Effects of a Westernized Korean Folk Music Selection on Students’ Music Familiarity and Preference for Its Traditional Version

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to reveal the effects of Westernized arrangements of traditional Korean folk music on music familiarity and preference. Two separate labs in one intact class were assigned to one of two treatment groups of either listening to traditional Korean folk songs ( n = 18) or listening to Western arrangements of the same Korean folk songs ( n = 22); a second intact class served as a control group with no listening ( n = 20). Before and after the listening treatment session, pre- and posttests were administered that included 12 music excerpts of current popular, Western classical, and traditional Korean music. Results showed that participants who listened to traditional folk songs demonstrated significant increases in both familiarity and preference ratings; however, those who listened to Westernized folk songs showed increases only in familiarity ratings but not preference ratings for the same Korean songs in traditional versions. An analysis of participants’ open-ended responses showed that affective–positive responses were used most frequently when explaining preference for traditional versions of Korean folk songs (28.1%) among the traditional Korean listening group; structural–negative reasons (47.8%) were the most frequent among the Westernized listening group.

Motivation and Preference for Acoustic or Tablet-Based Musical Instruments: Comparing Guitars and Gayageums

“…This finding somewhat contradicts the previous preference studies involving world music pieces that have reported participant preference for familiar musical pieces over unfamiliar pieces (Demorest & Schultz, 2004; Fung, 1996; Kang & Yoo, 2016). This is probably because of the types of stimuli and their uniqueness in this study compared to other world music studies.…”

“…In addition to easy and fun as reasons for guitar choices, the low motivation students also addressed timbre preference, authentic, and cultural reasons for gayageum choices. These are examples of reasons for gayageum choices from the low motivation group: This finding somewhat contradicts the previous preference studies involving world music pieces that have reported participant preference for familiar musical pieces over unfamiliar pieces (Demorest & Schultz, 2004;Fung, 1996;Kang & Yoo, 2016). This is probably because of the types of stimuli and their uniqueness in this study compared to other world music studies.…”

“…However, in the current study, the effect of cultural familiarity also needs to be examined because tablet-based instruments enable music teachers/students to use not only Western but also non-Western instruments. Although familiarity has been widely reported as having effects on world music preference (Demorest & Schultz, 2004; Fung, 1996; Kang & Yoo, 2016), it has not been tested for world music instrument preference. In Kelly and VanWeelden’s (2015) study that examined gender association with world music instruments, only non-Western musical instruments were presented to research participants.…”

Preservice Music Teachers’ World Music Preference for Taught Pieces and Its Transfer to Untaught Pieces

“…Such knowledge and familiarity factors seem to play an important role in the elicitation of emotional responses. That is, understanding or knowing certain aspects about music pieces (e.g., musical sound, technique, or culture) could contribute to one's preference for them (Dobrota & Ercegovac, 2017;Kang & Yoo, 2016).…”

Instructional Approaches to Teaching a Korean Percussion Ensemble (Samulnori) to Preservice Music Teachers and Preservice Classroom Teachers: An Action Research Study

“…Although there has been considerable interest in research on various instructional approaches to world musics (Kang & Yoo, 2016a; McKoy, 2004), very few empirical studies have included preservice teachers as research participants (Joseph & Hartwig, 2015; VanAlstine & Holmes, 2016). Joseph and Hartwig (2015) provided a teaching workshop on African music and documented participants’ learning experiences.…”