Slide 1

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 2

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 3

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 4

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 5

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 6

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 7

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 8

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 9

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 10

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 11

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 12

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 13

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 14

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 15

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 16

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 17

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 18

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 19

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?


Slide 20

Musical Dialogues
Dr Susan Young
University of Exeter
School of Education and Lifelong
Learning

Three parts
 Scene-setting:

Learning in music with

young children
 Small
 Some

experimental study

thoughts to connect with
symposium themes

The challenge of music!


It doesn’t stay still and it is invisible –



[Unlike ‘objects’ in many areas of learning - e.g.
science, maths or visual arts]

EITHER pedagogical strategies to help fix it –
visually and statically
 OR strategies to learn while it’s on the move and
in the aural/kinaesthetic (non-visual modes)


Learning in the flow of doing
Music – not just ‘doing’ or learning ‘about’
but learning ‘about doing’
A time-based, dynamic process
How do children learn ‘in the flow of doing’
about how music works?

An interest in mediation


Mediation is a key-word in much research and
theorising inspired by Vygotsky
 However, mediation is both human and symbolic
 Studies focussing on Human mediator – often
interested in what kinds of interactions can make
the most difference to child’s performance
 Studies focussing on symbolic mediator – what
differences in the child’s performance by the
introduction of certain symbolic-tools/mediators

Study
3 and 4-year-olds, self-initiated play on a xylophone
Adult partners as mediators
Condition 1
 Xylophone and adult play partner
 Xylophone and no adult
Condition 2
 Xylophone and familiar, ‘non-musician’ adult play partner
 Xylophone and less familiar, ‘musician’ adult play partner

Method
Fixed video camera ran for a continuous
period (until tape ran out)
Length of time children played was
measured, the means found and
compared
Small sample – 15 children

Adult protocol
 Not

to initiate play, but to be ‘available to
play’

 To

join in by imitating the child’s playing
ideas if it seemed welcome
 To imitate with versions that matched as
much as possible

Results
Condition 1
Children played longer when an adult joined
in with playing, than when there was no
adult
Condition 2
Children played longer with the familiar adult
than with the unfamiliar adult

Average Time durations
 Unattended

– 01.40

 Attended:

unfamiliar adult – 06.49

 Attended:

familiar adult – 03.12

Some interpretations


Interest in the activity is sustained by the interpersonal
dimension more than ‘musical content’ [in conventional
terms]



The intention to communicate, to make something
collaboratively fuels the temporal contours, the dynamics
– [sounded out as music]



The interpersonal dimension as a generative source of
musical [temporal arts] ideas and elaborations

Music as made between people
 Communicating

and coordinating musical
actions – in dialogue

 The

construction of musical thinking in
social action

 ‘a

process of active sense-making
occurring in real-time’ (Bamberger, 2006
p.70)

Not surprising!
Trevarthen – communicative
musicality in adult/infant interaction
 John Matthews – young children’s artmaking as interpersonal, emerging in time
 Colwyn

Interest arising from intercultural studies of
music (latterly in music psychology) in
music as communication, as social
process

Modes of interaction


Sociocultural theory (which is very influential on
EC practice) tends to emphasise converting
experience in to talk ‘to make it conscious’ and
talk, therefore, as the primary mode of
interaction



Music (dance, drama) as non-verbal modes of
interaction – importance of gesture
(visual/aural/bodily) with communicable [but
highly negotiable meanings – not needing to ‘fix’
meaning in artistic activity]

The dimension of time


Music (temporal arts) unfold over time - ‘scripts’,
or narratives - have kinds of internal logic,
relationships between what has just gone and
inferred to what might come next, pivoting on the
present moment (Stern)



Strategies to learn while it’s moving – memory is
a key skill – holding on to non-verbal, non-visual
imagery in the mind, recalling and working with it

the ‘timing’ of experience
- Putting ‘time’ back into our
considerations and understandings of
experience – psychology of time

 Stern

Musical thinking


Young children relate present moment to what
has just gone and gives impulse only to what
might come immediately next – why young
children’s music is often said to be ‘formless’



Sawyer and Keil, improvised music, children’s
role play - linear structures, flow of a river, ‘in
the moment’ rather than hierarchical,
architectural, large scale forms with many
interrelationships

Mediation in musical thinking
 Adult

protocol DOES introduce a
structuring strategy (like phrasing)
 Adult inevitably ‘reworks’ the replies to
some extent
 A kind of structured participation, but NOT
guided or scaffolded – it’s not leading to a
predetermined end-point - co-creation

A ‘meta’ level?
 Children

can stand outside their own
music-making (moving, drama etc.) – and
listen, observe.
 Being inside the action and also outside,
aware of the action – is required in
performance arts
 Meta-awareness – a kind of doubletracking (empathetic behaviour)

Transcending
 Can

awareness/understanding of temporal
process be transferred in to other activity?
 Working cross-modally in dynamic, kinetic
processes
 Spatio-temporal thinking
 Kinds of proto-, non-verbal, (narrative)
structure?
 Ability to empathise, communicate nonverbally?