JRME 1992, VOLUME 40, NUMBER 4, PAGES 269-282 269

Thepurposeof this study was to measurethe relationshipbetweenhumorperceivedin music

and theself-reported musicpreference opinionsofsubjectsrepresentingfourdifferentage levels.
Weadministereda listening test composedof humorousand nonhumoroussong excerptsin
threepopularmusicstyles to 445subjectsinMichigan, Missouri,andPennsylvania. Maleand
female listenersin Grades3, 7, and 11 as well as collegeundergraduatesparticipatedin the
study. Perceptionof humor was largelya function of age, with youngerlistenersperceiving
significantlymorehumorthan olderones until age levelsbeganto approachadulthoodin the
uppergrades.Higherlevelsofperceivedhumorweresignificantlyassociatedwith higherlevels
ofpreference.Listenerage exerteda distinct influenceon overallpreferencescores,which were
highestwith theyoungestlisteners,werelowerin themiddleage-groups,and roseagain at the
collegelevel. Listenergenderwas influential in the case of somemusic examples.

Albert LeBlanc, Michigan State University

Wendy L Sims, Universityof Missouri-Columbia
Sue A. Malin, Lock Iaven University, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania
Carolyn Sherrill, Okemos,Michigan

Relationship between Humor

Perceived in Music and Preferences of
Different-Age Listeners
This study is part of a continuing series (LeBlanc, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982,
1987, 1988; LeBlanc, Colman, McCrary, Sherrill, & Malin, 1988; LeBlanc &
Cote, 1983; LeBlanc & McCrary, 1983; LeBlanc & Sherrill, 1986) intended to
present, test, and refine a formal theory about the development of individual
music-listening preferences. In each study of the series, we have observed the
behavior of our subjects while they were listening and marking preference
responses to recorded music excerpts. Although we have not permitted them
to talk or leave their desks during this procedure, we have done nothing else
to interfere with the nonverbal expression of their feelings about the music.
Our intention has been to keep the measurement situation as natural as pos-
sible, and we have used these behavior observations to check what our
listening test seems to be measuring and to form testable hypotheses for
future studies.

The authors would like to thank WilliamL. Schurk,Sound RecordingsArchivistat the

MusicLibrarySound RecordingsArchive,Bowling Green State University,BowlingGreen,
Ohio, for his assistance in obtaining recorded music examples. For copies of this article,
contact Albert LeBlanc, School of Music, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
48824-1043.

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270 LeBLANCETAL.

In several of our studies, we used traditional jazz music as listening examples.

