Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T16:24:36.182Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

External representation and the architecture of music: Children inventing and speaking about notations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2009

Niklas Pramling
Niklas Pramling*
Affiliation:
Department of Education, University of Gothenburg, Box 300, SE-405 30 Göteborg, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study concerns children's representational knowledge, more specifically, their ‘invented notations’ of music. A small-scale empirical study of four 5-year-old children and their teachers working on the representation of music is reported. The challenges posed by the teachers and how the children respond to these challenges are analysed. The teachers challenge the children to explain their understanding and use contrast to direct children's attention towards distinctions and important terms in the domain of music. The children use coloured geometrical shapes on paper and a sequence of building blocks to represent music. By means of these visuospatial representations, sounding and conversing about them, the children are able to communicate their understanding of the relationship between representation (sign) and sound. The role of external representations in the development of children's musical knowledge is discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , November 2009 , pp. 273 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BAMBERGER, J. (1991) The Mind behind the Musical Ear: How Children Develop Musical Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
BAMBERGER, J. (2005) ‘How the conventions of music notation shape musical perception and performance’, in Miell, D., MacDonald, R. & Hargreaves, D. J. (Eds.), Musical Communication (pp. 143–170). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BAMBERGER, J. (2007) ‘Restructuring conceptual intuitions through invented notations: From path-making to map-making’, in Teubal, E., Dockrell, J. & Tolchinsky, L. (Eds.), Notational Knowledge: Developmental and Historical Perspectives (pp. 81–112). Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.Google Scholar
BARRETT, M. S. (2001) ‘Constructing a view of children's meaning-making as notators: A case-study of a five-year-old's descriptions and explanations of invented notations’, Research Studies in Music Education, 16, 33–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BARRETT, M. S. (2005) ‘Representation, cognition, and communication: Invented notation in children's musical communication’, in Miell, D., MacDonald, R. & Hargreaves, D. J. (Eds.), Musical Communication (pp. 117–142). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BARRETT, M. S. (2006) ‘Inventing songs, inventing worlds: The ‘genesis’ of creative thought and activity in young children's lives’, International Journal of Early Years Education, 14, 201–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BLAIR, D. V. (2007) ‘Musical maps as narrative inquiry’, International Journal of Education and the Arts, 8 (15). Retrieved June 9, 2008, from http://www.ijea.org/v8n15/.Google Scholar
BRUNER, J. S. (2006) ‘Narrative and paradigmatic modes of thought’, in In Search of Pedagogy, Volume II: The Selected Works of Jerome S. Bruner (pp. 116–128). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
CARRUTHERS, E., & WORTHINGTON, M. (2005) ‘Making sense of mathematical graphics: The development of understanding abstract symbolism’, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 13, 57–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
COATES, E. & COATES, A. (2006) ‘Young children talking and drawing’, International Journal of Early Years Education, 14, 221–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DAVIDSON, L. & SCRIPP, L. (1988) ‘Young children's musical representations: Windows on musical cognition’, in Sloboda, J. A. (Ed.), Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance, Improvisation, and Composition (pp. 195–230). Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
HAGTVET, B. E. (2004) Språkstimulering, Del 1: Tal och Skrift i Förskoleåldern [Language Stimulation, Part 1: Speech and Writing in the Preschool Age] (Häggström, I., Trans.). Stockholm: Natur och Kultur.Google Scholar
JORDAN-DECARBO, J. & NELSON, J. A. (2002) ‘Music and early childhood education’, in Colwell, R. & Richardson, C. (Eds.), The New Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning (pp. 210–242). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
KRESS, G. (1997) Before Writing: Rethinking the Paths to Literacy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
LISBOA, T. (2003) ‘Children's conceptualisation of music’, in Kopiez, R., Lehmann, A. C., Wolther, I. & Wolf, C. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th Triennial ESCOM Conference 8–13 September 2003 (pp. 293–297). Hanover, Germany: Hanover University of Music and Drama.Google Scholar
