Current issue

Since the early stages of piano learning, students are expected to practice at home in order to develop their performance skills. Given that practice is critical to develop musical expertise, the purpose of this study was to examine the practice habits of precollege piano students and the factors that affected their application of practice strategies. In this descriptive study, we used Sojump, an online survey program, to create and disseminate the questionnaire to the precollege piano students from the southeast region of China. The self-report questionnaire consisted of eight items related to practice habits, 18 items regarding practice strategies, and seven items related to demographic information. A total of 188 students (n = 188), aged from 6 to 16, completed the questionnaire. Respondents were asked to indicate the frequency of their practice habits, and the practice strategies they applied using a Likert-type scale anchored by 1 to 5. The most common applied practice strategy was starting to play slowly and then gradually speeding up. Results indicated significant positive correlations between some of the respondents’ self-reported practice habits and their years of learning, attained piano grade, and parental monitoring. Additionally, we found significant positive relationships between certain practice strategies used by respondents and their years of learning, attained piano grade, and parental monitoring. Implications for piano teachers are discussed, and suggestions for further investigations are provided.

Dysmusia, likely a type of dyslexia in the music domain, is of particular importance to piano students as the complexity of two-staff reading and coordination requirements of piano playing have led to teachers and students alike reporting and observing challenges. As research in this field has not yet expanded to measurement, our overarching aim was the proposal of a screening tool for dysmusia, first tested with young piano students without suspected dysmusia, that could contribute baseline data and reflect tentative relationships between the most reported dysmusia manifestations: music reading, music writing, and audiation. Twenty-four piano students completed tests on paired music reading and writing conditions, sight-reading, and audiation. The key findings were that participants with a higher level of music sight-reading proficiency performed more accurately on paired tests compared to the lower group, that the music reading tests were more difficult than the writing tests, and that music reading expertise had no significant bearing on audiation performance.