While gathering data reported in LeBlanc and McCrary (1983; working with
subjects in Grades 5 and 6) and LeBlanc, Colman, McCrary, Sherrill, and Malin
(1988; with subjects in Grades 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and college), we noticed
that our subjects found certain instrumental techniques used in traditional jazz,
such as the "growl"performed on a soprano saxophone, the "smear"performed
on a trombone, or the use of a plunger mute on a trumpet, to be very humorous.
During the testing done in the studies reported in LeBlanc (1981; subjects in
Grade 5), LeBlanc and Cote (1983; subjects in Grades 5 and 6), and LeBlanc
and Sherrill (1986; subjects in Grades 4, 5, and 6), we observed that listeners
also considered certain vocal techniques to be humorous. These techniques
included the use of distorted voice quality, wide vibrato, scat singing, extreme
ranges, and unusual pronunciations.
In measurements taken over a period of years, we have noticed a striking
listener preference for music performed by Louis Armstrong and by Fats Waller
in each of our studies featuring their music. Both Armstrong and Waller are
well established as great jazz musicians, but we were also impressed by the fact
that both performers were considered to be accomplished humorists.
Although our subjects have shown pleasure upon hearing instrumental per-
formances by Armstrong and Waller, our observations have indicated that the
same subjects have tended to show even more pleasure when listening to vocal
excerpts by the same artists. Through observation, we have compared listener
response to a number of instrumental and vocal segments of the same songs
performed by Armstrong and by Waller, and the preference for vocal segments
has been surprisingly consistent. We have hypothesized that our subjects liked
the humorous style of vocal performance favored by Armstrong and Waller, as
well as the song lyrics themselves, which were often humorous.
We designed the study described in this article to test the hypothesis that
listeners prefer music excerpts that they perceive to be humorous. We sampled
male and female subjects at different grade levels to explore any effects that
a listener's gender or age might have on that person's perception of humor and
preference for humorous music.
Our search for related literature found no studies that directly pertained to this
one. Books byWolfenstein (1954), McGhee and Goldstein (1972), Feinberg (1978), and
McGhee and Chapman (1980) provided a grounding in the psychologicalapproach to
the study of humor and in children's humor. The effect of age on music preference
is relevant to this study, but this body of literature will not be reviewed here because
of its considerable size and because it has been discussed in detail in LeBlanc,
Colman, McCrary, Sherrill, and Malin (1988) and LeBlanc (1991, March).
We became fascinated, however, with one aspect of the age variable:I-largreaves's
(1982) concept of "open-earedness," which we operationally defined as a listener's
state of being ready and willing to approve of many different styles of music,
including unfamiliar styles. We wondered whether open-earedness might vary
across different-age samples of listeners, and we wondered if any pattern of
variation might be discernable. We thought that our listening tape, with its
older songs and diverse approaches to humor, might be sufficiently unfamiliar
to our subjects to serve as a measure of open-caredncss. In citing the following
relevant studies, we assumed that lower music preference opinions were asso-
ciated with less open-earedness, while higher music preference opinions were
associated with more open-earedncss.
May (1985) and Sims (1987) have published studies indicating an overall
decline in music preference opinions associated with increased listener age

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 JRME 271

during the early school years. May's oldest subjects were in third grade, whereas
Sims's oldest subjects were in fourth grade. I-argreaves and Castell (1987) also
reported an overall preference decline, based on work with subjects whose ages
ranged from 4 years to over 18. LeBlanc, Colman, McCrary, Sherrill, and Malin
(1988) reported a similar decline in overall preference opinion after third
grade, but preference began to rise again as age increased to college level. We
wondered if we would see a similar pattern of preference decline and rebound in
the present study. All the studies cited in this paragraph are cross-sectional. They
show the preference levels of different-age samples, but they do not show the
preference history of one sample of listeners followed across a number of years. Both
types of study are needed to optimally investigate the open-earedness phenomenon.
Another issue that interested us was the question of whether there is a con-
sistent tendency for one gender to vote higher overall music preference opin-
ions. A number of other investigators have noted a tendency in a variety of
research settings for female listeners to be more accepting of music (Baumann,
1960; Brittin, 1991; National Assessment of Educational Progress, 1974; Schuessler,
1948; Valentine, 1913; Wheeler, 1985). We hoped to learn more about gender
differences in music preference through this study.

METHOD

We attempted to design our study to control for the most important variables
identified in the LeBlanc (1982) theory of music preference and shown to have
been important in previous music preference research. We controlled for the
effect of generic style by selecting a set of matched examples that displayed what
we considered to be either a humorous or a nonhumorous orientation from
within the three broad style categories of country, soul, and middle-of-the-road
or Top 40 popular music. We controlled for tempo by matching pairs of hu-
morous and nonhumorous examples to be as close as possible to the same
tempo while maintaining an overall variety of tempo. We controlled for per-
forming medium by using only vocal examples, and for performer gender by
using only male performers. We tried to control for the effect of individual
performers by matching humorous and nonhumorous examples performed by
the same individual, though this was possible in only four of the six pairs. We
avoided recent songs in an attempt to control for media exposure and the
familiarity this exposure might create.
Our listening tape consisted of 12 music examples that had been selected as
six pairs of excerpts matching one humorous song with one nonhumorous song.
Each pair of excerpts was matched according to additional factors likely to
influence preference (such as generic style, tempo, performing medium, per-
former gender, individual performer, recent airplay). To provide immediate
contrast in the levels of humor, the first two examples presented both songs
that made up one of the matched pairs. The songs that formed the remaining
matched pairs were separated from each other by virtue of the sequence in which
they were placed on the listening tape. Subjects rated each example immediately
after hearing it. They were not asked to make comparisons between examples.
We used the musical phrase to determine the length of each excerpt, and
durations ranged from 39 to 66 seconds with a mean of 55 and a standard
deviation of 10 seconds. These excerpts were longer than those that we typically
used in preference opinion studies, but many of the humorous songs depended
on telling a story for their effect, and we wanted to be sure our listeners received
an adequate sample of the story.

