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JMTE 7 (1) pp. 39–58 Intellect Limited 2014

Journal of Music, Technology & Education Volume 7 Number 1

© 2014 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jmte.7.1.39_1

Vicky charissi and Tiija rinTa University of London

children’s musical and social

behaviours in the context

of music-making activities

supported by digital tools:

Examples from a pilot study

in the United kingdom

absTracT

Children’s enjoyable experience in music-making has been reported to be crucial for their social and musical development. This research investigates the way in which participant young children develop their musical and social skills by digital technology- supported music-making activities within a multicultural educational context. Two different software packages were used in the research. Data collection methods reported in the current article included observations and field notes, video analyses and dialogue analyses. Initial results indicate that children developed their musical knowledge as a part of their active interaction with others. In particular, their use of digital tools provided a supportive environment for collaborative music-making. In this process, which seems to be non-linear in nature, children were observed to develop negotiation skills, empathy and a tendency to verbalize their thoughts whilst

kEywords

computer-supported music-making

social interaction musical learning music composition early childhood video analysis

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exchanging their musical ideas. The initial findings, therefore, provide evidence that using appropriate music technology in a classroom can be of benefit for children to develop musical and social skills.

inTrodUcTion

This article reports on an exploratory investigation of children’s musical and social behaviours in the process of collaborative computer-supported music- making. Research suggests the importance of collaboration in music-making activities, which usually has the form of both verbal and non-verbal commu- nication. For the purposes of this pilot study, a multilingual school setting was chosen as a context of a special interest for children’s verbal communication and engagement in collaborative computer-supported music-making activities.

1. Digital tools as part of music-making

The significant role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has been highlighted in pupils’ learning processes across the curriculum (QCA 1999a). In particular, the development of musical skills and creativity can be supported by the use of a plethora of technologies (Himonides and Purves 2010). Within this context, various research investigations, mainly motivated by the association of musical creativity with children’s cognitive and social development, have focused on pupils’ creative musical behaviour and the positive effects that the application of recent technological advances may have on this behaviour (Bolton 2008; Folkestad et al. 1998; Himonides and Purves 2010; Jennings 2005; Savage 2005; Seddon 2006; Wiggins 2007).

The connection of musical development and the use of digital technol- ogy has been reinforced in the latest official Review of Music Education (DFE-00011 2011), conducted on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education in England. In this consultative report, the need for further investigation is stressed of the ways in which new methods for creating music might embrace technological innovation in the classroom.

2. Collaborative music-making

In a broad definition of music-making, children’s ‘briefest utterance as well as more worked out and sustained invention’ are included (Swanwick and Tillman 1986: 311). In this sense, music-making takes place when there is a freedom for children to choose the ordering of music, including repre- sentation by any kind of notational system. In this study, music-making is used as an umbrella term for music composition and improvisation and is also considered as one of the forms of children’s expression of musical creativity.

Various research studies, mainly motivated by the indicated association of musical creativity with children’s social development, have focused on pupils’ musical behaviour when engaged in collaborative music-making. P. Burnard and B. A. Younker (2008) investigated the characteristics of collaborative crea- tive music-making activities of composing and arranging through the lens of Activity Theory. M. Espeland (2006) emphasized the dynamic relationship between musical and social aspects of the compositional process, recogniz- ing that even when children compose individually, they rely on and inter- act with their environment, cultural tools and other people. Because music is

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customarily a collaborative practice, in which communication seems to be a central aspect (although not always in an era of digital music technologies), it has been suggested that socially embedded musical activities might lead to creative music-making driven by members’ interactional dynamics (Sawyer 2008). These interpersonal processes entail an important generative source of musical creativity and they can have the form either of verbal or non-verbal communication (Young 2008). Furthermore, other research findings high- light the importance of talk and constant evaluation as part of reflective music composing activities (Major and Cottle 2010).

