The Effect of the Tuning System and Instrument Variables on Modal Dictation Performance

Abstract

Ear training and musical literacy (ETML) education is one of the main dimensions of the bachelor degree program of music teacher education departments, which provides professional music education. In ETML education, hearing, sight-reading and dictation studies for Turkish music makams have an important place. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the effects of different instrument sources and tuning systems; namely, equal tempered or traditionally tempered, on the modal dictation performances of students in dictation exercises in the scope of ETML education. This research was conducted with 56 bachelor degree music education students who were taking ETML course. While equal tempered and traditional instruments (piano and kanun) were used as the sound source in the research, examples of equal difficulty level in Huseyni makam scale, which is one of the main makams of Turkish music, were used as dictation material. Both instruments were tuned in accordance with both the equal temperament and the traditional makam system so that four different dictation types were created. As a result of the research, it has been determined that the students are more successful when piano is used in dictation than kanun-dictated trials and in terms of tuning system, the students are found to be more successful with equal tempered system when compared with traditional tuning system. The instrument and tuning interaction was not statistically significant.