Factors Influencing the Pitch-Matching of Junior High Boys

Abstract

The skill of pitch-matching is a prerequisite for even the most casual musical participation. While singing accuracy has been carefully researched at the elementary level, there has been comparatively less research done with adolescents. The purpose of the study described here was to examine the influence of perceptual ability, task demands, and singing range on the pitch-matching performance of adolescent boys in various stages of the voice change. We found significant differences between certain, inconsistent, and uncertain singers in their perceptual skills and found that a contextual pitch-matching condition was significantly easier than a single-pitch condition. There was no difference by singing range. Future research should explore the progression of these skills longitudinally and continue to examine performance related to different task demands.

Task-Based Variability in Children’s Singing Accuracy

“…Geringer (1983) established context for test items by asking children to sing back the final pitch in a simple threemeasure song. Demorest and Clements (2007) adopted a similar procedure, and for comparison they employed a single pitch matching condition that replicated the typical classroom exercise in which the teacher sings a single note and the student attempts to sing it back. This latter pitch condition is also most similar to task demands in classrooms and choral rehearsals, and thus represents the most common kind of pitch matching task.…”

“…Geringer (1983) found no significant differences in pitch discrimination based on children's pitch matching ability, though the tasks were relatively simple. Demorest and Clements (2007) reported that the results in these studies may vary due to the relative difficulty of items used, but that most studies have not directly compared tasks. They recommended further examination of taskbased variability in singing accuracy.…”

“…The single pitch task is briefest and has been used for singing accuracy assessment (Demorest, 2001;Demorest & Clements, 2007;Flowers & Dunn-Sousa, 1990;Geringer, 1983;Jones, 1971;Murry & Zwirner, 1991;Porter, 1977;Roberts & Davies, 1975). The choice of intervals as test items in singing assessments has been popular both as the only task (Green, 1990;Moore, Fyk, Frega, & Brotons, 1995;Price et al, 1994;Yarbrough et al, 1991;Yarbrough et al, 1992) and as a part of a larger assessment (Flowers & Dunn-Sousa, 1990;Joyner, 1969;Klemish, 1974;Roberts & Davies, 1975).…”

“…In a similar study including older students, sung patterns were again demonstrated to be easier than songs in 5, 6, and 7-year-olds (Welch et al, 1997), and the authors suggested that accuracy is task-specific. Demorest and Clements (2007) and Welch et al, (1997) have suggested that a) performance in singing accuracy is task-based and b) future research is warranted because there are important classroom and research implications for this possibility.…”

El desarrollo de la voz masculina durante la adolescencia: una pedagogía basada en la investigación

“…Algunos muchachos, durante un periodo de tiempo más o menos transitorio, no pueden distinguir bien la altura del sonido (afinación) de diferentes tonos. Las investigaciones indican que esto es algo temporal (Demorest y Clements, 2007). ¿Qué tienen en común los esfuerzos de estos profesores-investigadores?…”