3. Music and its effect on development

The use of music to assist learning and child development has a relatively long history (Hallam 2010). In research studies, music has been found to enhance the effects of dichotic listening (Moray 1959), which may result for young chil- dren in increased short-term memory, decreased distractability and enhance- ment of information processing (Papousek 1996). Listening to music has also been found to improve performance in selective cognitive tasks (Schellenberg et al. 2007). Furthermore, similar results have been found in relation to improvements in social functioning, feelings of well-being and self-expression (Rinta and Welch 2008; Welch 2005).

In early childhood, musical games and music-based rituals between caregivers and infants are a major source for building up supportive and healthy social attachment and for stimulating language and cognitive develop- ment (Dissanayake 2008; Papousek 1996; Slevc and Miayke 2006; Trevarthen 2008). For example, a recent national study of approximately 10,000 young children in the United Kingdom showed that those who were relatively more skilled and developed in their musical understanding and performance were also statistically highly likely to report themselves as being more socially included (Welch et al. 2010).

However there is not enough research about young children’s musi- cal development and its connection with their engagement in computer- supported music-making.

4. Children’s music-making strategies

Since the publication of P. R. Webster’s (1990) influential model of children’s creative thinking, more than three decades ago, a significant body of research about children’s music-making strategies has been conducted. More recent research, though, has indicated that the use of digital tools in music-mak- ing activities might affect children’s musical thinking. S. Stauffer (2001) after observing an 8-year-old girl for a period over seven months noted the impact of the software on the girl’s compositional thinking. The researcher focused on the importance of the possibility for reflection on previous musical ideas, while the participant was building new ones. Recently, a dialogue has started on the ways that different contexts, prior musical experience and formal instrumental music tuition affect children’s computer-supported music-making strategies. F. Seddon and S. O’Neil (2003), for example, reported that individuals with- out prior experience of formal instrumental music tuition had significantly different approaches to composition and lower levels of ‘exploration’ when engaged in a computer-based composition task. Seddon’s (2006) more recent findings, though, seem to be in contradiction to the previous ones, indicating higher levels of exploratory behaviour from children without prior experience

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of formal musical training in the context of cyberspace. By bringing different objects in the foreground of the activity, children’s compositional strategies might be discussed in relation to their earlier musical experiences, the invita- tions to create music, the children’s cultural practice and to the digital tools (Nilsson and Folkestad 2005) as well as in relation to the ways in which they become representative of children’s communities (Dillon 2009).

Despite the differences among children’s compositional strategies in differ- ent contexts, an increasingly accepted assumption seems to emerge about young children’s ability to create music with form and structure (Nilsson and Folkestad 2005). As the arena of music technology has been constantly chang- ing, new possibilities for music-making have arisen including the design, construction and use of digital instruments (Savage 2009), children’s engage- ment in musical interactive systems of reflexive technologies (Young and Rowe 2012) and children’s sound synthesis and music-making by their inter- action with innovative interfaces (Charissi 2013).

The investigation of children’s music-making strategies in these contexts has necessitated new methodological and analytical approaches. What S. C. Dillon (2009) claims, for example, is that the affordances of textual representa- tion of sound or music experience limited and filtered musical interpretation. Instead, he proposed a method of analysis in which music can be present in a discussion about music in real time.

rEsEarch qUEsTions

The aim of this pilot study was to investigate potential changes in children’s musical behaviour, after their engagement in computer-supported music- making. Additionally, we tried to shed light to the processes of their musical thinking by mapping their musical and social interactions.

The study addressed the following three questions:

1. How do children aged 5–7 use digital technologies in collaborative music- making activities in a multicultural school setting?

2. In this context, which types of social interactions (verbal and non-verbal) are developed among children who are engaged in computer – supported collaborative music-making?

3. In relation to the two questions above, are there any differences in their musical behaviour between the first and the last session of their music-making engagement – namely reactive, proactive and interactive behaviour – as measured by the Sounds of Intent developmental frame- work of musical behaviour (Ockelford and Welch 2012)?

METhodology

1. Setting and Participants

Children from an EC member Government-funded Primary school in West London, England took part in the research. The school offers non-English education in line with the curriculum of the EC member state, with special support in English language. Children in the school represent various socio- economic backgrounds and live in many different areas across London. Nearly all the children have a common non-English language as their mother tongue. A number of the children are bilingual and some are trilingual.

