Relationships Between Melodic Error Detection, Melodic Dictation, and Melodic Sightsinging

This study investigated the competencies of undergraduate music majors in the three aural skills of melodic error detection, melodic dictation, and melodic sightsinging. Three criterion-referenced aural tasks were developed for comparative evaluation of these competencies within the single musical parameter of pitch for diatonic, chromatic, and “atonal” melodic styles. Significant relationships were obtained among nearly all task and subtask scores, although the relationships were generally higher between error detection and dictation scores than between error detection and sightsinging scores. It also was found that differing melodic styles affected task difficulty but did not have an appreciably different effect upon the relationships between tasks.