Thesis (M.M.)--Boston University

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo acompanhar o desenvolvimento musical de crianças entre dois e cinco anos, identificando as singularidades que caracterizam seu engajamento nas atividades e buscando compreender os processos cognitivos que asseguram suas conquistas na área da música, especialmente frente às demandas dos modos do Sistema Tonal. A pesquisa se delineia como um estudo exploratório e envolve duas fontes de evidências empíricas: (a) portfólios individuais dos sujeitos, que registram a trajetória musical de cada um dos onze sujeitos que participaram desta pesquisa, explicitando suas singularidades e como realiza as atividades propostas; e (b) experiências intencionais formuladas para colocar em evidência a interação entre os sujeitos e os modos. Para propor, observar e conduzir os diálogos com os sujeitos durante as experiências intencionais e, para analisar e interpretar todo o material empírico, este estudo inspira-se nos princípios do Método Clínico. No que concerne aos aspectos gerais do desenvolvimento musical, a análise de dados mostrou que, a criança cria formas de compreensão obtendo um conhecimento de natureza prática. A inteligência prática funciona tomando como base a realização concreta das ações, para construir a partir das explorações realizadas e coordenações necessárias uma teoria sobre aquilo que manuseia. Referente às construções harmônicas, acredita-se que a criança desde muito pequena já é capaz de ter algumas reações de ordem reflexa aos diferentes agrupamentos de sons. Por volta dos quatro anos, as crianças passam a nomear estas sensações e a considerar o efeito "triste" do modo menor. No que concerne às regras harmônicas, muito caminho há pela frente até que a criança seja capaz de entender progressões e fazer uma leitura do que ouve de forma apropriada. