The Development of Intuitive Musical Understanding: A Natural Experiment

Abstract

Tracing the compositional process of two musically untrained college students, this close case study demonstrates their ability to produce archetypal tonal melodies, even when working initially within the constraints of tonally and metrically ambiguous melodic materials. The two students were representative of a sample of about 75 who participated in a new approach to music fundamentals supported by a novel, interactive computer music environment. Students’ logs, including their composition sketches, decision-making, analysis of progressive modifications and completed compositions, serve as evidence and data for analysis. It is argued that, when students work at their own pace with immediate sound feedback, can modify given materials and have access to multiple representations at differing levels of detail, they are able to make explicit their intuitive criteria for compositional decision-making, as well as proposing an intuitive model of a ‘sensible tune’.