The Effects of Choral Experience and Formal Music Training on Singing Achievement

An investigation was conducted on the song performance and melodic pitch matching skills of two groups of young adults. One group had received formal musical training but little choral experience, while the other group had not received any formal musical training but had more choral experience. All participants were evaluated on their performance to maintain tonality in song performance and their accuracy in echo-sing melodic patterns. Results suggest that choral experience and musical training have different effects on different types of criterion singing task. For melodic pitch-matching, subjects with formal music training performed significantly better than those who received no formal music training but had more choral experience. However, for song performance, subjects with more choral experience performed significantly better than those with formal music training but little choral experience. The findings imply that informal musical training, such as choral singing, might be considered comparable or even superior in fostering musical growth in certain context, such as song performance.