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Effect of Melodic Rhythm on Elementary Students' and College Undergraduates' Perceptions of Relative Tempo

The present study examined the effect of melodic rhythm on the perception of tempo in music. Three hundred fourth graders (n = 100), fifth graders (n = 100), and undergraduate nonmusic majors (n = 100) heard 36 pairs of brief musical examples and indicated whether the second example in each pair was “faster,” “slower,” or “neither faster nor slower” than the first example in the pair. Musical excerpts were four variations of a chaconne theme in which the upper voices moved in quarter-note, eighth-note, eighth-note triplet, or sixteenth-note values. Each variation was scored in four voices and presented via microcomputer at two different tempi: MM = 100 and MM = 112. The perception of relative tempo was significantly affected by melodic rhythm (p < .001), which indicates that subjects responded to the melodic rhythm as well as the beat when making tempo judgments. The results seem important in relation to perception, performance, and the teaching of music to young children.