Margaret S. Barrett

Inventing songs, inventing worlds: the ‘genesis’ of creative thought and activity in young children’s lives

This article draws on systems views of creativity and their application in music education, to argue that young children’s independent invented song making evolves from their early musico‐communicative interaction with others, is evidential of their capacity for ‘elaboration’, and is foundational in the development of creative thought and activity in music. The argument is explored through the analysis of data generated in a longitudinal study of young children’s (aged four to six years) early music making as composers, song makers, and notators. Focusing specifically on children’s invented song, the article provides case study analysis of the song making of a four‐year‐old girl that explores the musical and lyric content, and the environmental features (context) that support and shape her song making (process) and invented songs (product). The implications of such a view for early childhood theory and practice are discussed.

'Creative collaboration': An 'eminence' study of teaching and learning in music composition

The image of the composer as a lone seeker of creative inspiration is embedded in popular views of the creative artist. This isolationist view ignores the ‘thought communities’ on which composers draw in their development as musicians, composers and teachers, the relationships that hold between composer-teacher and student-composer, and the role of these relationships in the ongoing development of allparticipants in the teaching and learning process. This article draws on ‘eminence’ studies of creativity to investigate the teaching and learning beliefs, processes and practices, of an eminent composer-teacher when working with a tertiary-level student-composer over the course of one academic semester. The emergent view of the teaching and learning process in music composition is one of a dyad working towards shared goals in a process characterized by collaboration, joint effort, and social support. This suggests that the teaching and learning process in composition may be a form of creative collaboration.

Invented Notations: A View of Young Children's Musical Thinking

The research reported in this article describes some of the ways in which young children use idiosyncratic symbols (invented notations) to encode their compositional experiences in music. These symbols may be viewed as vehicles for conveying meaning and are precursors to the development of the culturally agreed symbol systems of the adult literate world. The investigation was naturalistic in design and focused on childrens individual responses to simple compositional tasks completed in an early childhood setting. A number of categories of symbolisation emerged from the data collected, suggesting that as children become more experienced in encoding their responses, their recordings become less context-bound and more concerned with ideas and concepts.

Children's aesthetic decision-making: An analysis of children's musical discourse as composers

In this study I promote a view of childrens aesthetic decision-making as a non-verbal process evidenced in the structural features children employ in their musical discourse as composers. I draw on the work of Polanyi and Wittgenstein to support the view that knowledge may be demonstrated as well as ‘stated’ verbally, and that the examination of childrens musical discourse as composers provides us with direct access to their musical thinking and aesthetic decision-making. Through the analysis of the form and structure of one hundred and thirty-seven compositions collected from children aged between five and twelve years childrens aesthetic decision-making is identified and described. Findings of the study suggest that childrens aesthetic decisionmaking as demonstrated in their use of structure and form in their musical discourse as composers is not necessarily linked to age or prior experience.

Musical narratives: A study of a young child’s identity work in and through music-making

The investigation of infants’ and young children’s early musical engagement as singers, song-makers, and music-makers has provided some insight into children’s early vocal and musical development. Recent research has highlighted the vital role of interactive vocalization or ‘communicative musicality’ in infants’ general development, including their health and well-being, and early identity work. Little research has investigated how these early vocalizations and musical interactions are taken up and used by young children as they construct an emergent identity as a musical and sociocultured being. This article draws on a three-year longitudinal project that has investigated the role of invented song-making and music engagement in 18 young children’s (aged approximately 18–48 months) identity work and self-making. Data sources employed within a narrative inquiry design included parent-maintained video and paper diaries of song-making and music engagement, interviews with parents and other care-givers, and researcher observations of children in musical activity. Processes of narrative analysis and analysis of narrative were employed to analyse these data and provide a narrative account of the ways in which one 2-year-old child fashions a self through her engagement with known and invented song and music-making over a 12-month period. Findings suggest that invented song and music-making build on young children’s experiences of ‘communicative musicality’ and provide narrative structures in which young children perform and enact multiple ways of being through musical storying and story-telling.

Meme Engineers: children as producers of musical culture

This paper examines the ways in which young children construct and negotiate musical meaning as song-makers in a post-modern consumerist musical world. A critical analysis of the presentation of music in two popular Australian childrens television programmes (Play School and Hi-5) and the ways in which such media impact upon childrens constructions of music and musical understanding is presented. This analysis provides a context for the examination of tensions that exist between a modernist account of what constitutes musical understanding in the young child, and an account that is cognisant of post-modern aesthetics. The implications of this concerning views of childrens musical development and curriculum decision making are discussed and a view of the child as an active agent in the construction of her musical worlds is illustrated through an examination of the musical narratives of a 4-year-old child.

A cultural psychology of music education

Recent studies in music education have investigated the ways in which different groups construe music and music education, and the ways in which these constructions are culturally bound. This book explores the ways in which the discipline of cultural psychology can contribute to our understanding of how music learning and development occurs in a range of cultural settings, and the subsequent implications of such understanding for the theory and practice of music education. The book opens with an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of a cultural psychology of music education. Ten music education scholars and researchers provide chapters that illustrate the application of this approach to key issues in music education; its theory and practice. These chapters provide opportunities to look more deeply into the practices of music education in order to understand the role culture plays in shaping childrens musical learning and thinking, the learning and teaching of music teachers, the formal and informal institutions and structures within and through which learning and teaching occur, and, the intersection of these processes and structures in the development of musical thought and practice.

Provoking the muse: A case study of teaching and learning in music composition

This article reports the findings of a research project that investigated the nature of the teaching and learning process in music composition. Over the period of one semester, the formal interactions in one-on-one study sessions between an eminent composer-teacher and an experienced graduate student-composer were videotaped. Following the generation of video data, separate interviews were conducted with the composer-teacher and the student-composer in order to probe each of these participants’ perceptions of the nature of the teaching and learning process in which they were engaged. Analyses of observational and interview data were framed within a social constructivist perspective and drew on notions of the zone of proximal development, a problem-finding attitude and creative collaboration. The teaching and learning process in musical composition in this study emphasized problem finding and problem solving by composer-teacher and student-composer within a social relationship characterized by reciprocity and collaborative dialogue in which possible solutions were discussed, negotiated and trialed.

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

Investigations of the processes and products of childrens invented notational activity have generated a growing body of research that reflects some of the interests and concerns of the study of childrens symbolic activity in general. However, whilst the emerging picture of childrens use of invented notation in music has suggested some commonalities in the processes and products of children engaged in notational activity, a number of anomalies are also evident. This article provides a brief summary of research in childrens invented notation in music in order to identify tensions that exist in the findings of such research. Through the description and analysis of a five-year-old boys invented notations and his verbal accounts of such notations, it explores the ways in which our understanding of childrens notational activity and musical understanding may be enhanced through attentive listening and substantive responding to childrens meaning-making as composer/notators.

On building a community of practice: reflective narratives of academic learning and growth

This paper traces the evolution of an academic community of practice and identifies the individual and collective outcomes of participation for the members. The impetus for the community was the joint development of a learning and teaching project grant application that aimed to improve teacher education in music curriculum, and the subsequent implementation of that project. The paper draws on a range of data sources including individual reflective journals, audio‐records and transcriptions of meetings, email archives and discussion board posts of the project team members. The purpose of the paper is to illuminate and interrogate the processes and enabling conditions that supported the development of this academic community of practice, and consider the implications for academics.