Chapter II:
Review of Related Literature
This chapter aims to cater significant studies related to the topic, which is the music preference of high school students. The discussion of the nature of music, its uses, history, and the importance of music listening is prioritized. Studies regarding music preferences according to age, socio-economic status, gender and environment are also cited. There are also different theories which support the music preference of an individual like LeBlanc’s interactive theory of music preference, the Reciprocal feedback model of musical response (Hargreaves, Miell, and MacDonald theory) and Piaget’s Cognitive Stage Theory. The aforementioned topics will be expounded as the main topic progresses.
What is Music?
Music contributes to the music of life. Music is not the only thing that makes our lives more than physical existence, of course, but it plays a significant role in enriching human expression and feeling (Hoffer, 2008). Hoffer adds that human beings need music as a component to acquire a meaningful life. This component, which is music, may mean a lot of things that people themselves cannot explain.
Music is an art for some, while others perceive it as something that is acceptable to the harmonious qualities of music. Music is so wide that people are having a hard time defining it in the simplest words. Despite its indefinable nature, it plays a very important role in the human life (De Erio & Halasan, 2010, p.2). In music, the main essence of its words or lyrics is to soothe, cleanse or give diversification to one’s life. (Licup & Rendon, 2010).
History of Music:
Human life, in one way or another, is anchored to music. The reinterpretation of ancient civilizations from drawings and remnants of ancient instruments, the primitive tribes which are still present today and the research of early civilizations supplied important facts about the history of music (Miller, 1971, p.3). These facts were still insufficient in the study of the history of music.
To the limited knowledge of scholars, music may have been born because (1) it may have been a medium for communication; (2) it is related with “work rhythms”; (3) of its relation to the expression of one’s feelings. The use of music in the ancient times was linked to different things, and the most highlighted among these was for festivals and religious ceremonies. (Miller, 1971, p.3)
Music listening:
A composer uses music as a tool for expression of emotions and ideas nowadays. He uses this as a medium of communication. The listener is equally as important to the process of making music. They share the ideas of the composer, and thus have a musical experience (Ulrich, 1957, p.3). It is up to the listener to further evaluate a certain type of music, so it is expected that different listeners respond to different types of music.
Duclos (cited from Machlis, 1963, p.3) said that “people vary greatly in their way to responding music”. The art of listening may vary greatly among different types of people. He said that it must unite the mental and emotional state of the listeners (from Machlis, 1963, p.3).
Listening to music creates memories in one’s mind. It is how we interpret and perceive music. According to Krumshanl, if we are into music, we hear the sounded element that connects us to it as cited from Licup & Rendon (2010).
The listener develops a certain connection with the music which makes it more enjoyable for him/her. They can jive through the lyrics and feel so comfortable, delightful and satisfying singing it (Hoffer, 2008).
The main goal of music appreciation is to hope that people tend to increase knowledge in music so that enormous feelings grow and the levels of competence increase to make it a cycle. A continuous cycle that puts positive attitudes, moral values, strong knowledge together. Thus, music has a function to the people who listen to it. (Hoffer, 2008)
Studies of music preference
Musical preferences and practices play an important role in the negotiation of gender norms, sexual orientation, racial identification, class allegiance and construction of identity (Gunn, Education notes: Music and Summer Culture Experts)
Age
In an article by Hugh (n.d,) says that “music preference of different age listeners harden with age” (para 1). He cites that the musical preferences of first and second graders in American society are often changing and diverse than those of high school students. There are also reasons why educators should know and influence their student’s music preference. As conceded by him, musical styles are closely linked with the subgroups within societies that make them. Second, American society tend to enjoy different musical styles. Third, the masses usually like one kind of music, so students should be subjected to different kinds of music while they are young. Lastly, exposure of various types of music would enhance their musical abilities and understanding. Regardless of this, other people, especially educators can still influence and change the music preferences of their students.
The world of music revolves around the music preferences of students depending on their standards which counters the statement of Hugh’s. Teenagers use music to gather information from home, school and peers. Music is used to gain friends and to acquire a unique characteristic in individuals (Droe, 2006, p.23).
Personality
“Most people consider music to be a very important part of students’ lives and believe that their preferences reveal information about who they are,” Rentfrow (2003) said. Thus listening to the choice of music reveals the personality of the students.
Marigsa (1979) emphasized the importance of music in personality, as quoted from the Music Educator’s Journal:
Music is the most powerful instrument in developing personality. The heart and soul listen, taste, see, touch, smell its message so that the whole act of indulging in it becomes a living experience. It has a bodily or physiological effect although more or less indirect. The most noticeable effect of music is in the emotions.