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272 LeBLANCETAL.

As part of the procedure to match music examples, three experienced music

teachers measured the tempo of each example in independent listening ses-
sions using the same electric metronome. They were permitted to replay each
example as often as needed to measure the tempo to their satisfaction. The
teachers demonstrated a very high level of agreement about tempo, with their
votes yielding a Kendall coefficient of concordance of .96 corrected for ties.
Final tempo ratings of the examples on the tape ranged from 72 to 180 beats
per minute, and the humorous and nonhumorous example sets were deter-
mined to be closely matched in tempo. The tape required 21 minutes, 58
seconds to complete, and its music examples are listed in Table 1.

Table 1
Music Examples Used on the PreferenceOpinion Tape

Title Performer Source of Level of

recording humor

1. "C'est si bon" Stan Freberg Capitol T 777 H

2. "One Day Soon" Glenn Yarborough RCA VPS-6018 NH

3. "Ain't Gonna Bump Joe Tex Epic 8-50313 H

No More"

4. "Gone" Ferlin I-usky Capitol T 1991 NH

5. "Choo Choo Ch' Louis Jordan MCA-274 NH

Boogie"
6. "Fight Fiercely, Tom Lehrcr Reprise RS-6216 H
Harvard"

7. "CanWe Get to That" Ray Stevens Barnaby Z 30092 NH

8. "Show Me" Joe Tex Atlantic 781278-1-Y NH

9. "Cuzz You're So Simon Crum Capitol T 1880 H

Sweet"

10. "Beware, Brother, Louis Jordan MCA-274

Beware" NH
11. "Candida" Tony Orlando Arista 4045 Nil
and Dawn

12. "The Streak" Ray Stevens K-tel NU 9140 H

Note."SimonCrum"wasa pseudonymof Ferlin I-usky.The matched pairswere Examples

1 and 2, 3 and 8, 4 and 9, 5 and 10, 6 and 11, and 7 and 12.

We asked subjects to record their responses in a test booklet by marking a

position on each of two 7-stcp continua after hearing each music example.
Their first response was their rating of how much humor they perceived in the
example, and the words "funny" and "not funny" were used to anchor the poles

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 JRME 273

at each end of the response scale. In our recorded directions, we were careful
to define "funny" as meaning "humorous," and we used a very humorous prac-
tice example to reinforce this concept. On the answer booklets we showed
"someone else's answer" to the practice example, and that answer rated the
example as being maximally humorous. As our excuse for inquiring about
perceived humor of the examples, we told our subjects that we were looking
for some humorous music for future research.
The term "music preference opinion" that we will use in this article is an
application of the term "opinion" proposed by Price (1986, p. 154), and the
second response we requested was the subject's music preference opinion for
each example. Subjects expressed this by marking a position on a 7-step con-
tinuum, with the poles at each end anchored by "I like" and "I dislike." At the
end of the procedure, we asked subjects to summarize some of the things they
most liked and disliked about the music examples, writing their responses on
the back of their test booklets.
We worked with 445 volunteer subjects ranging from third graders to college
seniors. Ages ranged from 8 to 48, though there were only three individuals in
the sample who were older than 23. The mean age at each grade level was 8.6
years for Grade 3, with a standard deviation of 0.7; 12.6 years for Grade 7, with
a standard deviation of 0.7; 16.6 years for Grade 11, with a standard deviation
of 0.7; and 20.5 for college students, with a standard deviation of 3.3. Our
subjects came from 15 classrooms in Michigan, Missouri, and Pennsylvania.
Approximately 61% of our subjects were female, and representation of the two
genders was disproportionate at the higher grade levels. As to socioeconomic
level, our sample was primarily middle class.