MAURITZSON, U. & SÄLJÖ, R. (2003) ‘Ja vill va Simba å du ä Nala: Barns kommunikation och koordination av perspektiv i lek’, in Johansson, E. & Pramling Samuelsson, I. (Eds.), Förskolan: Barns Första Skola [Preschool: Children's First School] (pp. 159–196). Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur.Google Scholar
MERCER, N. (1995) The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk Amongst Teachers and Learners. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MERCER, N. (2000) Words and Minds: How we use Language to Think Together. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
MERCER, N. & LITTLETON, K. (2007) Dialogue and the Development of Children's Thinking: A Sociocultural Approach. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MIELL, D., MACDONALD, R. & HARGREAVES, D. J. (Eds.) (2005) Musical Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MILLER, B. A. (2004) ‘Designing compositional tasks for elementary music classrooms’, Research Studies in Music Education, 22, 59–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NELSON, K. (1996) Language in Cognitive Development: The Emergence of the Mediated Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
OLSON, D. R. (1994) The World on Paper: The Conceptual and Cognitive Implications of Writing and Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
POUND, L. & HARRISON, C. (2003) Supporting Musical Development in the Early Years. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.Google Scholar
PRAMLING, I. (1996) ‘Understanding and empowering the child as a learner’, in Olson, D. R. & Torrance, N. (Eds.), The Handbook of Education and Human Development: New Models of Learning, Teaching and Schooling (pp. 565–592). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
PRAMLING, N. (2006) Minding Metaphors: Using Figurative Language in Learning to Represent (Göteborg Studies in Educational Sciences, 238). Göteborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.Google Scholar
PRAMLING, N. & ASPLUND CARLSSON, M. (2008) ‘Rhyme and reason: Developing children's understanding of rhyme’, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 9, 14–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PRAMLING, N. & WALLERSTEDT, C. (2009) ‘Making musical sense: The multimodal nature of clarifying musical listening’, Music Education Research, 11, 135–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PRAMLING SAMUELSSON, I. (2006) ‘Teaching and learning in preschool and the first years of elementary school in Sweden’, in Einarsdottir, J. & Wagner, J. T. (Eds.), Nordic Childhoods and Early Education: Philosophy, Research, Policy, and Practice in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden (pp. 101–131). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.Google Scholar
PRAMLING SAMUELSSON, I. & ASPLUND CARLSSON, M. (2007) Spielend Lernen: Stärkung Lernmetodischer Kompetenzen (Werner, S., Trans.). Troisdorf, Germany: Bildungsverlag Eins.Google Scholar
PRAMLING SAMUELSSON, I., ASPLUND CARLSSON, M., OLSSON, B., PRAMLING, N. & WALLERSTEDT, C. (2009) ‘The art of teaching children the arts: Music, dance and poetry with children aged 2–8 years old’, International Journal of Early Years Education, 17, 119–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SÄLJÖ, R. (2000) Lärande i Praktiken: Ett Sociokulturellt Perspektiv [Learning in Practice: A Sociocultural Perspective]. Stockholm: Prisma.Google Scholar
SÄLJÖ, R. (2005) Lärande och Kulturella Redskap: Om Lärprocesser och det Kollektiva Minnet [Learning and Cultural Tools: On Processes of Learning and Collective Memory]. Stockholm: Norstedts Akademiska.Google Scholar
TAN, S.-L. & KELLY, M. E. (2004) ‘Graphic representations of short musical compositions’, Psychology of Music, 32, 191–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
THAUT, M. H. (2005) ‘Rhythm, human temporality, and brain function’, in Miell, D., MacDonald, R. & Hargreaves, D. J. (Eds.), Musical Communication (pp. 171–191). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
TOLCHINSKY, L. (2007) ‘The multiple functions of external representations: Introduction’, in Teubal, E., Dockrell, J. & Tolchinsky, L. (Eds.), Notational Knowledge: Developmental and Historical Perspectives (pp. 1–10). Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.Google Scholar
VYGOTSKY, L. S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
WELLS, G. (1999) Dialogic Inquiry: Towards a Sociocultural Practice and Theory of Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WELLS, G. (2000) ‘From action to writing: Modes of representing and knowing’, in Astington, J. W. (Ed.), Minds in the Making: Essays in Honor of David R. Olson (pp. 115–140). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
WERTSCH, J. V. (1985) Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
WERTSCH, J. V. (2002) Voices of Collective Remembering. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
YOUNG, S. & GLOVER, J. (1998) Music in the Early Years. London: Falmer.Google Scholar