Stephen Dollinger (1993) found out that music preferences are diverse. A well known psychologist from Durham, Stephanie Pinder-Amaker (cited from Dollinger), said that music can influence a person's state of mind. In her studies she found that "if people listen to music that is faster than their heart rate, such as heavy metal, it increases the heart rate. If you're trying to increase your energy level, it might be a good way to generate excitement” (Dollinger, 1993). These show that the type of music has its own reputation to the listeners.
Another recent survey done by the University of Iowa reported that teenage female hard rock fans thought about suicide more often than people that listened to other types of music. On the brighter side, when the teenager was feeling bad and low, listening to his or her best-loved music helped him or her feel better again. Furthermore, the appreciation a kind of music can heighten the feelings of a person. (cited from Dollinger, 1993)
From the data gathered by Gosling and Rentfrow (2003) test of music preference as cited by Gerrow (2003), people who like reflective and complex music (classical, jazz, folk and blues), most likely are investigative, and adventurers. In upbeat and conventional music (country, religious, pop), admirers are thoughtful, attractive and moralistic. Enthusiasts are appealing, full of life, and are conversational types of people when they listen to energetic and rhythmic (funk, hip-hop, soul and electronic) music. As cited by Gerrow (2003), Gosling said that “music preferences can be used to make self-directed identity claims.
In the “Survey of the use and music preference of the college students of the University of the Philippines Cebu college”, De Erio and Halasan (2010) ranked the preferred music genre of the students and noted its use. This study is significant in the fields of music psychology and musicology, thus, putting up a great avenue for understanding human choice. The method used in acquiring data was in a questionnaire form. They concluded that people prefer different music genres because of the uniqueness an individual posesses. “Music is believed to determine a person’s identity through his/her preferred music.” Music can be very significant for some people while it can be just an “escape” for others. (De Erio and Halasan , 2010, p.4).
As cited from De Erio and Halasan (2010), Daniel Levitin, stated that “Music preferences are based to a great extent on familiarity and novelty, simplicity and complexity, and generally, we prefer music that is similar to what we liked before.” (p.4)
Gender
Males like the music played at a loud volume compared to females. This factor may contribute to the difference of music preference between genders. (Buta, 2001)
As cited from Buta (2001), Straum and Broton state that “males and females prefer soft music for relaxation purposes”. On the long run, Stratton and Zalanowski realized that “people may have different reasons for choosing to listen to music when experiencing negative emotions, but regardless of the reason, people would be most likely to choose to listen to music which is emotionally meaningful and moving.” (Cited from Buta, 2001)
Environment
As cited from Droe (2006), Anthony focused on the music preference in the Iowa public schools. Most likely, students in “low public schools” participate in bands. The two main reasons for them to join bands were because of the enjoyment and the happiness that they felt. On another note, Anthony said that students’ preferences affect many aspects of their experience (Droe, 2006, p.23).
In another study, Fisher and Herkes, cited from the work of Buta, (2001) realized that from seventh grade to the end of high school, American adolescents spend 10,500 hours of music. This phenomenon is due to radio-media invasion.
In another research entitled “Survey on the preference of University of the Philippines Cebu College Sophomore students between American Pop music and Filipino Pop music” by Abenoja & Gases (2010), the research revealed that the preference factor influences the music preference of the students. Personal preference takes over each of our own interests. This applies that in decision-making, his/her personal preferences are particularly part of the results.
Influences from groups of people also affect one’s choice of music. The Social Impact theory states that the likelihood that a person will respond to social influence will increase with how important and how close the influencing group of people are to the person according to Latane & Changing Minds, as cited from Abenoja & Gases (2010).
The media influence plays a big part on affecting one’s music preference. Filipinos are fond of watching televisions, listening to the radio, surfing the net or other media connections, the media is used to extend music to every Filipino Another factor is the normative social influence wherein there are certain norms in the society that people wanted to fit in. As a matter of fact, families and friends give impact to this normative social factor (Abenoja, Gases, p.5).
Electronic devices present nowadays hasten the influence of music in Musical Involvement: A guide to Perspective Listening (Funes & Munson, 1975):
It hardly seems an overstatement to say that the microphone, amplifier, speaker, tape recorder, and synthesizer are the most significant musical resources of the twentieth century. They create, transform and disseminate sound in waves that affect our entire musical experience.
In a research entitled “Survey on the Factors Affecting the Preference of the 2nd Year students in the University of the Philippines- Cebu College with Cebuano songs from 2005- 2009” by Licup & Rendon (2010), Cebuano songs are tallied and categorized to the genre that is most preferred by the students. The respondents of this survey are teenagers. Among the four genres of Cebuano songs which are OPM, Rock & Rap, Pop and Classic, OPM was the favorite of the respondents. Thus, OPM songs have positive attitude towards the respondents.