RESULTS

Our reliability analysis focused on the internal consistency of the test, and
we used coefficient alpha to measure this. For the purpose of this analysis, the
test was considered to be the stimulus tape, composed of 6 humorous and 6
nonhumorous music examples and the 24 responses made by each subject,
composed of 12 perception-of-humor responses and 12 music preference opin-
ion ratings. Each response was treated as a test item. The set of 12 responses
that measured perceived humor and the set of 12 that measured preference
opinion each attained an alpha of .82. We considered this reliability acceptable.
Perceived humor and preference ratings for the overall test by grade level and
gender are shown in Table 2. In our presentation of results, we assumed increas-
ing grade level to be synonymous with increasing age. Subjects did not uni-
formly agree with us on which music examples were humorous, so an exami-
nation of responses to the overall listening tape, rather than to the humorous
and nonhumorous example sets, is the best way to note age-related tendencies
for both the perception of humor and preference opinion.
In general, the perception of humor was successively lower in ratings marked
by listeners in increasingly higher grade levels. Table 2 shows the mean ratings
for each grade level and gender, with all 12 music examples combined. Al-
though mean ratings of the combined examples are a reasonable way to esti-
mate comparative levels of perceived humor and preference opinion, they can
also serve to mask potentially useful information that might be obtained from
a study of responses to individual songs. We examined the responses to indi-
vidual songs and concluded that the mean responses to the combined songs

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274 LeBLANCETAL.

Table 2
PerceivedHumor and PreferenceOpinion Ratings on Overall Test by Grade Level and
Gender

Grade level Gender n M SD

Perceivedhumor

Grade 3 Combined 103 4.21 1.23

Male 48 4.12 1.28
Female 55 4.28 1.18

Grade 7 Combined 134 3.40 1.04

Male 67 3.29 1.01
Female 67 3.52 1.07

Grade 11 Combined 107 2.93 0.99

Male 26 2.64 1.18
Female 81 3.02 0.91

College Combined 101 2.90 0.73

Male 32 2.72 0.59
Female 69 2.99 0.77

Preference

Grade 3 Combined 103 4.75 1.24

Male 48 4.50 1.20
Female 55 4.98 1.24

Grade 7 Combined 134 3.29 1.02

Male 67 3.19 1.04
Female 67 3.38 1.00

Grade 11 Combined 107 3.25 1.20

Male 26 2.88 1.32
Female 81 3.37 1.14

College Combined 101 3.73 0.92

Male 32 3.58 0.99
Female 69 3.81 0.89

present a fair picture of how the two genders and different age levels responded
to this material.
For female listeners, there were no exceptions to the trend of higher grade
levels perceiving less humor in the examples. With male listeners, there was one
small reversal in the trend, with college males perceiving slightly more humor
in the examples than did eleventh-grade males. The standard deviations of the
perceived humor ratings were also successively smaller in the responses made
by increasingly older listeners. There was only one exception to this trend,
involving eleventh-grade males. These findings would tend to support those of

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 JRME 275

Farnsworth (1950), who presented evidence that preference opinion becomes

more focused with increasing listener age. Farnsworth, however, used art music
stimuli and did not work with the humor variable.
Our youngest subjects, from Grade 3, perceived considerably more humor
than did listeners of any other grade level. It is possible that they were sensitized
by our test directions, which said we were looking for humorous music, or they
may have simply been trying to please. I-owever, in our observation of facial
expressions, body posture, eye contact among peers, and hand gestures, we saw
nothing that would have indicated that our subjects were responding with
anything except their true opinions.
According to the mean ratings and standard deviations presented in Table
2, our older listeners perceived less humor in the music, and they agreed more
closely with each other than did our young listeners. We examined the statistical
significance of these differences in the perception of humor with a Kruskal-
Wallis one-way analysis of variance by ranks. Because of the large size of our
sample, we interpreted results from a chi-square table. The obtained chi-square
corrected for ties was 84.45 (df= 3, N= 445, p < .0001) indicating a significant
difference in perception of humor at the different grade levels.
We further investigated this finding using the multiple comparison proce-
dure presented by Siegel and Castellan (1988, pp. 213-214). In five of the six
comparisons that were permitted by the procedure in this instance, we found
a significant difference at the .05 level. Grade 3 listeners perceived significantly
more humor than did those in Grades 7, 11, and college; Grade 7 listeners
perceived significantly more humor than those in Grades 11 and college. There
was no significant difference between the amount of humor perceived by lis-
teners in Grade 11 and college. In this study, perception of humor was largely
a function of age, with younger listeners perceiving significantly more humor
than older ones did until age levels began to approach adulthood in the upper
grades (our mean age in Grade 11 was 16.6 years; in college it was 20.5).
We noted that males perceived slightly less humor in the music than did
females at every grade level, and we assessed the statistical significance of this
difference between genders with a series of Mann-Whitney U tests performed
at each grade level. We set an alpha level of .05, and no comparison was
significant. Because of the large size of our samples, we interpreted Mann-
Whitney results from a z table:

