References
The Concern of Repertoire
Because Sikes used the same excerpt for all participants, the musical characteristics of the parts were different between instruments. The repertoire selection for the current study included separate pieces for middle school participants and high school participants to account for differences in ability. Further, different excerpts from each piece were selected for each instrument. Each excerpt was the same length and tempo, but care was taken to ensure that the musical characteristics and level of difficulty were also similar for each instrument.
Implications for Teachers
Sikes noted that, because free practice was as successful as targeted practice strategies, advanced musicians could be left to their own devices to practice with the expectation that improvement would be as great as if they were engaged in guided practice with the teacher. The current findings suggest that improvement could also be expected from younger students under similar circumstances, although keeping students on-task might prove more difficult. Perhaps the most useful information for teachers yielded from the current study comes from the analysis of participants’ free practice. The fact that the participants who stopped to correct errors were mostly older students echoes previous findings that younger students tend to “play through” practice material without stopping to address problems. Six students in the free practice control group engaged in silent study; two of those six participants engaged in silent study exclusively without engaging in any other form of practice. It is unclear whether they were even studying at all, or whether they chose not to practice because they did not know how. This possibility underlines the importance of teachers spending time to teach their students how to employ specific practice strategies.
Suggestions for Future Researchers
In the Sikes study, results indicated that there were differences among performers as a result of instruments played. The current study involved a greater number of different instruments, but because of the
relatively small sample size within each instrument sample no comparisons between instruments was attempted. Future researchers should seek to include larger sample sizes of both homogenous and heterogeneous instrument groups. While the interjudge reliability in the current study (r =.65) was acceptable, it was on the low end of acceptance. Future researchers should attempt to replicate this study with more judges and strive for higher interjudge reliability. Because the rubric used in this study is also used for All-State Band auditions in Georgia, a study of the rubric’s reliability would not be inappropriate. The practice strategies tested in the current study were the same as in the Sikes study because the current study was an attempt at replication. However, future researchers may consider an expansion of these strategies. Playing the excerpt multiple times, for example, and as Sikes conceded, is not considered a highly analytical form of practice. Repeating small sections is also little more than repetition, especially if participants are not self-selecting the sections to practice. Gradually increasing the tempo may be more analytical than the other two strategies, but is also a form of repetition.
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to replicate the Sikes (2013) study to determine if the effects of specific practice strategy use on middle and high school band students’ performance are the same as the effects of the same strategies on university string players’ performance. Results indicated, as in the Sikes study, that all strategies tested were effective, resulting in significantly improved performances. As additional research is completed in the area of musical practice, practitioners and researchers can become better informed of various factors that may influence students’ practice habits and, by extension, their musical performances.
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SAM SIMON earned the Bachelor of Music degree from Berry College
and the Master of Music Education and Doctor of Education degrees from the University of Georgia. He is currently the band director at Excel Christian Academy in Cartersville where he has taught band since 2003.
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georgia music news // spring 2017