A Study In Differences Of Musical Preference Among Pre-school Children

The music can help children knowing the world and expressing themselves, and furthermore, the music can develop the body and mind a lot in a pleasant way. Through the study of children's music preference, we can stimulate their interest in learning, and help them to get better educated. The study adopts "natural" music materials and "experimental" testing methods. The purpose in studying is that through the investigation on the preference of children between the mono-melody elements and multi-global elements, and the affect of difference in age, gender and temperament to the preference, we can supply the helpful instrument for the innovation of pre-school music multi-education. The dissertation is divided into four chapters. The Chapter Two and Chapter Three are the main bodies of the dissertation. The Chapter One studies the background and construction. In this chapter, the definition music preference, the significance of studying and the instrument of preference measuring have been briefly introduced, and the associated studies in music preference over the world have been thoroughly reviewed. Based on the affirmation of study fruits in music preference, not only the common shortages presently existing in music preference study field domestically and globally have been brought forward — the attention degree to pre-school children object being relatively weak, but also the respective shortages have been brought forward. Relative to the enormous study overseas, the prominent problem in few domestic studies of music preference lies in the shortage of scientific study method. Besides the affirmation of enormous overseas studies, the dissertation also puts forward cross-culture adaptability of associated study fruits. The consideration regarding existing problems in music preference study is just where the origin and significance of concrete study contents and methods comes from.The Chapter Two studies the individual difference in Chinese traditional five-tone mode preference of pre-school children. Under the Chinese traditional five-tone mode, the dissertation investigates the "Mode", "Vocal register" and "Tempo" three elements of mono-melody elements, and for taking the possible influences to children's music preference imposed by characteristics of children's age, gender and temperament style into account, the dissertation also investigates these three different factors. The highlight of dissertation lies in investigating the pre-school children's preference difference to Chinese traditional five-tone mode, and investigates the adaptability of the study results of these three music elements by Western major-minor mode being applied into Chinese traditional five-tone mode. The results of MANOVA indicate that there are no significant differences in pre-school children's preference to Chinese traditional five-tone mode of five genres in general, but to extent, the preference degree of pre-school children to "Yu-tone" is the highest, and to "Gong-tone" is the lowest. When investigating the "Tempo" and "Vocal register" melody elements individually, the pre-school children prefer the melodies of "faster tempo" and "higher vocal register". This conclusion is consistent with the associated study results of Western. There are age differences but no gender and temperament differences in degree of preferences to the presentation style of "Tempo" and "Vocal register" combination.The Chapter Three studies the individual difference in Accompanied style preference of pre-school children. Besides the consideration of "Mode" and "Range" in mono-melody elements, the dissertation takes the pre-school children's preference to "Style" in multi-global elements. The pre-school children's age, gender and temperament style differences also have been investigated in the dissertation. The highlight of the dissertation lies in investigating the pre-school children's preference to music style from the angle of music accompanying; therefore, the difficulties in influences imposed by music melody non-relative variables during music style preference study have been overcome. Meanwhile, the dissertation selects the music accompanying style same as the one in Brittin Ruth V (2000), and therefore to investigate the applicability of results in cross-culture. The result of MANOVA indicates that there are some influences imposed by the Eastern and Western culture to the music style preference of pre-school children, and the dissertation draws the conclusion much different from the one of Western study which mainly focusing on the preference degree of Samba and Piano accompanying styles. Furthermore, the study also discovers that there are some influences imposed by gender difference to the music style preference of pre-school children, but not imposed by the age and temperament style elements.The Chapter Four studies the revelations and recommendations. Based on the summarization of study results, this Chapter puts forward some feasible recommendations in music activities of kindergartens— especially in the material choices, presentation and presentation ways during music appreciation. This dissertation also puts forward some useful revelations in changing the adverse situation of domestic children's music composing field from the angles of how to walk out the slough in children's music composing and how to revive the old songs.