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Formation of style concepts from experience with music is a fundamental learning phenomenon, and listeners are able to categorize compositions according to relatively "fuzzy" musical styles containing numerous exceptions to typical characteristics. The cognitive processes underlying these categorizations are of interest to music educators and may affect teaching strategies. This study explored the feasibility of training students to classify music according to style by analogy to similar exemplars, thereby, side-stepping the time consuming analytical approach to teaching musical style to novices. Results indicated that students can use analogical strategy profitably to classify novel music, provided it is similar to exemplars stored in memory. However, several design factors make it impossible to state that an analogical strategy is peoples' natural choice over analyzing prototypical components. Results are discussed and compared to earlier findings in a related study.
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