The effects of computer software format on the musical composition process of adolescents

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether differing composition software formats, personality, and gender affect the psychological approach that middle school students employed in their compositions. The subjects (N = 77) were seventh and eighth grade band students enrolled in a Western middle school. The subjects were administered the Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children (MMTIC) to determine their dominant personality function. Upon the completion of the personality inventory, subjects were given a 30 minute exploratory period using the iconic and standard notation composition software formats. Two compositions were created by the subjects in subsequent class periods using Making Music, the iconic format, and Making More Music, the standard notation composition format. Upon the completion of each composition the subjects were administered the Measure of Psychological Approach toward Composition to determine which dominant psychological approach was used to create their composition. Descriptive statistics and the chi-square statistical test were used to determine the relationship between the independent variables and the psychological approaches used by the subjects. The findings of the study indicate that middle school students employ one of the four psychological approaches observed by Carbon (1986) as their dominant approach toward composition. Most often the intuitive approach was utilized by the subjects, followed by feeling, thinking, and sensing. Furthermore, the relationship between the psychological approach employed by the subjects and the computer software format used during the composition process were found to be significant This finding suggests that middle school subjects are likely to employ the same psychological approach toward composition when using either an iconic or standard notation software format. As indexed by Cramer's statistic, the strength of the relationship was .41 with a .90 level of power of as determined by the Population Fourfold Point Correlation Coefficient. Additional findings indicate that personality and gender were not related to the psychological approaches employed in the subject's compositions.