Melodic patterns in school music education

A corpus-based analysis of works from various epochs, genres, and styles

Abstract

The perception of musical structures is central to listening to and processing music. Building on music-psychological approaches such as prototype theory and predictive coding, as well as music-theoretical concepts, repetition and similarity can be regarded as key unifying elements. In a corpus analysis of 309 musical pieces and works from high-track schools in Baden-Württemberg, frequently occurring tone sequences were identified using corpus-analytic methods (Study 1) and then validated in a sample of groups with different levels of musical training using cumulative link mixed models (Study 2). Study 1 showed that 20 out of 2,759 tone-sequence classes accounted for approximately 52 % of the entire corpus. Study 2 demonstrated that individuals with higher levels of musical training perceived the tone sequences that occurred most frequently in the corpus as correspondingly frequent. These findings may serve as a foundation for an evidence-based model that can be used to foster the perception of auditory structures in music education.