Making musical sense: the multimodal nature of clarifying musical listening

Abstract

The present study concerns the multimodal nature of music education. How children (aged 4Á8 years) respond when faced with the challenge of talking about what they hear in pieces of music is studied. The semiotic tools children and their teachers use in these situations and how they transduce between modalities (verbal, sound, colours and gestures) are analysed. Paradoxically, this analytical focus on multimodality results in an emphasis on the importance of verbal language in the learning situations studied. Some implications for music education are discussed.

Engaging children's participation in and around a new music technology through playful framing

“…The adult guides the children through verbalising the nature of the output (turns 316, 320). Verbalising the nature of the sound constitutes an important feature of institutionally endorsed development that could be formulated as supporting the children in going from simply discerning similarities and differences to also starting to appropriate cultural tools (Pramling and Wallerstedt 2009) for making sense of and organising (planning) their impressions and expressions (e.g. listening to and playing music).…”

“…Nowhere is this more apparent than in aesthetic domains of learning and also in relation to play. However, such a stance is in stark contrast to other research and theorising on children's play and learning (also in the arts) which argues for, and illustrates, the important roles filled by a teacher in children's play and learning (Bendroth Karlsson 2011;Pramling and Wallerstedt 2009;Vygotsky [1930] 2004; Wallerstedt and Pramling 2012b).…”

“…in the present case, a keyboard and a computer program) as well as to discursive or intellectual ones, of which speech is one of the most important. One reason for the centrality of speech in this account is that it is often used as a meta-tool in coordinating the use of other tools and participants (Pramling and Wallerstedt 2009). The present study investigates children's participation in a technology-mediated activity when an adult communicatively frames (Goffman 1974) it as a playful activity in both senses of the word -that is, as playing music as well as enacting a pretend scenario.…”

Learning to play in a goal-directed practice

“…The teachers and children participated in a three-year development and research project on the arts in early years education (for an overview, see Pramling Samuelsson, Asplund Carlsson, Olsson, Pramling, and Wallerstedt 2009). Activities in the arts were documented by the researcher and discussed with the teachers.…”

Learning and knowing songs: a study of children as music teachers

“…In her study she illustrates how mediating concepts (i.e., verbal tools) facilitated children's musical discernment, furthered their ability to play and compose music and, in addition, allowed for social sharing of musical experiences (cf. Pramling and Wallerstedt 2009).…”