Grade 3: z= -0.58, n = 103, p = .56;

Grade 7: z= -1.14, n = 134, p = .26;
Grade 11: z= -1.74, n = 107, p = .08;
College: z= -1.83, n = 101, p = .07.

We also conducted a Mann-Whitney U test between genders with all grade levels
combined. This disclosed no significant difference at the .05 level in perception
of humor (z = -0.73, N = 445, p = .47).
We evaluated the significance of the differences of preference opinion ratings
among grade levels with a Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance by ranks.
The obtained value of chi-square was 99.11 corrected for ties (df= 3, N= 445,
p < .0001), indicating a significant difference. We followed this with a multiple
comparison procedure at the .05 level, which indicated that Grade 3 listeners
had voted significantly higher preference opinions than those in Grades 7, 11,
and college; and that Grade 7 listeners had voted significantly higher prefer-
ence opinions than those in Grades 11 and college. There was no significant

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276 LeBLANCETAL.

difference between the preference opinions voted by Grade 11 and by the

college students. Once more, the pattern of significant differences between age
levels began to weaken as listener age approached adulthood.
Male and female listeners had been almost identical in their perception of
humor, with male ratings having a mean of 3.32 and a standard deviation of
1.19, and female ratings having a mean of 3.39 and a standard deviation of 1.09.
In the case of music preference opinions, there was more of a difference
between the genders, with the ratings marked by male listeners yielding a mean
of 3.58 and a standard deviation of 1.27, whereas ratings marked by females
yielded a mean of 3.81 and a standard deviation of 1.23. We evaluated this
difference for statistical significance using a Mann-Whitney U test, finding no
significant difference between genders at the .05 level (z = -1.62, N= 445,
p= 10).
How successful had we been in selecting songs that our subjects actually
perceived as humorous when they heard them? On the average, our subjects
perceived more humor in our humorous examples, giving them a mean humor
rating of 4.36 with a standard deviation of 1.32 compared to a mean of 2.37
with a standard deviation of 1.21 accorded to our nonhumorous examples.
However, there were several examples that did not actually perform as we had
intended with regard to humor. Three songs we had categorized as nonhumorous,
Examples 5, 7, and 8, were rated by our subjects as being more humorous than
Example 3, which we had categorized as humorous. Our subjects also rated
Example 5 as more humorous than Example 6, which we had categorized as
humorous.
Did listeners prefer the music they themselves considered humorous? Be-
cause of the occasional disagreements between us and our subjects over the
comparative amount of humor in specific music examples, we believed that it
would be inappropriate to perform statistical significance tests comparing scores
on the humorous set of examples and the nonhumorous set of examples that
we had categorized earlier. We thought we could approach the research ques-
tion most effectively by comparing all the paired humor and preference ratings
made by our subjects, regardless of whether a given music example appeared on
our humorous or nonhumorous example set. This approach permitted each subject
to define the amount of humor he or she perceived in each music example.
We computed a series of Spearman correlations between our listeners' per-
ceived humor ratings and their preference ratings for the same music examples.
Our set of Spearman correlations organized by grade level and gender is pre-
sented in Table 3. The 14 correlations ranged from a low of .44 to a high of
.92, with one significant beyond the .01 level and the remaining 13 significant
beyond the .001 level in a one-tailed test. There was a significant positive
relationship between subjects' perceived humor and preference ratings. Al-
though all of the obtained correlations were significantly greater then zero,
most of them were moderate rather than large.
Although higher ratings of perceived humor and higher preference tended to go
together, it would not be accurate to conclude that less-humoroussongs alwaysreceived
lower preference ratings.The main reason for this was the fact that our college students
tended to prefer nonhumorous songs more than our other age-groupsdid.
When our subjects had completed the test, we asked them to write down some
of the things they had most liked and most disliked about the music. We
analyzed these responses by age-group to further examine the interaction of the
listener age and perceived humor variables that had been suggested in our
examination of perceived humor and preference means.

