Attention to Elements of Music and Effect of Instruction in Vocabulary on Written Descriptions of Music by Children and Undergraduates

Abstract

The purposes of this study were twofold: Experiment 1 was designed to assess which elements of music were described by third graders, fourth graders and undergraduate non-music majors in a listening task. Experiment 2 examined the effect of instruction in music vocabulary on children's subsequent descriptions of music. It was found that children differed significantly from undergraduates in overall pattern of descriptions of musical elements. Most children made reference to extramusical, timbre and tempo characteristics; undergraduates commonly referred to extramusical, tempo and pitch/ melody. Instruction in vocabulary produced a significant increase in attention to specified elements of music by thirdand fourth-grade children on a post-test. It was noted that children demonstrated a tendency to limit their responses in number of musical elements described.