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The focus participants in this pilot research were four children aged 5–7 years old. Two pairs of children were chosen to participate in the pilot research study reported here in order to investigate aspects of collaboration. Children’s friend- ships were the prime consideration in the selection process, as this has been reported to have a positive impact on their musical collaborations (Macdonald et al. 2002). Thus, three boys and one girl, aged from 6 to 6.5 years partici- pated in this study. Two of the children were born in London to non-British parents. One child had been living in London for three months at the time of the research study and one child had been living there for three years. Three of the children were fluent in the English language, in addition to their mother tongue, and they were considered bilingual for the purposes of this study. The child who had been living in London for three months had a low level of English language competence and, thus, was considered to be monolingual.

2. Methods

The research methodology for this pilot study was primarily qualitative, embracing observation of children acting in their natural environment. The researcher had a participatory role and data collection was mainly based on field notes and videotaped sessions (with appropriate ethical permissions). The observations were initially unstructured, whilst being aware of some key concepts that had emerged from the relative literature, then interrogated against the video data.

This flexibility in approach was intended to give the researcher the oppor- tunity to explore and observe in real time the process of music-making in the classroom in a more holistic way. Subsequently, on returning to the video- taped data, the Sounds of Intent developmental framework of musical behav- iour (Ockelford and Welch 2012) was used as a lens for the investigation and analysis, as discussed below, because it encompasses the mapping of a wide range of musical behaviours.

3. Materials

Two different software packages were used in the study. The first was Sibelius Groovy Shapes (http://www.sibelius.com/products/groovy/shapes.html). This music program is designed to be used by 5–7-year-old children to engage in music-making with two different modes: the ‘explore’ and the ‘create’ mode (see Figure 1). In the ‘explore’ mode, children are guided through step-by-step progressive exercises to learn about elements of music whilst, at the same time, being introduced to and familiarized with the software interface. In the ‘create’ mode, children take what they have learnt in the ‘explore’ mode to make music by dragging and combining shapes. The interactive platform provides children with the opportunity to change the pitch, the rhythm and the timbre of the given musical patterns in real time. Musical elements and patterns are repre- sented visually, which supports the audio feedback of their musical creations.

The second software package used for the study was JamMo, a music-making game designed for children from 3 to 12 years old (see Figure 2). JamMo was the product of the EC-funded research project ‘Usability of Music for the Social Inclusion of children’ (Rinta et al. 2011), originally designed for use on a mobile phone and recently adapted for a personal computer using a Linux operating system. It consists of a singing and a composition game. The JamMo composi- tion game allows the user to select among a variety of musical patterns visu- ally represented by musical instruments or other images. Additionally, the user

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Figure 1: An example of the Sibelius Groovy Shapes interface: Explore and Create mode.

can select the tempo and the scale and the volume of the piece. JamMo has specifically been designed with usability issues in mind for children with special educational needs (moderate learning difficulties) and those coming from multi- cultural backgrounds where host country language may be in development.

4. Ethical issues

The head teacher of the school was approached initially in order to obtain permission for conducting the research at the school. Once the head teacher had agreed, the basis for the research focus was explained in detail by the researcher to teachers and parents in order to ensure that there was informed consent. Subsequently, a form was sent home to the parents and carers of the children in order to obtain their approval for their child to participate in the study. Finally, the children who had parental permission to participate were asked whether they wanted to take part in the study.

It was made clear that any resultant data from the study would be anonymized and neither the school, nor the participants would be identified at any point. The children were also informed that they had the right to with- draw from the study at any time for any or no reason. They were informed that data were to be kept safely on a secure server and password protected. The research team had full Criminal Records Bureau clearance from the UK Government for working with children.

The participation in the research was voluntary. The best interests of the children were the primary consideration throughout the research study. There was no predictable detriment arising from the process of the research. In order to minimize the effects that advantage or were perceived to advantage one group of participants over other (e.g. a proposed activity was viewed as a desira- ble experience), the researcher allowed the children of the whole class to experi- ence the music activities used in the study after the end of the research period.

