Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Investigating Young Children’s Musical Improvisation Pathways: An Action Research in a Greek Kindergarten School
Adamopoulou, Katerina
Moraitis School, Greece
Considering current trends in research of music pedagogy, improvisation seems to be an exceptional musical “act” of learning music, embracing characteristics of informal learning practices.
This study intended to investigate young children's improvisations when applying "open approaches" of teaching improvisation. Open approaches of teaching – learning improvisation stress the importance of the “act” of music placing the student in the centre of the learning process. It encourages music experimentation and exploration, group collaboration, as well as learning through the process of enculturation as an exercise of autonomy and freedom. Moreover, it emphasises the active role of the teacher and the scaffolding process.
Throughout the study, I aimed to answer the following questions: 1) How do children interact with each other? 2) What factors influence the formation of children's improvisations? and 3) How does the teacher's role support the "open approaches" of improvisation? The study took place in a private kindergarten in Greece. A group of seven 5–6-year-old children participated in the study for three months. The nature of the activities were open, flexible and structured.
According to the findings, young children employed several pathways of improvisation and interaction, including body percussion, verbal expression and playing musical instruments. They utilized several improvisation practices, including imitations, parallel, sequential and complementary improvisations, pre-planned improvisations, and improvisations focused on melody transcription by ear. The lyrics of the songs played a crucial role in stimulating imaginary narrative stories. The melodic line of the song provided a framework for the children to delineate meanings and develop their musical ideas based on their own experiences.
The reserch revealed the function of improvisation as a democratic social practice in which the group shared beliefs, ideas and emotions through music. Sharing common meanings through their improvisations, children expressed themselves freely and autonomously within a peer-directed and self-directed learning environment.
Collective free improvisation in the Flemish general music classroom: Probing student’s lived experience through flow.
Verneert, Filip
Ghent University, Belgium
The aim of this study is to explore the lived experience of students (N = 1,282, age range 12-15 years) in general education (secondary school) engaging in collective free improvisation (CFI). Secondary schools in Flanders currently offer a 1-hr weekly music course in the first and second year, conceptualized as a general course about music.
Fourteen music teachers implemented a CFI lesson in 69 classes in Flanders (Belgium). Lived experience was measured using a Dutch version of the Flow State Scale for Occupational Tasks. In addition, teachers’ reflections were mapped by means of an online survey. Results show a difference in total flow between students who already played an instrument and those who did not. Students who play an instrument score significantly higher on the factor ‘Sense of Control’. Conversely, the flow scores on the factors ‘Absorption by Concentration’ and ‘Positive Emotional Experience’ do not differ between instrumentalists and non-instrumentalists.
The findings of our study indicate that engaging in CFI facilitates musical expression, no matter one's technical and musical competence, and that free improvisation exercises in general education positively impact both students and teachers. The results show that students felt focused in the lesson, that time went by quickly, that they were able to perform the exercise well, found the exercise enjoyable and wanted to repeat it and that CFI tasks are a good way to include all students in active musical play.
In this presentation we will provide an overview of the study and elaborate on the practical implications for music teachers and talk about the possibilities of engaging all students in an inclusive musical dialogue.
Verneert, F., Nijs, L., & De Baets, T. (2024). Collective free improvisation in the Flemish general music classroom: Probing student’s lived experience through flow. International Journal of Music Education, 0(0), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/02557614241269586
