Musical Skills and Auditory Processing in Music Trainees

Abstract

Background and Aim: Controversy exists regarding the link between the psychoacoustical measures and the perceptual rating of musical skills. The study aimed to determine whether the perception of musical abilities, as rated by music teachers, is associated with specific psychoacoustical abilities.

Methods: Twenty-seven children who had undergone Carnatic music training for a duration of 2 months to 1 year were assessed using three psychoacoustical tests: Gap Detection Test (GDT), Duration Discrimination Test (DDT), and Difference Limen of Frequency (DLF) tests. Two music teachers, with different teaching experiences, rated their pitch, rhythm, tempo, auditory memory, and overall musical abilities.

Results: The inter-rater reliability was found to be excellent, suggesting that the ratings given by both teachers were similar. A Spearman’s rank correlation test showed a moderate significant correlation between rating scores awarded by the teachers and the thresholds obtained by the trainees on the psychoacoustical tasks. These correlations were seen between temporal resolution (GDT) with the rating of the teachers for auditory memory (r=-0.55, p=0.003), and between frequency discrimination at mid-frequency stimuli (DLF at 1000 Hz) and the rating by the teachers for tempo (r=0.62, p<0.001). A principal component analysis also grouped GDT and DLF at 1000 Hz with the ratings of the teachers, substantiating the findings of the correlation.

Conclusion: The findings indicated that music teachers are able to provide information only on a few acoustical aspects when rating music trainees. Hence, to get more specific information about the musical abilities of trainees, they should be evaluated using psychoacoustical measures.