The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of presentation modes (audio and visual) on perceptions of expressive choral performance. The stimulus recording included four choral selections, each conducted by a different conductor in two ways: using expressive conducting gestures and using strict conducting gestures. Three groups of participants: (1) listened to the eight audio excerpts; or (2) listened and viewed the conductor from the rear; or (3) listened and viewed the conductor from the front. They then answered questions regarding expressivity, tone quality, and overall impression of the choral performance. Results indicate significant differences between presentation modes and conducting style. Participants rated performances conducted with an expressive gesture higher than performances conducted with a strict gesture in all three presentation modes.

The purpose of this study was to examine how teacher delivery and student progress influenced preservice teachers’ perceptions of overall teaching effectiveness. Experienced teachers ( n = 6) were videotaped teaching mini applied lessons under four conditions: (a) high teacher delivery and more student progress, (b) high teacher delivery and less student progress, (c) low teacher delivery and more student progress, and (d) low teacher delivery and less student progress. Preservice teachers ( n = 75) viewed these teaching excerpts and rated each for teacher delivery, student progress, student musicianship, teacher knowledge of subject matter, and overall teaching effectiveness. Participants rated teachers with high delivery as more effective than teachers with low delivery, irrespective of student progress. There was a moderate positive correlation ( r = .53) between perceptions of teacher delivery and student progress. Results of a multiple regression analysis revealed that teacher delivery was the best predictor of perceptions of overall teaching effectiveness, followed closely by student progress.

We examined how movement impacted listeners’ perceptions of choral performances. Participants ( N = 115; n = 60 nonmusic majors, n = 55 music majors) viewed excerpts of Moses Hogan’s “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel” under four conditions: good tone/expressive movement (GT/EM), good tone/static movement (GT/SM), poor tone/expressive movement (PT/EM), and poor tone/static movement (PT/SM). They rated tone quality and overall expressivity for each excerpt. We found a significant multivariate main effect for the examples. For both tone quality and expressivity, participants rated the examples in the following order from highest to lowest: GT/EM, GT/SM, PT/SM, and PT/EM. There was a significant interaction between the examples and participants’ major. Music majors rated the GT/EM example higher than the nonmusic majors but rated the other three examples lower than the nonmajors. Expressive movement seemed to enhance ratings of expressivity when performed with good tone but detracted when the tone was poor. In written responses, majors distinguished between expressive movement and tone consistently, while nonmajors could not consistently separate what they were seeing from what they were hearing.

The author investigates relationships between instructor, peer, and self-evaluations. Undergraduate music education students each taught three micro-teaching segments. Immediately after teaching, they filled out an evaluation for themselves indicating four things they did well, one suggestion for improvement, and an effectiveness score from 1 to 10. All students in the class also completed this task, as did the instructor. Ratings were compared and correlated, and comments were analyzed to determine whether self-comments were the same as peer comments, instructor comments, both, or none. One week after the fact, students were asked to recall every comment that had been made after their teaching. Results indicate that (a) peer ratings were consistently the lowest, (b) self-comments made immediately after teaching were most similar to peer comments or comments made by neither instructor nor peers, and (c) most comments recalled 1 week later were those made by peers or by both instructor and peers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two pre-tuning vocalization behaviors (humming and singing) on the tuning accuracy of woodwind and brass instrumentalists. Undergraduate collegiate musicians ( N = 72) performed a sustained stimulus pitch (concert B-flat) while engaging in one of the two conditions or the control condition (silence). We also explored the relationships between participants’ tuning accuracy and their tuning confidence, examined the reasons instrumentalists provided for their pre-tuning vocalization preferences, and compared their most accurate performance condition with the condition they perceived to result in their most accurate tuning. Although participants performed with better tuning accuracy in the singing condition than the humming and silence conditions, these differences were not significant. Correlation analyses examining relationships between participants’ tuning accuracy and their tuning confidence in each condition yielded mostly weak and nonsignificant results. Participants reported internalization of pitch, physical response, and focus of attention issues most frequently when asked why they preferred a particular tuning condition.