Computer assisted music instructment tutoring applied to violin practice

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

Seeing Sounds: The Effect of Computer-Based Visual Feedback on Intonation in Violin Education

The fact that the violin is a fretless instrument brings along intonation problems both in its performance and in its education. The introduction of technology into educational environments day by day, has led to the need to try different methods besides the traditional methods for solving intonation problems. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of computer-based visual feedback on the student’s intonation on the violin. For this purpose, an 8-week experimental process was carried out with 8 violin students studying in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades of the music teaching undergraduate program in the 2021-2022 academic year. In the quantitative dimension of the research, which was designed with mixed method design, a pretest – post-test single-group experimental design was used. The quantitative data were collected with the intonation evaluation form and the qualitative data were collected with diaries and a semi-structured interview form. The dependent samples t-test was used in the analysis of the quantitative data, and descriptive analysis technique was used in the analysis of the qualitative data. In the implementation process of the study, students were given visual feedback only with Cubase VariAudio software. At the end of the study, it was seen that computer-based visual feedback contributed positively to the intonation skills of the students. The students stated that the study made an abstract situation concrete, offered an opportunity to make self-evaluation, contributed positively to the motivation and limited class hours, and that they wanted to use it while practicing on their own

Multisensory learning in adaptive interactive systems

The main purpose of my work is to investigate multisensory perceptual learning and sensory integration in the design and development of adaptive user interfaces for educational purposes. To this aim, starting from renewed understanding from neuroscience and cognitive science on multisensory perceptual learning and sensory integration, I developed a theoretical computational model for designing multimodal learning technologies that take into account these results. Main theoretical foundations of my research are multisensory perceptual learning theories and the research on sensory processing and integration, embodied cognition theories, computational models of non-verbal and emotion communication in full-body movement, and human-computer interaction models. Finally, a computational model was applied in two case studies, based on two EU ICT-H2020 Projects, "weDRAW" and "TELMI", on which I worked during the PhD

A Weighted Individual Performance-Based Assessment for Middle School Orchestral Strings: Establishing Validity and Reliability

The study established the validity and reliability of a weighted individual performance-based assessment tool within the utility scope of middle school orchestral strings. The following research questions guided this study: 1. What specific string-playing behaviors and corresponding criteria validate a weighted individual performance-based assessment tool for middle school orchestral strings? 2. What are the psychometric properties of the weighted individual performance-based assessment tool in authentic situations? For Research Question 1, the expert panel and I were able to 100% mutually agree on 10 string-playing behaviors: tempo, rhythm, tone, pitch, intonation, technique, bowing, dynamics, phrasing, and posture that created the DISAT. Being interdependent, these string-playing behaviors are relevant because they encompass every necessary facet of orchestral string performance (Zdzinski & Barnes, 2002). According to Zdzinski and Barnes (2002), an orchestral string performance assessment must evaluate each facet of a participant’s playing ability to rate the overall musicianship. Bergee and Rossin (2019) stated in their research that it is important to have various aspects of a performance utilized in a musical assessment. The DISAT obtained reliability of 0.872 by having enough variance between raters in the authentic situation. Linacre (2015) stated that reliability greater than 0.8 is acceptable to v distinguish separation between raters. Combined with the expert panel\u27s 100% mutual agreement on content validity, this proved the DISAT to be a valid and reliable assessment tool for individual performance-based orchestral strings assessment (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014). The DISAT can be utilized by districts and middle school orchestral string music teachers in North Carolina. Being a consistent, objective tool, the DISAT can standardize our approach to middle school orchestral string music education assessment (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014). The data collected by the DISAT could easily track the musical progression of students while giving opportunities for constructive, purposeful feedback

Perceptions of discrepancies between intentions and outcomes during music practice : differences among musicians with varied levels of experience and expertise

Errors are an inherent and necessary part of learning in all dimensions of human activity. In order to effectively encode and refine procedural memories, learners must experience attempts to accomplish goals, perceive discrepancies between the results of their attempts and their intended outcomes, and adjust their behavior to accommodate those discrepancies. The extent to which music practice results in positive changes in the quality of performance and extent of performers’ facility is in part a function of the precision of learners’ physical and auditory goals and learners’ discrimination of discrepancies between those goals and the outcomes their movements produce. We designed three experiments to examine musicians’ perceptions of their own others’ practice. In Experiment 1, immediately after recording individual practice sessions, high school, college, and professional musicians listened to their recordings and pressed a computer key to mark moments of discrepancy between what they had intended while practicing and what they heard on the recordings; in Experiment 2, the high school and professional participants from Experiment 1 repeated the task 2 years later; in Experiment 3, high school and professional participants heard practice recordings of four other violinists’ practice (two artist-level experts and two competent students), and pressed the key each time they heard a discrepancy between what they heard on the recordings and what they would have intended had they been the practicer. In Experiment 1, the mean rates of keypresses did not differ among the high school, undergraduate, graduate, and professional participants, although there were large within-group variances. When the high school and professional participants in Experiment 1 returned after 2 years and performed the same task with their original recordings, high school participants marked significantly more discrepancies, but the mean rate of keypresses among professionals did not increase. In Experiment 3, professionals marked significantly more discrepancies than did high school participants, but and the mean rates of keypresses within each group did not differ among recordings by professionals and high school musicians. These results are consistent with the notion that the precision of performance goals and the acuity of perceptual discrimination are central features of musical expertise.Musi

Musical instrument familiarity affects statistical learning of tone sequences.

Most listeners have an implicit understanding of the rules that govern how music unfolds over time. This knowledge is acquired in part through statistical learning, a robust learning mechanism that allows individuals to extract regularities from the environment. However, it is presently unclear how this prior musical knowledge might facilitate or interfere with the learning of novel tone sequences that do not conform to familiar musical rules. In the present experiment, participants listened to novel, statistically structured tone sequences composed of pitch intervals not typically found in Western music. Between participants, the tone sequences either had the timbre of artificial, computerized instruments or familiar instruments (piano or violin). Knowledge of the statistical regularities was measured as by a two-alternative forced choice recognition task, requiring discrimination between novel sequences that followed versus violated the statistical structure, assessed at three time points (immediately post-training, as well as one day and one week post-training). Compared to artificial instruments, training on familiar instruments resulted in reduced accuracy. Moreover, sequences from familiar instruments - but not artificial instruments - were more likely to be judged as grammatical when they contained intervals that approximated those commonly used in Western music, even though this cue was non-informative. Overall, these results demonstrate that instrument familiarity can interfere with the learning of novel statistical regularities, presumably through biasing memory representations to be aligned with Western musical structures. These results demonstrate that real-world experience influences statistical learning in a non-linguistic domain, supporting the view that statistical learning involves the continuous updating of existing representations, rather than the establishment of entirely novel ones