How does the music that students listen to affect their level of musical literacy? Comparative analysis of Chinese students’ musical literacy formed with modern online technologies in the context of music and non-music academic majors

The aim of this paper is to determine both the influence of musical compositions' genres on the students' musical literacy formed using artificial intelligence technologies and the musical literacy skills among music and non-music major students. Accordingly, the method of analysis was used to identify the most common musical genres in the Chinese music education system. The genres prevailed in the following order: folk music, Western classical music, Chinese opera music, Qi genre, vocal chamber music, and pop music. Identifying genres of music was necessary to examine the impact of each on the development literacy skills in music. The development of music teaching approaches was based on the use of online technology. The technology contributed to the improvement of melodic skills with SwiftScales; articulation skills with Learn Singing; and expressive performance with Singscope. The research findings suggested that students of music majors were more likely to recognize the genres of musical composition (24%) after training, whereas students pursuing non-music majors developed linguistic abilities (27%). The study also revealed that minimal musical knowledge among music students contributes to the improvement of literacy skills in music (k = 0.82). Non-music students primarily develop memory (k = 0.84), with improved musical literacy skills as a result of knowledge accumulation.