The Effect Of Colored Accent Marks In Music Notation During The Sight-Reading Process For High School And College Wind Instrumentalists

The purpose of this study was to test new ways of improving the sight-reading process in music. This experimental study has been split into two identical studies completed in different settings. The first study utilized 56 volunteer wind instrumentalists from a high school band as subjects, while the second study utilized 30 volunteer wind instrumentalists from a college band as subjects. The same pretest-posttest experiment was used for each study. The subjects were randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group, while two short musical excerpts were composed to use for the experiment. The pretest excerpt was unaltered to determine natural tendencies of accents during the sight-reading process for each group. The posttest excerpt had the accent marks printed in red ink for the experimental group only, while the control group read the excerpt in unaltered black ink. All of the tests were audio-recorded, and the subjects filled out a questionnaire of additional information after the posttest. After the recordings were evaluated to determine if the subjects performed the accents, the results were revealing. The high school study shothat only 16% of subjects performed accents during the pretest, and the posttest sho43% of subjects in the experimental group performed accents. The college study shothat 40% of subjects performed accents during the pretest, and the posttest sho93% of subjects in the experimental group performed accents. The questionnaire shothat lessons, older subjects (in high school only), and brass players typically performed accents more consistently. College subjects also clearly performed the accents more than did high school subjects.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.M. in Music

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Music

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Malone, Eric Bradley

Contributors dc:contributor

• Andrew Paney
• Michael Worthy
• Alan L. Spurgeon

• Accents
• Color
• Notation
• Sight-Reading
• Music Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/710

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-1709