Repetition as a Factor in the Development of Musical Preferences

LDUCATIONAL THOUGHT in recent years has focused on the ways and means of teaching the most fundamental aspects of the m!ajor disciplines. Music education has responded by engaging in a serious and prolonged debate about the nature and value of music and the teaching of music. One view of the present position of music education in this debate is summarized by Bennett Reimer: "The most fundamental value of music is its ability to give aesthetic insights through a particular kind of experience of music: aesthetic experience. The primary function of music education, is therefore, to develop the ability of every child to have aesthetic experience in music.''l It is not difficult to find agreement with this viewpoint. Robertson, for example, states that the most important consideration in music education is the development of attitudes and appreciation: "It is not too far-reaching to assert that all music educaiion aims at developing an appreciation for musicraining for music a foothold in the student's life and broadening this foothold to the point that the student will continue to seek musical experiences and find valuable pleasure and aesthetic satisfaction in so doing."2 Educational psychology, too, has begun to-emphasize the attitudinal aspects of education, particularly in explaining such phenomena as the development of value judgments, aesthetic attitudes, and preferential responses. From Kingsley there is the assertion that "What one enjoys is determined in a large measure by training and experience. The attitude of appreciation and enjoyment is like other attitudes, developed through learning. The school can and should enrich the lives of its pupils by the cultivation of attitudes that predispose them toward appreciative response."3 While no one disagrees with the idea that training affects the type of listening response, the degree to which such training reinforces or