Effect on visual and auditory applications musical reading in solfeggio education

This study was conducted with the aim of presenting a new method involving the support of auditory and visual computer applications to help the students to see the level of correctness of their sight reading performance regarding the melodic curve and to give them feedback using the students' own voice via reference monitors in real time. The study group consisted of the 24 freshman students receiving Musical Hearing, reading and writing I-II classes during their first year at Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University, Faculty of Education, Music Education Programme. Using the mixed design to collect more than one type of data both in the field of education and social sciences the studies' findings were based on the data collected by using both pre-test post – test experimental design as part of the quantitive research method and structured open ended questions used as part of the qualitative research design. Subjects were chosen and assigned to experimental (n=12) and control (n=12) groups by using simple random sampling and The of Performance Assessment in Musical reading developed by Özdemir (2012) and presented in his doctorate dissertation titled "Designing a performance assessment scale for musical reading (solfeggio) was used along with the structured questions prepared by the researcher by surveying the related literature and an expert opinion form. For data analysis, Mann-Whitney U test was used as a non-parametric test to compare both groups' pre-test post-test averages and to see whether there is a significant difference between the pre-test and post –test and wilcoxon test was used for independent samples to compare the pre-test and post-test scores. As the treatment, a 10 week training programme for 4 hours a week prepared separately both for the experimental and control groups. The experimental group was received solfeggio training with computer supported visual and auditory feedback and the control group received their training in a traditional sense. Findings of the study showed that, experimental group's post-test scores were higher than the pre-test and this significant difference in favor of the computer supported treatment with visual and auditory feedbacks and according to the analysis of the responses to open enden questions visual and auditory applications had a positive effect on subjects' performances. Considering the findings of the study, it was concluded that, computer supported visual and auditory applications significantly contributed to the subjects' sight reading and vocalisation skills and expanded their perception and therefore it was effective in solfeggio training. Based on the findings of the study, it is suggested for the educators in this field to utilize the computer softwares related to sight singing and it is also advised for the students to get feedback by listening to thier own voices in real time and for institutions to establish computer supported sight-singing studios particularly set up for sight-reading and sight-singing instruction. Keywords: Musical Hearing, Solfeggio, Computer Softwares, Visual Learning, Auditory Learning.