5. Data collection

The data collection took place over the period of four weeks in the Autumn term 2011 in a Primary school with a multilingual intake in West London. Two pairs of children (Pair A and Pair B) aged 5–7 (average age 6.5 years) from School Year 1 were chosen to participate in four sessions of approximately 30–40 minutes each. These sessions were provided in the computer laboratory of the school (a familiar location) as part of the participant children’s music lesson timetable.

Figure 2: An example of the JamMo interface.

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As confirmed by the music specialist of the school, none of the partici- pants had previously received formal lessons in music-making. Nevertheless, it was expected that aspects of children’s possible informal musical engage- ment (such as playing music with pots at home) could have had an impact on their observed and assessed current music-making ability.

Of the two software packages that were presented above, pair A used JamMo for two sessions followed by two sessions with Sibelius Groovy and pair B first used Sibelius Groovy followed by two sessions with JamMo.

The researcher had a participatory role. The research approach was under- pinned by a paradigm of social constructivism as well as the researcher’s deci- sion for a naturalistic observation. Consequently, the procedure was primarily based on children taking an active role of exploration and discovery, with the researcher adopting the role of a facilitator. Thus, children were driven mainly by their musical interests and needs arising by their previous musical experi- ences and their interaction with the specific tools. The researcher provided guidance on the software heuristics and encouragement where needed. All the sessions were audio recorded and a subset were videotaped.

Data analysis proceDure

1. The first approach of the data

Field notes were initially used as a source for the researcher to generate a narrative, where several thoughts for each session were organized. These thoughts were mainly focused on children’s musical behaviours and their verbal and non-verbal interactions. In many cases, the narrative was supported by extracts from the videotaped data (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: An example of the initial narrative.

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This narrative, in combination with the relevant literature review, entailed the initial point and generated some general categories, which were used for the second phase of the data analyses that were based in the videotaped data transcription.

2. Transcription and analysis of the dialogues

The analysis of the dialogues was a recursive process, the early stages of which were characterized by an open coding for a ‘bottom-up’ approach with annotation and thematic classification. Finally, 22 keywords thematically clas- sified into four categories were generated during the process of the analyses of the video data observation: (1) Process, (2) Social Interaction, (3) Musical Interaction and (4) Interaction with the digital tools.

The software package Transana (http://www.transana.org/), which belongs to a family of packages referred to as ‘Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software’ (CAQDAS) (Lewins and Silver 2007) was used for the video and audio data analysis. An example of its interface appears in Figure 4.

The analyses of the data were facilitated by initial data descrip- tives, especially those that represent the keyword percentage graphs and the keyword sequence maps. This analysis was mainly focused on chil- dren’s verbal interaction and gave only some indications about their non- verbal interactions and their musical behaviours, which were subsequently analysed in a more systematic way (by transcription) as reported in the following section.

3. Transcription and analysis of children’s non-verbal interactions

The qualitative in nature analysis of video data indicated the need for a more systematic analysis of children’s non-verbal behaviour. The initial analysis gave six types of non-verbal behaviour, two of which had a relatively long duration and their measurement was based on the percentage of their dura- tion during the sessions. The assessment of the behaviours without duration was based on the frequency of their appearance as well as their chronological sequence. Both classes of data were analysed and descriptive statistical tables of these analyses were composed.

4. Analysis of the changes in children’s musical behaviour

The SoI framework (Ockelford and Welch 2012) was adopted as an assess- ment tool for the development of children’s musical behaviour (see Figure 5). The three main reasons for using this framework were (1) its inclusion of a wide range of musical behaviours, (2) its multidimensional nature and (3) the possibility of recording and collating pupils’ observed behaviours via the SoI web-based software. Although this framework had been designed originally as an assessment tool for children with special educational needs, it has also been piloted with children’s musical behaviours in mainstream classes and so was assumed to be suitable for the current study.

