THE EFFECT OF MUSIC EDUCATION TO MUSICAL HEARING AND TO HEARING SENSITIVITY

M. Kazkayasi¹, S. Özçelik², D. Çivitçi³

ENT Surgeon, Halkbank Health Center, ANKARA

Assist. Prof., Gazi University Education Faculty, Department of Music Education, ANKARA

Musical perception is the act of gaining meaning in the presence of musical stimuli. Perception of musical meaning results from awareness of and responsiveness to the undulations between intensity and release embodied in tonal and rhythmic movement. Listening is the basic musical activity and should lead to the development of the ability for tonal thinking. The skilled listener has learned to discriminate in matters of melody, rhythm, and tempo, and to apprehend large tonal patterns.

High frequency audiometry (HFA) defines hearing threshold for frequencies above 8 kHz. Its clinical application is not very widespread because of the common belief that the high frequencies play a secondary role in the perception of speech. Although the high frequency hearing range is not very important in daily life it is valuable from the diagnostic point of view. High-frequency hearing thresholds are important to find the pathologies in the basal region of the cochlea.

The aim of this study is to evaluate prospectively the changes over time in musical hearing and in hearing acuity in both the conventional and HFA audiometric ranges following two years of music education. For this purpose, thirty students of Gazi University Music Education Department (aged 17 to 23) were evaluated for hearing sensitivity within the conventional (250 to 8000 Hz) and high frequency audiometric range (10 to 18 kHz). Threshold data of the students in the admission to the faculty were compared to data after two years' education. The means and standard deviations of the differences between the first and second thresholds were calculated for each frequency. Hearing acuity of the students in the initial and final evaluation were not similar to each other.