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 JRME 277

Table 3
Spearman Correlations betweenPerceived Humor and Preferenceby Grade Level and
Gender

Grade level Gender n Correlation

Grade 3 Combined 103 .58**

Males 48 .73**
Females 55 .45**

Grade 7 Combined 134 .56**

Males 67 .59**
Females 67 .52**

Grade 11 Combined 107 .68**

Males 26 .92**
Females 81 .52**

College Combined 101 .61**

Males 32 .44*
Females 69 .67**

All males combined 173 .70**

All females combined 272 .58**

* p < .01, one-tailed.

**p < .001, one-tailed.

When writing about things they liked, our third-grade listeners focused on
the concept of "funny" much more than any other attribute of the music. With
43 comments (made by 42% of the third-grade group), they directed more than
seven times as many comments to perceived humor as to anything else. The
third-grade listeners also made six comments (6% of group) about liking the
beat in the music examples, while four comments (4%) praised the lyrics and
three comments (3%) cited the rhythm.
The focus on humor also predominated in the seventh-grade listener re-
sponses, with 74 comments (55% of the seventh-grade group) mentioning
humor as a reason for liking the music. Among this group, 14 (10%) liked the
beat, 9 (7%) liked the rhythm, and 8 (6%) liked the lyrics. There was a striking
gender difference at this age level in the response to lyrics, with seven times
as many female listeners as males writing that they liked the lyrics. These
findings lend support to those of Boyle, Hosterman, and Ramsey (1981).
The perceived humor variable was still the main topic of favorable comments
at the eleventh-grade level, but appreciation of the beat and lyrics moved closer
to the top. From this group, 32 (30%) comments expressed liking for the
humor they perceived in the examples, while 19 (18%) favored the beat, 17
(16%) noted the lyrics, 9 (8%) liked the rhythm, and 4 (4%) liked the variety
of songs heard on the listening tape. This was the first appearance of variety
as a preference variable in the constructed responses. The differential effect of

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278 LeBLANCETAL.

listener gender was prominent at this age level, with 16 times as many female
listeners commenting favorably about lyrics as did males.
The perceived humor variable still drew the most comments from the college
undergraduate listeners, with 36 listeners (36%) citing it, while 23 (23%) liked
the beat, 19 (19%) liked the lyrics, 18 (18%) liked the variety of songs on the
tape, and 5 (5%) liked the rhythm. Female listeners made many more com-
ments about liking variety, lyrics, and beat than did male listeners. It should
be noted that the variety variable emerged at an older age level and seemed
to become stronger with increased listener age. Table 4 summarizes the fre-
quency of favorable comments by age-group.

Table 4
Frequencyand Percentageof Favorable CommentsReceived

Grade level

Grade 3 Grade 7 Grade 11 College

Variable (n = 103) (n = 134) (n = 7) (n = 101)

Frequency

Humor 43 74 32 36
Beat 6 14 19 23
Lyrics 4 8 17 19
Rhythm 3 9 9 5
Variety 0 0 4 18

Percentage

Humor 42 55 30 36
Beat 6 10 18 23
Lyrics 4 6 16 19
Rhythm 3 7 8 5
Variety 0 0 4 18

Note.Percentage was computed within each grade level.