Nevertheless, the complexity of children’s musical behaviour and the appearance of different levels of each behaviour in the same session created a need for a more detailed observation of children’s musical behav- iour. Additionally, for the purposes of this study, there was a need for a summative view of the results of the first and the last session. For these reasons, the musical behaviours, as they appear in SoI framework, were

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adopted and inserted to the software package ‘observe’. Each segment of the framework had originally six levels. In this study, the first level of each segment was considered as a permanently apparent behaviour from all the participants during all the sessions and it was therefore decided not to be included in the datasets that were to be analysed. Thus, five out of six level of each segment from the SoI framework were entered in the ‘observe’ software, considering that the first level of each segment is always apparent.

With the average ratings of all participants’ behaviours, descriptive statis- tics were generated for the analysis of these data.

Results

The data that were gathered during this pilot study examine how children engage in music-making activities using digital tools, the types of musical interactions that children display during their engagement and the changes in their musical behaviour between the first and the last session of the study.

1. Process of music-making (research question 1)

Despite the small number of participants of this pilot study, a picture of the music-making process started to emerge, in which children mainly engage in ‘sound exploration’, ‘planning’ of their musical choices and the ‘assess- ment’ of these choices. As seen in Figure 6, in all the observed sessions, all the participant children displayed these behaviours. Sound exploration seemed to be dominant in their music-making process. Children’s ‘planning’ moments seemed also to entail a big percentage of their music-making engagement. It seemed to relate to their ‘assessments’, which were mainly referred to their musical choices during the process rather than their assessment to the final musical products.

Figure 4: Transana’ s environment, which is separated into four windows: (1) the media window, (2) the transcript window, (3) the data window, (4) the visualization window as a timeline of codes.

Figure 5: Sounds of Intent Framework (Ockelford and Welch 2012) comprises three segments (Reactive – Proactive – Interactive). Each of these contains six levels of development that originate from the centre outwards towards the periphery of the circle, being marked by more advanced musical behaviours.

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Figure 6: Activities during the process of music-making.

Figure 7: Case 1: Music-making process sequence map.

The following chart (see Figure 7) focuses on one case, illustrating the sequence of the above described core activities that were common across all observed sessions and displayed by all participants, namely ‘sound explora- tion’, ‘planning’ and ‘assessment’.

In the above example, which is not presented as a single – ideal – model, the session began with an extended period of ‘sound exploration’. In the middle of the session, participants started to ‘plan’ their next musical steps. Nevertheless, ‘planning’ was accompanied by ‘exploration’ and ‘assessment’ of the provided musical patterns. After the assessment of their musical creation, participants continued their ‘sound exploration’ looking for more musical patterns to use. The session ended with a relatively extended period of ‘planning’.

Nevertheless, during this process, participants displayed other types of behaviour, as well. Figure 8 shows the sequence of these behaviours in the process of children’s ‘sound exploration’, ‘planning’ and ‘assessment’.

As can be seen in Figure 8, ‘sound exploration’ was connected to partici- pants’ ‘interface exploration’. Children were not familiar with the software package interface, which resulted in their simultaneous exploration of both the provided musical patterns as well as the interface itself. However, later in the session these two types of exploration seem to disconnect with each other.

What seems interesting is that before participants’ starting to ‘plan’, they displayed two types of musical interaction: ‘expectation’, which was mainly

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expressed verbally and ‘body movement’ which was a form of non-verbal interaction.

In the following section verbal and non-verbal social and musical interac- tions are examined.

2. Musical and Social Interactions (research question 2)

In this context of music-making activities, children were working in pairs. Their interaction with each other had both a verbal and non-verbal form. Figure 9 shows the percentage of children’s social interaction, mainly in a verbal way, in all the sessions. Body movements and singing, which are non-verbal ways of inter- action, were also included because of the high percentage of their frequency.

During the first session, when children were mainly exploring the sounds and the software interface, they were interacting with each other mainly non- verbally by moving their bodies and by singing. Often they were verbally expressing their feelings. In the last sessions, children were interacting mainly verbally, either in order to discuss their next steps and musical choices in their music-making or to scaffold each other. Sharing their feelings during the process of their music-making was also appeared as a relatively high in frequency behaviour, especially in the last sessions.

