Discrimination of Tonal Direction on Verbal and Nonverbal Tasks by First Grade Children

This study investigated the ability of first grade children to discriminate tonal direction on verbal and nonverbal tasks. The verbal tasks required the children to mark a written word on an answer sheet indicating discrimination between paired tonal patterns, and to give spoken verbal descriptions of the tonal direction of patterns they had played or heard. Children were allowed to use their own vocabulary in their descriptions. The nonverbal tasks required the children to play tonal patterns on resonator bells that matched those played by the investigator. Subjects scored significantly higher on the nonverbal tasks than on the verbal tasks. They scored significatly higher on the written tests than on the spoken tests. Many of these children could perceive differences in tonal patterns and could match directional patterns without being able to verbalize the concept of tonal direction using traditional music terminology.