Several generalizations can be made about the constructed response data

expressing liking. All the questions asked for open-ended free responses. We
imposed no structure on our listeners, though the nature of the stimulus tape
and the response form served to emphasize humor.
Perceived humor elicited the greatest number of positive responses at all four
age levels. However, the preference for humor peaked at seventh grade, where
humor drew more than twice as many favorable comments as it did from the
two groups older than seventh grade. Positive responses to humor thus showed
a strong relationship to listener age.
There were strong trends attributable to age differences in the preference for
a strong and easily perceptible beat, for song lyrics, and for variety of stimulus-
tape content. Preference for all of these things increased with increased listener
age. Preference for beat emerged first, by seventh grade; for lyrics, by eleventh
grade; and for variety, by college.

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 JRME 279

Listener gender was strongly associated with one variable: lyrics. Female lis-
teners mentioned lyrics much more frequently than did males, and the fre-
quency with which lyrics were mentioned increased with increased listener age.
When we asked our listeners to identify things they disliked about the music,
some of their responses were not interpretable. One of the most prominent
negative statements was that the music was "stupid" or "dumb." Other promi-
nent variables mentioned in the dislike category were lack of perceived humor,
slow tempo, the style of the music, and a feeling that this music was "too out-
of-date." It is noteworthy that criticisms of the music's style did not emerge until
they were voiced by the eleventh-grade age-group, and even more college lis-
teners reported a dislike of the music's style. Based on our analysis of the
constructed response data, it seems fair to say that our listening scale functioned
quite strongly as a measure of perceived humor and subject preference for
humor in music.

DISCUSSION

This study presents evidence that listeners prefer music that they consider
humorous, and that the perception of humor is largely a function of age. Our
younger subjects perceived more humor in the examples and voted higher
preference opinions. It is possible that the examples we chose happened to be
optimized for younger listeners and that our results might have been quite
different with a different example set. In preparing our listening tape, we
made no effort to focus our selection of humorous examples toward any
one age-group. The question of what kind of humor in music appeals to
what age-group would be a good one to pursue in future research in this
topic area.
Two trends emerged when we examined preference opinion results for indi-
vidual examples according to grade level. By far the dominant trend was a
tendency for the youngest and oldest age-groups to vote higher preference
opinion ratings for a given example than did the two middle age-groups. This
suggests a preference rebound as listeners approach and enter adulthood, after
an initial preference decline between Grades 3 and 11, and this pattern was
observed with 9 of our 12 examples. The secondary trend, seen only with certain
music examples, was the consistent appearance of lower preference opinion
ratings marked by groups that represented increased listener age. This took
place with Examples 1, 9, and 12, which were all humorous songs in which the
performer's effort to be humorous was very strong and obvious. These two
trends supported each other at the younger age levels, but they were not in
agreement over the question of whether a preference rebound took place as
listeners drew nearer to adulthood. As a plausible explanation of results ob-
tained with Examples 1, 9, and 12, we hypothesized that older and more sophis-
ticated listeners may have found the mechanisms of humor in these particular
songs to be awkward or excessive.
Our third-grade subjects voted higher preference opinion ratings for both
humorous and nonhumorous examples than any other age-group, but on a
comparative basis they preferred humorous examples more than nonhumorous
ones. There were only two cases in which third-graders did not vote the highest
preference opinion ratings given by any age-group. This occurred with Ex-
amples 4 and 11, both of which were love songs. We hypothesized that our third-
grade listeners had a generally positive response set to music listening, but did
not prefer love songs.

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280 LeBLANCETAL.