During these analyses, six non-verbal behaviours were noticed as the most dominant ones and they considered being further analysed. They were coded into the software package ‘Observe’, in order for the videotaped sessions to be transcribed and then analysed. As can be seen in Figure 10, eye contact was the most dominant non-verbal way of interaction (39%), while laughing as a reaction of joy or surprise generated either by the musical patterns provided

Figure 8: Case 1: All categories sequence map.

Figure 9: Percentage of children’s social interaction.

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Figure 11: Percentage of children’s non-verbal Interaction with duration.

Figure 12: Percentage of children’s non-verbal Interaction changes.

Figure 10: Percentage of children’s non-verbal interaction.

by the software or by their musical creations was the second dominant non-verbal behaviour (13%). Children were, also, interacting with each other by singing (12%).

Additionally, two behaviours were included; ‘body movement’ and ‘indi- cations for music expectation’. Both behaviours demonstrated relatively long duration. Figure 11 shows that children’s interactions were connected with their musical expectation (56 per cent) and their reactions by moving their bodies (44 per cent).

Children’s social interactions seem to change in the course of the study. As seen in Figure 12, children interact mainly by eye contact (44%) in the beginning of the study. This non-verbal interaction appears slightly lower (41%) in the last session. In the first session children interact with each other by laughter (7%), which seemed to increase importantly in the last session (41%).

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Additionally, behaviours that indicate music expectation seem to change importantly between the first (50 per cent) and the last session (65 per cent).

Changes in their musical behaviour, as they are referred in the SoI frame- work, between the first and the last session are described in the following paragraph.

3. Changes in musical behaviour (research question 3)

After each session, the researcher recorded her assessment of children’s musi- cal behaviour onto the SoI web-based platform. Results in children’s musical development, as generated by the SoI developmental framework, show how each child’s behaviours changed within the Reactive, Proactive and Interactive domains during the study. An example from a child’s changing behaviour is shown in Figure 13.

Alex’s Proactive behaviour seemed not to change between the first and the second session, while in the third session, there is a slight increase and in the last session, a small increase is noted again.

An overview of his Reactive, Proactive and Interactive behaviour profile (see Figure 14) shows that Alex displayed a relatively high Reactive behaviour in the beginning of the study, which seemed to decrease in the end. On the other hand, his Proactive behaviour has increasing rating during the course of the study and his Interactive behaviour slightly decreasing.

Post-hoc analyses of these data based on the frequency of children’s musical behaviours, as referred in the SoI framework, allowed the comparison between children’s behaviour in the first and in the last session (see Figure 15).

Figure 13: Alex’s Proactive behaviour in the course of the study.

Figure 14: An overview of Alex’s Reactive, Proactive and Interactive behaviour in the course of the study.

Figure 15: Changes in the Reactive, Proactive and Interactive behaviour between the first and the last session.

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As seen in the above figure, participants’ musical behaviour has slightly changed between the first and the last session of the study. Children seemed to be less reactive, displaying this behaviour for 48% in the first session and 46% in the last session. At the same time their Proactive behaviour shows an increase 30% in the first session and 33% in the last session. Children seemed to have almost the same Interactive behaviour between the first (22%) and the last (21%) session.

A more detailed analysis of each domain (Reactive, Proactive and Interactive) generally shows that there was a decrease in the most frequent behaviour of the first session and an increase in the most advanced level of each behaviour (see Figure 16).

As far as children’s Reactive behaviour is concerned, in both, the first and the last session, level R3 seemed to be the most frequent one, followed by R4. Nevertheless, in the last session there was a decrease of R3 and an increase of R4 behaviour. Additionally, in the last session, there were indications that children could recognize prominent structural features and respond to some general characteristics; therefore they were fitting well inside the R5 profile.

