Musical preference and music education: Musical preferences of Turkish university students and their levels in genre identification

The aim of this study was to investigate if there is any relationship between musical preference, genre identification and frequency of listening to music genres, and whether musical training and gender played a role in these factors. A total of 205 college music and non-music majors recorded their preference for 13 music excerpts in popular, non-popular and Turkish Music genres. Results suggested that students’ musical preference, frequency of listening to music genres and their levels of accuracy in genre identification showed significant differences by gender and musical training. Music students favored Rock and Metal music more, whereas students not studying music enjoyed excerpts of the Traditional Turkish Art Music and Reggae. Furthermore, results also suggested that while female students preferred Jazz, Latin, Reggae and Western music more, male students favored the excerpts of Rock and Metal music more. As a result of the correlation analysis, a statistically significant relationship was found between the students’ musical preferences and the frequency with which they listened to that music.