It is interesting to speculate about the reasons why our subjects did not
consider all the songs we had categorized as humorous to actually be humorous.
We had intentionally avoided recent songs in an attempt to control for the effect
of the broadcast media, but our observations suggested that many of our listen-
ers were somewhat familiar with Examples 11 and 12. Both of these examples
received comparatively high preference ratings. Our older humorous songs
received considerably lower preference ratings than did Example 12, which was
our most recent one.
We hypothesized that the perception of humor in song lyrics may be depen-
dent upon an individual's knowledge of slang and patterns of word usage that
were current when the song was first written. This would account for a lower
rating of perceived humor in older songs, but when we examined the ratings
closely we found that our subjects were rating the older humorous songs as quite
humorous, though they were still voting a comparatively low preference opinion
for them. It is possible that the effect of style familiarity, especially familiarity
with styles currently favored by the broadcast media, is powerful enough to
cancel out the effect of perceived humor when humor occurs in an out-of-style
song. In the constructed responses that stated the reasons for disliking a song,
a number of listeners criticized the examples for being "too old" or "out-of-
date." Further research into the effect of "out-of-dateness" on music preference
opinions seems warranted.
Some of our humorous songs may also have been somewhat offensive to
female listeners in the contemporary cultural environment. Example 3 got its
humor at the expense of a female dancing partner, while Example 10 was a
"battle-of-the-sexes" song, setting out to warn males that females were chasing
them with the intent of marriage. Other songs on the listening tape, however,
got their humor at the expense of males. Female listeners in Grades 7 and 11
rated Example 3 lower than males did, while female college students rated
Example 10 lower than their male counterparts did.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MUSIC TEACHING

In summary, we found that listeners prefer music that they consider humor-
ous, but it is difficult for adults to predict what music younger listeners will
consider humorous. We found that the perception of humor in a group of songs
differed according to the listener's age and gender. The finding about per-
ceived humor tends to confirm the effect of the referential meaning of
music variable in the LeBlanc theory of music preference, while the find-
ings about listener age and gender tend to confirm those variables in the
theory.
This study has several direct implications for classroom music teaching:
1. We found our third-grade subjects to be more receptive in general to music
listening than were subjects in any of the other age-groups we sampled. They
perceived the greatest amount of humor in our examples, and voted the highest
preference opinion scores of any age-group. This is consistent with previous
research and suggests that the middle elementary-school years present a window
of opportunity for teaching music appreciation to a comparatively receptive
audience.
2. Both our third-grade and our seventh-grade subjects perceived significantly
more humor in the listening examples, and they also marked significantly
higher preference opinions than did successively older groups of subjects. We
suggest that teachers use humorous music examples primarily in the elementary

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 JRME 281

and middle school years so that their students can get the most preference
benefit from the use of humor.
3. Listeners prefer music that they consider humorous, but adults cannot
always be confident of correctly identifying the music that children will consider
humorous. The classroom music teacher, however, is well positioned to find
music that his or her students consider humorous. The teacher can use humor-
ous selections to introduce students to styles of music that are less familiar or
that are currently not preferred by these students.
4. Both listener gender and listener age influence the perception of humor
and the preference for humorous songs. In this study, older listeners perceived
less humor in our examples. Our younger female listeners had a strong pref-
erence for humorous songs, while the preference of our older female listeners
shifted away from humorous songs and toward songs whose lyrics focused on
love or peace. Accordingly, the music teacher should be more selective when
attempting to use humorous music to appeal to older students. At higher grade
levels, attributes of music other than humor may influence preference as much
as or more than humor. One of these attributes is perceived "out-of-dateness,"
which was associated with dislike for some of the music in this study. When working
with older humorous songs, the teacher should be alert to possible sexism or racism
in song lyrics that might offend listeners in contemporary society.
In closing, we offer some suggestions for future research into the effect of
perceived humor on music listening preference. It would be desirable to work
with a narrower range of age-groups than we did, and we suggest subjects
younger than those in seventh grade because of the younger students' compara-
tively greater receptiveness to different kinds of music. This would avoid the
problem of humorous stimuli having different effects on different-age listeners,
and it would also avoid the generally negative attitude that seventh-grade sub-
jects tend to have toward music that is not currently receiving airplay in the
popular media. Researchers should develop their preference scale in a separate
pilot project to make it less likely that unexpected listener reactions will upset
the counterbalancing of the scale between humorous and nonhumorous ex-
amples. Finally, researchers should be careful to control the effect of recency
or familiarity between the humorous and nonhumorous example sets, and they
should try to balance male and female viewpoints in song lyrics, and, if possible,
numbers of examples by male and female performers. With regard to our other
interest areas in this study, the effect of listener age and gender on music
preference opinions, we recommend studies using comparatively large samples
and involving listeners of a wide range of ages, such as first graders through
senior citizens.

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