Staff notation
The music for the tests was provided in three forms of staff notation:
· 1. with do clefs: the position of do (function, not pitch) is indicated on the stave[1]
· 2. with treble and bass clefs: the position of f or g’ (pitch) is indicated on the stave
· 3. with c clefs: the position of middle c (pitch) is indicated on the stave[2]
[2] Notation with c-clefs has been included, because some test persons may be familiar with this and many others may not. In the last case there is an extra complication in reading: there may be no certainty about the absolute pitch name. Will relative reading help? What strategies do the test persons use? Can this situation mimic the practice of ‘bad’ readers, who transpose between clefs all the time?
Description of the test material: scores in different forms of notation, on different levels, in different styles
Pieces from the music literature have been chosen (and not artificial test exercises), attempting to realise the connection to real musical understanding.[1] The music includes different style periods from Renaissance to the 20th century. The pieces feature various musical textures and concepts like homophony, polyphony, imitation, modal and (poly)-tonal harmonies, sequences and modulations.
Before the test persons started singing they could take some time to read through the music. A starting pitch and tempo for the beat were given.
Some of the scores are also written in stick notation, where decoding the notes on the five lines of the stave is eliminated from the reading process. This is done to test the direct relation between reading given note names (function or pitch) and sight singing. There is no visual information about the shape of a melody in the notation and rhythm and melody notation are separated in this form of music notation. I have only found stick notation being used in methods with relative note names (see methods from category A), but I have made versions with absolute note names for this test as well.