Authors:
Katsuko T. Nakahira
and
Muneo Kitajima
Affiliation:
Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan
Keyword(s):
Competency Level Evaluation, Reading Musical Score, User Profiling.
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to understand relationships between reading behavior and the level of difficulty of a musical score. The method consists of the following three steps: (1) construct a model for musical score reading behavior based on the cognitive-behavioral science approach, (2) estimate the musical score reading behavior in terms of the degree of “smoothness” for measuring the degree of matching of the musical score with the level of competency of the student, and (3) conduct an examination from the point of reasonability. The model has three components: objects, perceptual-cognitive-motor processes, and memory. The model suggested that the most critical for success is that a person is able to retrieve relevant information from long-term memory and the number of objects, k, he/she can acquire within a unit field of view. It would depend on the amount of experience studying music, talent, and so on. Individual differences should appear in the mean and
/or median duration times of the field of view, tMean/tMed , which should be proportional to the latencies of the processes of searching for relevant information from long-term memory. The model-based evaluation is done by taking into account the following five parameters: the number of notes, rests, accidentals, meter/velocity, and the other musical symbols. A concrete configuration of the parameter values determines the ideal cognitive duration time tcog per field of view for each k. With tcog, k, tMean, tMed , we do step (3). The verification indicates that the proposed estimation procedure should be effective to evaluate the level of difficulty of musical scores perceived by an individual person.
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