Playing with music

1. Playing with music Dr Susan Young University of Exeter

2. This presentation has three parts 1 Playing with music • Some big questions • Where now? New challenges for early childhood music education

3. Acknowledgements Birmingham Moonbeams Team • Cynthia Knight, Nancy Evans, Nicola Burke, Trish Keelan Gloucestershire Music Mushrooms Team • Alison Harmer and Liz Terry Time to Play Team • Sandra Barefoot, Maggie O’Connor, Trish Keelan, Nuzhat Abbas

4. Part 1: Playing with Music

5. Trish and boy with bells

6. Boy and bells • Listening • Thinking musically • Recognising changes in pitch • Matching what he does to what he hears • Rhythm, skills of playing • Creativity - Curiosity, exploration and play, initiating his own learning

7. Adult • Has provided appropriate resources • Is ready to play musically, lets him lead • Listens and thinks musically • Plays with him with instruments • Sometimes copies him, sometimes varies • Judges moment to introduce something new • Good general EY practice – not really special music skills

8. Nancy with Alfie and Elise

9. Alfie and Elise • Being expressive and imaginative • Listening and performing • Making song, singing, playing rhythmically with words • Beat, rhythm and rhythmic patterns – with words, movements and playing instruments • Phrasing, turn-taking, structure • Creative development - Curiosity, exploration and play, initiating their own learning etc.

10. Playing with music • The children are being musical, playing with music, making music, making children’s music • Trish and Nancy are playing musically on children’s terms A two-way process - - sustained shared musical thinking

11. How do we usually do music? • Compare what we have seen with how music is usually provided for in early years settings • Group singing • All children do the same, following the lead of the adult • How much room is there for music play? – for learning to think musically through play?

12. Part 2: Some big questions

13. Big questions • The big questions are often not asked – • Why teach music? What’s it for? What do we want children to learn? • Yet these ideas and the values behind them profoundly shape what we do –

14. Assumptions about music • In our culture ‘to be musical’ is thought to be something very special • For example, either you can sing – or you cannot! It’s not something that can be learned, it’s in the genes, you have to have talent. • We often feel self-conscious about doing it wrong, we make jokes about singing badly -

15. A cultural model of music • Music in our culture – for the majority is received passively (listening, buying, joining in with) rather than made actively AND SO – in education music is seen as something to reproduce rather than produce creatively AND SO – adults can shy away from music because they think they need special skills and knowledge

16. Research background • In the visual arts field – a much longer and stronger tradition of research on children’s own work that has influenced practice • There is no long tradition of research based on children’s spontaneous musical activity - the research and practice is relatively new –

17. AND SO We do not have a lot of experience of what children’s music sounds like, how it’s made, how it’s meaningful to children, how to support it etc. In the UK, the current curriculum includes music in creative development but still gives mostly traditional images of what practice will be – and traditional goals

18. Is music valued? • In my experience – educators value music, intuitively. • BUT - UK education now is very focussed on ‘basics’ • AND SO - the value of other subject areas eg music is weakened • AND SO – value for the under-valued curriculum areas tends to be borrowed from those areas that ARE important • AND SO – music is justified in terms of how it can support other areas of the curriculum (literacy, number) and other attributes such as social behaviour, communication, rather than music in and of itself

19. TO SUMMARISE • Music traditionally adult-led/whole group song-singing – OR – low-level, laissez-faire exploration of instruments • Music for fun, relaxation or as showcase events • Music devalued by emphasis on the basics • Low expectations of children’s learning in music because you need talent to really do it • In the UK, a curriculum document that shifted a bit by putting music in with creative development but doesn’t hold high expectations for young children in music

20. In Belgium? • How do these ideas drawn from practice in the UK relate to practice in Belgium?

21. So what can we do? • Take good, general early years practice and translate in to music • For example - How do we support children’s learning in literacy and language? • Lots of varied and rich opportunities to engage with books, to listen, to talk, to make up stories, to play with mark making

22. Provide opportunities to - • make own music • make music with others • listen to wide range of music • learn skills and apply them • take a range of musical roles • use music technology • be expressive and imaginative

23. The adult role If children initiate with their music – changes the adult role from being music leader to music facilitator • Provider, organiser • Eliciting and prompting • Listening intently • Hearing the music in it • Responding on children’s musical terms • Playing with/interacting – repeating, same or just a bit different • Extending and structuring

24. And - don’t forget playing with songs • Children making up music usually focuses on instrumental music-making Children’s spontaneous singing • Reworking known songs • Free-flow singing – often while concentrating • Playing with words and making small narratives • Movement singing

25. Spontaneous singing • Often stifled or ignored? Ask for a song Provide microphones and recording equip Listen musically and comment Join in, respond, interact Send home via email

26. Alison with Rose in the music tent

27. Part 3: Where Now?

28. New times: New challenges • Diversity • New technologies And so there is even more need to ask the ‘big questions’ and rethink assumptions -

29. What musical futures? • Many choices, lots of possibilities for musical activity, particularly with new technologies – learning how to choose • Today’s children need to be able to find their own musical ‘places’ in the world, their own musical identities • With accelerating pace of change follows diminishing possibilities to foresee what kinds of musical environments children will live in as adults

30. Music technology: e.g. Karaoke

31. Using technology

32. Diversity

33. And never losing - the natural vitality of singing and dancing when we work in music, for this is the source from which all aesthetic and social powers of musical culture flow