One of the reasons for choosing Cebuano songs is that they can relate to the language being used. They also liked it because they can reflect to the emotion and feeling brought by the songs and in some cases, they liked it because their friends liked it too. The respondents also didn’t thought too much of the message contained by the song. (Licup & Rendon, 2010)
In his research entitled “Determinants of Music Preference” (Shafer, 2008), music has been dealt quite shallowly by a lot of scientists. Music has become one of those areas wherein psychological findings were insufficient and lacking because of its subjectivity. Although music revealed insights about aesthetics, social behaviour and emotional processes (LeBlanc, 1982) it still cannot be investigated in an objective manner.
Music listening help in discovering psychological processes, so scientists took interest in this field. On the other hand, information on music preference is still inadequate for scientists to develop strong theories. Schafer (2008) also said that a theory on music preference is needed to integrate all the information and “to gain a deeper understanding of why we listen to music at all which may, in turn, help to understand the role of music in human evolution.” (p.2)
A problem that baffled music psychologists is on how to explain the assortment of answers of people when asked about their music preference and on their explanation on why they like a certain type of music than the other.
Many research papers and books have come to the same conclusion that music preference is the level of appreciating a music genre and the whole package of the piece than others.
According to Thomas Schäfer (2008), the two dimensions of music preference are type and strength. The musical style that a person likes best defines the type of preference. The degree of a person’s likeness towards a certain musical piece defines the strength of preference (p.12).
On the other hand, Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) said that people can choose what they are appreciating in several levels “specific songs, bands or artists, subgenres (e.g., jungle), genres (e.g., rap), or general musical attitudes (e.g., relaxing music)” (p. 4). People like through their inclined music genres. So, they bring to mind that music genre plays an important role in people’s music preference. Therefore, music preference can be measured by music genre.
In the same manner, Müller (cited from Shafer, 2008) stated that music preference can be measured as either verbal or sounding preference. He defined “verbal preferences as to which respondents are asked to think of a certain musical piece or style and rate how much they like it” (p. 5). On the contrary, “sounding preference refers as to which respondents are to listen to concrete musical pieces and then rate how much they enjoyed it”(p. 5). However, surveys have shown that preference was measured verbally.
In an article, Grant (2005) reported that music motivates individuals to do things which they find hard to do. They may listen to a certain type of music because of environmental factors, but this doesn’t hold true to everyone. “Race, age, sex and socio-economic status” does not imply the music preference of an individual (para 3). She concluded that “everyone is an individual and likes their own personal genre of music.” (para 5)
A person’s personality may affect his/her music preference, as well as gender, race, ethnicity, age, educational attainment, income, geography and marital status. (De Erio, Halasan, 2010, p.5). This contradicts to what Grant (2005) says.
Theories of music preference:
· LeBlanc’s interactive theory of music preference
According to Le Blanc’s (1982) Interactive Theory of Music Preference, the selection of music is influenced by the relationship and the interaction between the various factors – (gender, age, personality, ethnic group, socio-economic status, musical ability and training) that can be checked into thoroughly. The interaction between the different levels of music, listener and context are integrated in a hierarchical process. In this manner, factors of different levels interact with each factor within the hierarchy such as influences of the family and friends.
· Reciprocal feedback model of musical response (Hargreaves, Miell, and MacDonald theory)
In association with Le Blanc’s work (1982), Miell, MacDonald and Hargreaves also formulated their theory of music preference. They believed that music and the one who listens to it had an immediate connection. This connection brought about by the listener and the music helps explain that music preference changes all over time.
Integration between Music preferences and types of schools:
· Piaget’s Cognitive Stage Theory
It states that there are three factors that affect development. These are physical maturation, physical environment and social experience. Physical environment refers to reflecting own actions on the objects rather than on the objects themselves. Then, social experience refers to the effect of cultural or educational environment. Individuals staying on different environments tend to have different interest in music.
Types of School
There is also a need to include the types of schools that the researchers are currently studying on. Seemingly, high schools in the Philippines are classified according to the level and type of curriculum.
The type of school is a part of the environment that influences the behaviour of the students. He/She spends most of his/her time in school. Different type of schools mean different environment. Different environment may cause a significant change of the music preference of the students.
Public high schools are run by the Department of Education. Tuitions are provided by the government and miscellaneous fees are being paid by the students for the school’s activities and other facilities used by them. On the contrary, private catholic schools are supported by religious organizations. These schools are sectarian, charitable and non-stock run by priests or nuns. Lastly, the special science high schools that are coordinated by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) grant free-scholarships on students who excel both in academics and in extra-curricular.
Overall, the music plays an integral part of our lives. According to the studies presented on the different papers that we have gathered, music preference is influenced by the environment.
Students spend most of their time in school, so the school may serves as a medium in transmitting music. The personal preference of the students themselves can also be a great factor in choosing their music preferences.
