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M U S I C T H E O R Y O N L I N E
A Publication of the
Society for Music Theory
Copyright (c) 1994 Society for Music Theory
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| Volume 0, Number 7 March, 1994 ISSN: 1067-3040 |
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All queries to: mto-editor@husc.harvard.edu
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AUTHOR: Kopiez, Reinhard
TITLE: Report on the Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft fuer
Musikpsychologie (DGM) Muenster, 10-12 September, 1993, trans.
Richard Parncutt
KEYWORDS: music psychology, music development
Reinhard Kopiez
Technische Universitaet Berlin
Institut fuer Musikwissenschaft
Sekretariat H 63
D-10623 Berlin Germany
kopi0134@mailszrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de
Translated by Richard Parncutt
in collaboration with the author
parncutt@music.mcgill.ca
[1] The 1993 meeting of the DGM had the theme "Musikalische Entwicklung
in der Lebenszeitperspektive" (a lifespan perspective on musical
development). The theme was chosen in response to the recent trend in
music psychology to investigate musical ability over the entire lifespan.
Here is a brief summary of the various presentations.
[2] The opening talk was given by Maria Manturzewska (Warsaw, Poland), who
reported a biographical long-term study of the musical careers of various
Polish artists. Although the author comes from a psychometric tradition,
this study employed mainly descriptive and qualitative methods (e.g.,
interviews). The age at which soloists, orchestral musicians, and
instrumental teachers begin their early childhood lessons varies widely.
In general, better players tend to have accumulated more total practice
time during their lives, in agreement with the results of other,
quantitative studies (some of which were reported at the same conference;
a similar result was recently reported by John Sloboda in England).
[3] Ralph Krampe investigated the emergence of musical expertise. How
does a musical expert become expert? He criticized certain preconceptions
from older research on musical talent, such as the idea that the more
talented need to practise less, learn more easily, or are more internally
motivated than the less talented. His approach was to reject the
idealogically-loaded concept of "talent" and replace it by "deliberate
practice", defined as follows: 1) Motoric practice is determined by a
specific goal, and by the intention to improve skills. 2) The optimal
duration of a single practice session is determined by the learner.
3) External conditions such as the search for a teacher will generally
be overcome. The "deliberate practice" of a professional musician
differs in these ways from the spare-time practice of a lay or hobby
musician. Krampe looked at variations in the amount of time devoted
to practice over the entire lifespan, taking data from several practice
diaries that had been maintained for a long period. Addressing the theme
of the conference, he then asked how differences between young and old
experts might be explained. It appears that both younger and older
experts need to devote a considerable amounts of time to "deliberate
practice" if they are to maintain their skills. Practice can thus become
a considerable burden, especially for older people. Experts generally
accumulate more overall practice time in their lives than do lay
musicians. Krampe concluded -- in agreement with Sloboda, and others in
the conference -- that differences in ability depend primarily on
differences in musical experience, not in-born talent.
[4] Ludwig Haesler investigated the developmental origin of emotional
semantics in music, from a psychoanalytic viewpoint. He suggested that
both non-verbal, affective aspects and quasi-linguistic or symbolic
aspects of music have their origin in the preverbal phase of an infant's
emotional experience.
[5] Renate Mueller advanced the thesis that young people develop
aesthetically through the twin processes of self-socialization and
self-professionalization. She supported her claim with reference to
rap singers. A condition for the emergence of a style of music such as
rap is the existence of so-called "education-free spaces" such as
groups and gangs. Mueller presented a scenario of responsible media-users
who develop their own cultural practices, and who often cannot easily be
integrated into existing cultural theories. An important aspect of self-
socialization is the presentation of one's identity to others. For this
purpose, young people often become members of groups that are defined by
their musical taste. Mueller suggested that people who are themselves
musically socialized are consequently more tolerant toward other
musical styles. Missing from Mueller's theory, however, was a clear
articulation of the link between two different, simultaneous functions
of spare-time activities: first, the creation of a pleasant situation
for oneself, and second, the self-socializing function of spare-time
activities. Another theoretical difficulty is the issue of whether
and how individual self-socialization can be separated from the dynamics
of a group.
[6] At the end of the first day, the Swiss violist Walter Faehndrich gave a
fascinating concert, improvizing non-thematic, minimalistic music based
on minute timbral variations. The performance incorporated both
traditional and novel bowing techniques, in combination with
psychoacoustic effects.
