Sound Before Symbol Strategies and Beginning Band Performance Skills

Abstract

Beginning instrumental instruction often ignores the common elementary pedagogical practice of teaching by sound before symbol, instead focusing on learning through notation. This paper provides a literature review of peer-reviewed, correlational, and experimental control-group studies, that examine the effects of sound before symbol teaching strategies on the development of beginning instrumentalists’ performance skills. Limited research on this question has been conducted; search results generated fourteen peer-reviewed studies and seven dissertations with beginning instrumentalists as participants. Research has found a significant relationship between using the sound before symbol strategies of tonal pattern training by ear, improvisation, echo, rote, and playing by ear, and the development of rhythmic, ear-playing, and sight-reading skills of beginning instrumentalists. Findings suggest that rhythm skills are efficiently developed when instruction includes melodic and rhythmic patterns that are taught by ear, and rhythmic accuracy increases with instruction without notation. Additionally, sight-reading skills have been found to increase as a result of learning tonal patterns by ear. Ear playing skills are also developed when tonal patterns are taught prior to introducing notation. The results of these studies suggest an opportunity for further research and provide guidance for changing curricular resources and pedagogical practices of beginning instrumental teachers.