Analysis of Visual and Auditory Rhythmic Perception Abilities of Piano Majors

Abstract

7 male and 15 female college level piano majors representing three categories of majors served as subjects. Piano instructors were asked to rate subjects' sight-reading ability on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 indicated minimum sight-reading ability and 10 professional sighting. Subjects were exposed to 30 pairs of rhythmic stimuli from the rhythm subtest, Seashore Measures of Musical Talents, to determine whether the second pattern was the same or different from the first. The visual test was reproduced by a 7.5-v bayonet lamp and socket. These flashes were near exact replications of the original source with little or no detectable latency. Aural and visual presentations were significantly different and favorable for aural medium. A significant correlation of .60 was found between ratings of sight-reading and grade point average.