[7] The second day began with a talk by Roland Hafen, who spoke on behalf
of Hans-Guenther Bastian, Director of the recently founded Institut fuer
Begabungsforschung in Paderborn. Hafen and Bastian believe that talent
is inseparable from overall personal development, and should be researched
from that viewpoint. The immediate aim of their research is to develop a
new test of musical talent, and to apply their findings to the counselling
of young, highly gifted musicians. The institute's research is based on
the credo that "musical talent is multiple talent". A suitable research
design should therefore account for many variables. This idea was
supported by school psychologist Adam Kormann's insightful report on the
social situation of talented children and their parents. Kormann looked
specifically at special music classes held in Berlin primary schools.
[8] Klaus-Ernst Behne reported some first results of a long-term study
on the development of musical experience among young people. He aims to
explore changes in the subjective experience of music between the ages of
10 and 16 years. So far, the study has only been running for one year.
A preliminary result is that, at age 12, children have already learned
to use music in a specific way. For example, they can use music as a
source of comfort. However, early musical preferences are seldom stable,
and vary particularly strongly in the case of art music. A further finding
is that any salient response to music (e.g., "music always makes me sad")
tends to result in a strong overall interest in music.
[9] Gertrud Orff, a music therapist, spoke on the musical development of
children with various disabilities. Photos from her therapy sessions
demonstrated long-term, positive behavioral changes in depressed children.
The following talk by Guenter Adler was devoted to the musical
development of adults. By means of structured interviews, he investigated
adults' motivation to learn a musical instrument. A content analysis
based on categories from motivation theory revealed a very complex
structure of reasons for beginning music lessons in later life. However,
the strongly individual nature of the data made it hard to reach any
general conclusions.
[10] In his presentation on social functions of musical performance in the
area of human relationships, Heiner Gembris emphasized that musical
development is still largely a "terra incognita." He investigated the
extent to which musical interests affect attractiveness, by analyzing
personal interviews and the personal columns of newspapers, and referring
to previous research on attractiveness. He concluded that similar musical
tastes attract. Moreover, the communicative function of music is more
important for lay musicians than is the quality of the performance. Music
can often catalyze further development of an individual, for example, in
situations of personal crisis.
[11] The last two papers that afternoon were by Guenther Roetter (Muenster)
and Soeren Nielzen (Lund, Sweden). Roetter discussed the influence of age
on professional musicians' perception of time. In contrast to existing
theories that assume either positive or negative deviations in time
perception with increasing age, his experimental study demonstrated a
more precise estimation of time intervals by older people. Nielzen
investigated the effect of various psychological illnesses on the
judgment of musical emotions. Depending on the nature of their illness,
his patients ascribed different meanings to both short musical pieces and
to single noises lasting less than one second.
[12] The evening presentation on the second day was held by the psychoanalyst
Harm Willms. He spoke on the power of music over people, illustrating his
remarks with examples from poetry and from the visual arts. The idea of
musical support for the unification of two people (e.g., Orpheus und
Euridice) is a very old one. In Shakespeare, we encounter the idea that
music can heal insanity. Music frees people from powerlessness in the
face of nature or their own feelings, bringing them from a state of fear
or ecstacy back to the human level. In Thomas Mann's "Zauberberg",
music is again a means of uniting with a loved one.
[13] The third and final day of the meeting was devoted to research reports
on topics other than the main theme of the conference. Andreas Lehmann
(Tallahassee, USA) addressed the subject of sight-reading. In contrast to
older research methods, he selected a group of pianists of a uniform
standard. He simulated a real playing situation by giving subjects a
melody, asking them to play a piano accompaniment at the same time and
at a constant speed. Research on expert performance explains why
experienced piano accompanists are better sight-readers than young students:
Sightreading skill is related to the total time spent sight-reading over the
entire lifespan. Sightreading skill may thus be relatively independent
of general musical talent.
[14] Joerg Langner presented a computer model that explains musical hearing
in terms of psychoacoustic measures of tension. He has developed software
based on theories of constructivism and connectionism. The program learns
musical structures, and models auditory expectations via rules of self-
organization.
[15] Peter Linzenkirchner presented research on stage fright, based on
observations of young participants in a well-known German music
competition ("Jugend musiziert"). Surprisingly, no effect of habituation
was found, suggesting that stage fright may be a permanent burden to most
musicians -- regardless of the duration of their performance
experience. However, the effect of stage fright on performance standard is
only weakly negative; and personality may have a considerable effect.
[16] The generally high standard of the research reports and the discussions,
combined with the spacious atmosphere of the castle in which the conference
took place, ensured the success of the event.
[17] Those interested in the activities of the DGM should contact Prof. Dr.
Heiner Gembris, Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar, Universitaet Muenster,
D-48149 Muenster, Germany.
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END OF MTO ITEM