Musical Ability Flashcards
What did Sloboda et al. (1994) argue about musical ability?
One of the problems in the West is that we have an engrained belief that musical ability is something that is innate
Sloboda argued that this idea of innate ability is folk psychology - no scientific evidence for it
What are 4 arguments against the idea that people have innate musical abilities?
In the West, children who identify early as potential prodigies receive special treatment and absorb all the training. Children who don’t show obvious musical ability are left to remain unmusical.
Cross-cultural differences (music education is dominated by a classical model where technical ability is highly prized. different pattern of children’s musical ability. couldn’t identify individual differences in the age of 5 in their musical abilities didn’t work for Nigerians - it wasn’t seen as being relevant. children in Nigeria showed great knowledge of many different songs that they had learnt and also complex dances which children universally produced in the absence of specialist training). Shouldn’t be any barrier to all children learning music ability equally. See point 1.
Can be hard to find young, gifted children. There is scarcity of early indicators of ability.
There is poor evidence of heritability
Specific skills such as absolute pitch can be taught and learned
What are problems with musical education?
Assessment of music in colleges etc. is subjective and erratic - poor reliability of expert judgements
Students are penalised on impressions and impressionistic abilities (e.g., if they are not expressive enough, if they have charisma) regardless of if they have technical ability. These impressionistic factors clouded the judgement of the assessors.
Teacher’s belief influence children’s grades and children’s own beliefs and motivation. Teacher’s believe that children either have it or they don’t
What study identified some problems with musical education?
Music teachers were asked to evaluate performers in a piano competition.
It was found that there were large ranges of opinions of abilities of these performers.
What study looked at factors that are involved in musical success?
Howe & Sloboda (1991) interviewed Chetham’s (an elite music school) music students of 10-17 years of age
What was found about factors involved in musical success?
43% of students were influenced by older siblings. The success of the early-born children could inspire the rest of the family.
36% of parents were not interested in music
6% had parents who were music professionals but it was suggested that musical ability did not come directly from the parents
Students cited early pleasure of listening to classical music in their family homes
What is a limitation of Howe & Sloboda’s (1991) study looking at factors involved in musical success?
No evidence to support their argument
They relied too much on the parents as transmitters of genetic influence. But other researchers have questioned this saying that if most of the parents in the sample were not interested in music, then where does the student’s interest in music come from?
Did not investigate the influence of potential musical grandparents
Do broad trends in inheritance explain individual cases of musical success?
No. Individual differences are important.
Did Howe & Sloboda have a nature or nurture argument towards musical ability?
Nurture
What are criticisms of Howe & Sloboda’s approach to musical ability?
Setting up a nature-nurture dichotomy is perhaps oversimplified/false
Broad trends in inheritance don’t explain every individual case - there are always exceptions and some cases that don’t support the broad trends
Counter-evidence has been found - if most of the parents in the sample weren’t interested in music then where does the musical interest come from? More of a nature argument than a nurture argument.
Some children quoted in the article say that they had musical grandparents - this was not investigated in Howe & Sloboda’s study - they do not look at genetic influences beyond the parents.
Howe & Sloboda pick from a limited source of evidence and don’t always support their argument.
How can parents contribute to children’s musical ability?
Genetics
Determine/provide the children’s environment
How can you disentangle these things though?
What does an M factor for musical ability refer to?
One factor underlies all musical ability. E.g., does good pitch tend to map on to good rhythmic and melodic sense?
Is there a single factor that accounts for all musical ability?
Is there a unifying factor for musical ability?
What various things/skills comprise musical ability?
Rhythmic
Sense of melody
Perfect pitching
Describe the study that Barros et al. (2017) carried out looking into an ‘M’ factor for musical ability
Barros et al. (2017) looked at 6-13 year-olds in Brazil. Big sample. More than 1000 children.
Administered a large battery of measures that evaluated musical ability
Children were tested on pitch, melodic contour, identifying notes in a scale, beat, dynamics, and timbre
Used lots of different forms of music including atonal music
What is a strength of Barros et al. (2017) research into an ‘M’ factor for musical ability?
Used a very comprehensive set of tests to assess musical ability
