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Developing a Tool for Music Theory Placement: An Emphasis on Implicitly Learned Abilities

Addressing the disparate levels of aural skills that students may have acquired through their daily musical experiences prior to formal schooling can be difficult. Placement tests within the Western classical musical tradition typically involve structural decoding and formal concepts of elementary music theory. In this manuscript, we discuss the development of a music placement evaluation for beginner students (N = 539) involved in the ear training and music theory classes of a university outreach program. The measure consisted of 12 aural skills tasks inspired by the principles of Serafine’s music development model that assessed knowledge acquired from daily music experiences without stressing the formal nomenclature of music theory. Stimuli were comprised of temporal (idiomatic construction and textural abstraction) and nontemporal processes (melodic closure, harmonic closure, transformation, and hierarchical levels) according to Serafine’s model. The comprehension of tempo, register, and melodic contours also was evaluated. The use of real music excerpts, some of which likely belonged to students’ own repertoires, may have helped the students to concentrate on the cognitive/aural tasks. The implications of this evaluation for music education are discussed.