Music perception and short-term choral performance quality among university music students: a repeated-measures observational study

Perception of musical meaning, emotional character, rhythm, intonation, and expressive structure may contribute to choral interpretation, but their associations with short-term performance quality are difficult to separate from repertoire familiarity, language, musical difficulty, and technical singing skills. This study examined associations between students’ perception of choral repertoire and educator-rated performance quality across repeated performances of eight musical works. A repeated-measures observational study included 247 university music students from four choirs at Anyang Normal University and Henan University. Each participant evaluated eight choral works using brief piece-specific ratings of perceived meaning, emotional clarity, familiarity, expressiveness, rhythmic clarity, intonational clarity, and dynamic clarity. Musical perceptual ability was additionally assessed with the Micro-PROMS. Choral performances were independently evaluated by three trained choral educators using a five-domain rubric covering pitch and rhythmic accuracy, diction, ensemble coordination, vocal blending, and expressive interpretation. Because observations were repeated within students and pieces, linear mixed-effects models were fitted with participant and musical piece as random intercepts. Genre, presentation order, university, language familiarity, and prior familiarity with the piece were included as fixed effects. Higher perceived understanding of musical meaning was associated with higher overall performance scores (β = 3.84, 95% CI [3.21, 4.47], p < .001), as was greater perceived emotional clarity (β = 2.11, 95% CI [1.49, 2.73], p < .001). Prior familiarity was independently associated with performance (β = 2.46, 95% CI [1.74, 3.18], p < .001). Associations were stronger for expressive interpretation than for technical vocal blending. Genre differences in meaning and emotional-clarity ratings remained statistically detectable after adjustment, although substantial between-piece variability was observed. Inter-rater reliability for the performance rubric was good (ICC[2,k] = 0.86, 95% CI [0.83, 0.89]). Students who reported clearer understanding of a musical work tended to receive higher short-term choral performance ratings. The findings describe associations rather than causal effects and do not show that perceptual understanding can replace technical vocal training. Repertoire familiarity, language comprehension, and individual-piece characteristics should be considered when interpreting relationships between music perception and choral performance.