Effect of Tempo on Music Preferences of Children in

This study was designed to examine the effect of tempo on preference responses of kinder-garten to Grade 8 children. Listener age and gender were additional variables under consideration. In total, 996 subjects indicated preference opinions on pictographic Likert written response forms while listening to 15 excerpts of orchestral music from early Romantic opera. Two moderate and three fast musical examples were given the highest mean ratings. Spearman rank correlation indicated a positive significant relationship between tempo and preference (p <.01). Friedman analyses of variance revealed signif-icant differences in mean preference ratings for music of differing tempos within Grades 3-8 (p <. 01). Listener age was also indicated as a strong influence on overall prefer-ence ratings, with youngest children generally giving highest ratings. Results provide further support for the role of tempo and listener age in musical preference