Multiple memory systems in instrumental music learning

Date
2025
DOI
Authors
Heath, Karen Louise
Version
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Playing a musical instrument involves the simultaneous expression or performance of several cognitive functions, including motor actions, visual and auditory processing, working temporal-spatial processing, and sensorimotor awareness. To explore relationships between discrete skills in music learning and how performance can all occur at the same time, this constructivist grounded theory (GT) study explored learning phenomena of beginner instrumental music students (n = 15) through the lens of the multiple memory systems theory and its two major memory class systems of explicit and implicit memory. In addition to the multiple memory system model, special focus was given to working memory, an explicit memory operant in which conscious processing and synthesis of information occurs, and automaticity, the immediate recall or action through the implicit memory system. Three major themes emerged in the analysis phase of the study, resulting in the synthesis of a new theory for instrumental music education: the multiple memory music learning (MMML) framework. The first theme central to MMML, automatic music learning, illustrates how automaticity appears to occur within the short-term memory paradigm when learning an instrument. This phenomenon challenges the current viewpoint in neuroscientific and psychological literature that automaticity only exists as a long-term memory function. The second theme, contextual music learning, relates to context-dependent learning outcomes, and the third theme, music learning sequencing and attentional behavior, pertains to the order in which learning events took place and how these orders influence performance outcomes. Although further research is recommended, the results of the study suggest that MMML could be a valuable framework for understanding cognitive and memory functioning for instrumental music students.
Description
License
Attribution 4.0 International