive listening. What will subjects do if they perceive something? 

Will they identify musical phenomena? Will they play or sing in tune? 

Will they perform with rhythmic accuracy? Will their preferences 

change? Does what they do appear to vary systematically as a result of 

the type of intervention? Are controls sufficient to allow confidence in 

attributing effects to a performance-based (or listening-based) 

treatment? If one can identify independent variables and logically 

related dependent variables, experiments may proceed, and they will be 

praised or condemned on the same grounds as many others.

Again, thanks to Drs. Radocy and Webster for their input! Many

potential threads for discussion are apparent in the above discussions.

I have taken the liberty of extracting some issues for dialogue from

their responses to post on our new bulletin board. Please use your

Internet browser to continue our dialogue and expand it further. (See

"From the Chair" for URL.)

Column: From the Chair, Kimberly C. Walls

An important function of the Music Educators National Conference 

Perception Special Research Interest Group is to increase communication 

among music educators who have interest in music perception research. 

Our past chair, Steven Demorest, contributed greatly to P-SRIG 

communications by regularizing our newsletter and distributing it 

electronically. He also arranged for excellent speakers at the Biennial 

Conferences and an impressive World Wide Web home page for the P-SRIG. 

We appreciate his efforts. As chair of the P-SRIG, I hope that I may 

serve the organization as well as Steve did.

Our newsletter is published twice a year, via email for members who 

have email, via postal mail for those who do not. Contributors receive 

hard copies. Content of the newsletter is determined by the 

contributions we receive from the membership. Please email your 

announcements and abstracts of research in progress for the next 

newsletter to Kim Walls by March 15. Also, send changes 

and additions to the email list to the same address.

Before the spring issue of the newsletter is published, plans for the

Biennial Conference in Phoenix, AZ will be underway. Please suggest

speakers and topics for our P-SRIG meeting. Steve Demorest had suggested

hosting an interactive poster session in which presenters would bring

hardware and software used for data collection, equipment for presentation

of stimuli, or videotapes of the research process. A request for

additional time and space at the conference would be strengthened if the

conference organizers knew how many P-SRIG members would participate in

this manner. Please send me email immediately if you would be a

participant. 

Our home page on the World Wide Web continues to be maintained by

Steven Demorest. It is located at

http://weber.u.washington.edu/d62/demorest/PSRIG.html. Past issues of the

newsletter are archived there. The home page also has links to our

membership list. One may send a message to a member by clicking on that

member's email address. Other announcements regarding music perception

are also posted. Information sent to Kim Walls will be

forwarded to Steve for posting. 

Another Internet service has been started for the P-SRIG. The URL 

http://imr.utsa.edu/~kwalls/P-SRIG is a bulletin board for P-SRIG 

members. We are looking for a member to volunteer to administer the 

bulletin board. This person would use a browser such as Netscape or 

Explorer to periodically prune the bulletin board of dated materials. He 

or she would play an important role in directing our members'

conversations. If you are interested in serving in this role, let us 

know.

Happy Holidays! See you in Cyberspace.

Kim Walls (210) 458-5321

Institute for Music Research

University of Texas at San Antonio