In terms of participants’ Proactive behaviour, while in the first and the last session the most dominant behaviour was their willingness and ability to control a variety of sounds intentionally, which fits into P2 profile, a big increase of their ability to create musical patterns (P3) was noticed in the last session. The most advanced behaviour of the level P4, which represents chil- dren’s ability to create musical patterns and to link them coherently, seemed to increase slightly in the last session, as well.

As for children’s way of musical Interaction, in both sessions, they used to interact by using sounds, which is a behaviour that fits into I2 profile. Nevertheless, an increase in children’s more advanced behaviour of interacting through imitating other’s sounds (I3) was noticed in the last session.

Discussion

The development of children’s musical behaviour through music-making activities is one of the main aims of the National Curriculum (NC) for England. Composing skills at Key Stage 1 (ages 5–7) concern the ability to ‘create musi- cal patterns’ and to ‘explore, choose and organize sounds and musical ideas’ (QCA 1999b). Additionally, the significant role of ICT has been highlighted in pupils learning processes across the curriculum (QCA 1999b). The need for

Figure 16: Changes in the levels of each segment (Reactive, Proactive and Interactive behaviour) between the first and the last session.

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further investigation is stressed in the Review of Music Education (DFE-00011 2011) of the ways, in which new methods for creating music might embrace technological innovation in the classroom.

This pilot study revealed preliminary findings on potential changes in children’s musical behaviour, after their engagement in computer-supported music-making. The main source of findings was the videotaped sessions and which provided multimodal data. The first stage of data elaboration involved descriptive narrative accounts of children’s musical behaviour and verbal and non-verbal interaction. These notes were shaped through the review of rela- tive literature and the implying epistemological paradigm. The second stage involved linguistic transcription of children’s verbal behaviour and conversa- tional analysis. This analysis provided sources focused on the language as a tool for both children’s social interactions and their development (Vygotsky 1978). Because of the multimodality of the data and the construction of chil- dren’s activity with a variety of semiotic ways (Kress 2010), the need for a more systematic observation emerged for mapping children’s non-verbal behaviours. Thus, the findings were generated by the combination of a micro- ethnographic analysis and a systematic, more quantitative in nature, analysis.

An initial exploration of children’s music-making process was conducted, for a mapping and identification of the context in which children’s musi- cal behaviour was developed. Music-making process was recursive and it was characterized mainly by children’s exploratory activities. Children were exploring both the software packages’ interface and the sounds and musical patterns that they were provided.

Exploratory activities were more often apparent in the begging of the study, which partly seemed to relate to children’s Reactive behaviour in the first sessions. Random selections of sounds and musical patterns and chil- dren’s Reactions to them were frequent in the process. In the course of the study and towards the end of it, the level of their reaction was more advanced, which means that children were responding to groups of musical sounds and the relationships between them rather than on isolated sounds. These indi- cations of children’s advanced behaviours could probably be related to their increased familiarity with the computer interface.

Planning and Assessment proved to be dominant behaviours in children’s music-making process with digital tools. They were often discussing about their musical choices and their next steps in music-making. Their verbal interaction seemed to shape their musical thinking, which is in line with what Espeland (2006) and R. MacDonald et al. (2006) emphasized about the dynamic rela- tionship between the music and social aspects of compositional process.

A second form of children’s musical Planning and Assessment was based on their non-verbal communication. In these moments, despite the lack of verbal interaction, children were communicating with each other by eye contact, body movements and singing. As discussed in S. Young (2008), chil- dren’s free-flow musical play does not require verbal forms of interaction and sympathetic enjoinment has a crucial role. In this study, children’s non-verbal interaction had an additional role; it entailed a different way of each other’s scaffolding during their Planning in music-making process.

There were moments, in which musical Planning was also taking place individually with the absence of verbal or non-verbal interactions. In these cases children seemed more decisive and they were trying to impose their musical decisions. Other types of interactions were found to shape their musi- cal thinking, such as the software packages’ interface and children’s cultural

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background, which, in turn, were shaping by children’s music-making. M. S. Barret (2011) emphasized the interrelationship between the self and the cultural worlds. She explained that ‘individuals and groups not only shape the contexts and settings in which they live and work, they are in turn shaped by them’ (2011: 3) and she recognized that ‘development is an interactive process between the child and surrounding environment’ (2011: 5).

