Abstract

The work-on-progress reported here attempts to discover if the audition of music notation by means of a score editor software has an effect in the users’ musical achievement operativized as the ability to imaging rhythm and/or pitch sequences in listening, reading and writing tasks. Also, the study tried to know the users’ perceptions about the role of music score editor programs in their musical instruction. In order to collect quantitative and qualitative data, the same studies were carried out on two different populations; one of them with pupils of Elementary level at the Conservatory of La Rioja (age 8-14; predominantly females). The second study was carried out with students studying for Music Teaching Certification at the University of La Rioja, Spain (age 19-24; predominantly females). The study consisted of two phases: one quasi-experimental contrasting experimental and control groups, the other qualitative based in semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data did not show very much improvement in the hearing of written musical notation in building mental sound images of rhythms and intervals. A significant difference was found in the results of the Conservatory experimental group, which obtained differences in completing incomplete rhythm patterns and completing incomplete pitch patterns (without rhythm values). In contrast, qualitative data shows strong users’ preferences for using a score editor software in their initial music instruction because it offered the capacity to immediately hear music transcriptions of the Solfége’ studies.