Music Generalization And Expertise.

Front 1

Role of Music in Different Societies and who produces this music?

Back 1

-In most societies, participation in music is the norm.
 Music considered integral/essential to certain activities
 In modern (Western) societies, music accompanies many activities also, but often not in a participatory way.
**Often, only “experts” produce music**

Front 2

What makes a great musician?

Back 2

• Factors include:
1. Technical skill
2. “Musicality”
3. Creativity
4. Marketing

• Relative importance of factors may depend on type of music.

Front 3

What explains later musical success?
 Is there innate talent?

Back 3

 Are there early childhood signs?
 Early singing
 Precocious playing
 Fascination with music

Front 4

Early Childhood signs of musicality Study:

At what age..
1. Did you first notice your child sing?
2. Did you first see your child making rhythmic or dance movements in time with music?
3. Did your child first show a liking for musical sounds?
4. Did you child first display a high degree of attentiveness to music?
5. Did your child make a spontaneous request to be involved in, or experience music?

Back 4

Results:

Only earliest singing age showed a significant effect of group, with the most musical group showing a slightly earlier age (1.7 years) than the mean of the other groups (~2.1 – 2.8 years).
 No other significant differences were found (!)

Front 5

Early signs of musicianship? CONCLUSIONS

Back 5

 Out of all the factors studied, involving both behavior and environment, only age of first singing related to musical expertise.
 Lack of strong relationships suggest that it is difficult to predict musical outcome at an early age.

Front 6

 Sloboda et al (1996) examined practice habits.
 5 groups of students with different levels of achievement in standardized music
performances tests, going from Grade 1 to
Grade 8 (entrance qualification for music college).
 Do “talented” kids learn faster and with less practice?

Back 6

Results weren’t explained by age of starting – no difference between groups 1-4. Differences were in number of practice hours after starting an instrument.

Front 7

Musical talent

Back 7

 Expertise explained in large part by hours of practice.
 Unclear what provides the motivation for people to devote so many hours to practice.
 Practice habits, including parental support, can play an important role.

Front 8

How good are we at judging performances?

Back 8

 Performance order matters: later performers tend to get higher scores.
 Judgments influenced by expectations, including well known names.

Front 9

Is seeing music more important than
hearing it? YES

*Most people expect sound to play the most important role in judging musical performances.

Back 9

 However, when judging top 3 performances from 10 international classical music competitions, novices more accurately predicted the winner when watching a silent video than when listening to the music (Tsay, 201

Front 10

What good is music?
 Does listening, or learning to play music produce any more general cognitive benefits?

Back 10

Question has been posed many times, over different time scales:
 Short-term benefits
 Long-term benefits
 Belief in the general benefits may be one reason why so many parents provide music lessons to their children

Front 11

The Mozart Effect

Back 11

 The finding: Listening to Mozart for 10 minutes
enhances performance in spatial reasoning task; relative to sitting in silence, or listening to a
“relaxation” tape.

* Several later studies failed to reproduce the original result

Front 12

Alternative Theory to Mozart Effect

Back 12

 It may just reflect the effects of general arousal: listening to interesting music may elicit more arousal than just sitting still for 10 minutes.

Front 13

Testing Mozart Effect

Back 13

Those who expressed a preference for Mozart over the story showed a bigger effect for the music and vice versa.

*Results suggest that the effect is one of general
arousal, not specific to music.

Front 14

Music Lessons Enhance IQ:
 132 children, assigned randomly to one of four groups for 36 weeks of lessons in groups of 6 *Piano lessons, Voice lessons, Drama lessons, and Nothing
 Do music lessons improve cognitive scores more than drama or no subject?

Back 14

Results: All groups showed some increase
in IQ, but the music groups showed the most.
 Drama group showed increase in social intelligence, not found in the music group.

Front 15

Long term-benefits for musical training

Back 15

 No evidence for changes in behavioral responses

 Musicians have stronger brainstem encoding of music and speech periodicity (pitch).

Front 16

Summary of Expertise:

Back 16

 Music expertise comes from practice – no short cuts!
 The “Mozart effect” isn’t specific to Mozart, or even music. May be best understood in terms of general arousal.
 Longer-term general benefits of musical training may exist. However, the effects so far have been small.