How to assess Music Training

Here are some tools to consider when assessing musical training and background for participants:

by Dr. Michael Gordon, Professor of Psychology, William Paterson University, Gordonm10@wpunj.edu

• Musical Sophistication Scale – Gold MSI(listed first given its widespread adoption)
  • Müllensiefen, D., Gingras, B., Musil, J., & Stewart, L. (2014). The musicality of non-musicians: An index for assessing musical sophistication in the general population.PLOS ONE, 9, e89642. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089642

• Ollen Music Sophistication Index (OMSI)
  • Ollen, J. E. (2006). A criterion-related validity test of selected indicators of musical sophistication using expert ratings [electronic resource]. Available at: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=osu1161705351&disposition=inline
  • Full instrument available here: http://marcs-survey.uws.edu.au/OMSI/

• Assessing Music Expertise: The Berlin Gehörbildung Scale
  • Lin, Z., Werner, A., Lindenberger, U., Brandmaier, A. M., & Wenger, E. (2021). Assessing music expertise: The Berlin Gehörbildung Scale.Music Perception, 38(4), 406–421. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2021.38.4.406

• The Edinburgh Lifetime Musical Experience Questionnaire
  • Okely, J. A., Deary, I. J., & Overy, K. (2021). The Edinburgh Lifetime Musical Experience Questionnaire (ELMEQ): Responses and non-musical correlates in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936.PLOS ONE, 16(7), e0254176. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254176

• Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Musical Abilities (MBEMA)
  • Peretz, I., Gosselin, N., Nan, Y., Caron-Caplette, E., Trehub, S. E., & Béland, R. (2013). A novel tool for evaluating children’s musical abilities across age and culture.Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 7, 30. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2013.00030

• Additionally, a very helpful resource is:
  • Ilari, B., & Habibi, A. (2023). The musician-nonmusician conundrum and developmental music research.In E. H. Margulis, P. Loui, & D. Loughridge (Eds.), The Science-Music Borderlands: Reckoning with the Past, Imagining the Future (pp. 329–345). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Free/open access]