Expressive Movement of High School Choral Musicians
Author: Rohwer, Debbie
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Music,Music Education,Females,Musicians,Movement Education,Correlation,High School Students,Singing,Music Teachers,Human Body,Performance,Grade 10,Grade 11,Grade 12,Music Techniques,Rating Scales,Scores,Music Activities,Listening,Nonverbal Communication,Perception

There is a need for a musical ensemble study that can describe the idiosyncratic, authentic movements that choral musicians make in a performance setting. In addition, it could benefit teachers to know whether those who score highest on a measure of expressive performance also tend to be strong performers. If this is the case, then the link between these two components can be highlighted in a systematic, strategic way. If there is little to no correlation between movement and performance, then teachers may help students more by sequencing these instructional issues separately. The purposes of the current study were the following: (1) to describe the expressive movements; and (2) to investigate the relationship between expressive movement and performance achievement for a group of high school choral musicians. The 23 participants were a convenience sample of female choral musicians in one Texas 5A high school. The females were sophomores (n = 5), juniors (n = 12) and seniors (n = 6) in a varsity women's choir. The current study measured performance achievement in a blind audition format, and measured expression in a contextual group format in a dress rehearsal situation. Three judges scored the audition using a 70-point rating scale that assessed tone, intonation, accuracy, musicianship, and technique; interjudge reliability across the judges was high (ICC = 0.97). For the movement measurement, individual participants were videotaped performing a dress rehearsal of a choral piece in a group women's choir setting. Videotaping was a normal part of the rehearsals for this choir and the students were not made aware that the purpose of the videotaping was to document movement. The videos were analyzed using a 70-point rating scale that assessed movement appropriateness, synchronization, and expression. The primary author adjudicated the 23 video performances, and an external judge evaluated a subgroup of the performances as a reliability assessment. Interjudge reliability with the summed scores of 10 of the movement performances for the primary author and an external judge documented acceptable reliability (r = 0.81). To answer research purpose one, the following descriptive questions were answered: (1) What body parts did the choir student move?; (2) How large were the movements; and (3) Where in the music were the movements made? To answer research purpose two, an interval-to-interval level bivariate correlation (Pearson) was calculated between the summed expression scores and the summed audition scores. For the three expressive movement subsections (appropriateness, synchronization, and expression), appropriateness scores ranged from 0 to 11 out of a possible 15 (M = 3.91, SD = 2.94), synchronization scores ranged from 0 to 15 out of a possible 15 (M = 6.57, SD = 4.61) and expression scores ranged from 0 to 33 out of a possible 40 (M = 7.04, SD = 8.19). Those students who scored high on appropriateness also tended to score high on synchronization (r = 0.94), and expression (r = 0.86). Those students who scored high on synchronization also had a tendency to score high on expression (r = 0.77). There was a small, positive, non-significant relationship between movement and audition scores (r = 0.12, p = 0.57, r[superscript 2] = 0.14). It needs to be cautioned that the findings of the current study may not be generalizable to other settings because the sample size was small, only females were measured, and only a rhythmic piece was used to document movement. [Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Texas Music Educators Association (San Antonio, TX, Feb 2014).]