The above described forms of interactions contributed to children’s musi- cal thinking and the way that they were planning during the music-making process. In order to build a musical pattern, they often evaluated either musi- cal sounds or their musical creations. This process was recursive and strate- gies were developed under their social and musical interaction as well as their interaction with the computer interface, which showed that children used the affordances of software packages.

Changes in children ways of Planning were connected with their Proactive behaviour. Although in the beginning of the study, children were mainly controlling sounds intentionally, in the end of the study they started to construct simple patterns using some regularity.

This pilot study was relatively short to investigate children’s musical devel- opment in music-making. Nevertheless, there are indications that children’s strategies were developed in a spiral rather than a linear way relying on a variety of interactions. J. Bamberger suggested the spiraling in contrast to a unidirectional view of development:

I claim that this spiraling in contrast to a unidirectional view of devel- opment, points to a critical aspect of learning present in the examples and more generally in musical development as well. It is a process of moving through a spiral of modes: sensory experience (listening, impro- vising, experimenting, and performing), reflecting back on action to find solutions to emergent problems (seeking constituent details, making descriptions and explanations), then circling back again to reshape initial perceptions of the present music.

(2011: 99)

Whilst it has only been possible to indicate some changes in children’s musical behaviours, this study suggests that there is much that can be gained by chil- dren’s engagement in computer-supported music-making activities to gener- ate a wider understanding of their musical thinking and development in this context. Future work could involve observations of a bigger number of children for a longer period of time. Analyses of children’s musical products (i.e. their compositions) could also provide valuable information about children’s musi- cal development in this context. Children’s musical creations with digital tools could be considered as their ‘artefacts of work’, in a Vygotskian way, which means that tools or artefacts can be seen as part of the way that socio-cognitive systems perceive, elaborate and create during the process of music-making.

acknowlEdgEMEnTs

This article has been based on the pilot study of the first author’s ongoing Ph.D. research at the Institute of Education, University of London. The authors would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the high level of continu- ous support and expert guidance provided by the first author’s supervisors Prof. G. Welch and Dr E. Himonides and to thank them for their thoughtful

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suggestions and inspiring discussions. The authors would like also to thank the participants and their teachers for taking part in this research as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions for revisions. This research has been financially supported by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation.

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SuggeSted citation

Charissi, V. and Rinta, T. (2014), ‘Children’s musical and social behaviours in the context of music-making activities supported by digital tools: Examples from a pilot study in the United Kingdom’, Journal of Music, Technology & Education 7: 1, pp. 39–58, doi: 10.1386/jmte.7.1.39_1

contributor detailS

Vicky Charissi is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Education University of London, supervised by Dr E. Himonides and Prof. G. Welch. She gained her B.A. in Musicology and her M.A. in Pedagogy from the University of Athens, Greece. She has worked as a music specialist in primary and secondary

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education and as an educationist for digital music installations in several museums (e.g. Science Museum, London, UK). Her research interests include computer-supported music-making, development of children’s musicality, music cognition and the origins of music. She currently has a scholarship from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation.

Contact: Department of Culture, Communication and Media, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Tiija Rinta is an educationist, development worker, researcher and writer based in London, UK. After completing her doctoral degree at the Institute of Education University of London in 2008 on children’s vocal development, she has worked for several international NGOs, Government Agencies and universities. Such work has taken her to various countries, such as Taiwan and Jordan, where she has been able to use her knowledge and skills for the benefit of locals. The products of these projects are publications in inter- national professional journals, articles in magazines and book chapters. Tiija has also authored a novel, two children’s books and a poetry book. She currently works for an educational social enterprise called Feynlabs, as well as a music teacher. Tiija’s latest challenge is a small NGO, Volunteer East that recruits volunteers and collects donations for small local NGOs in developing countries. More information on her work can be found at www.tiijarinta.com.

Contact: Department of Culture, Communication and Media, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Vicky Charissi and Tiija Rinta have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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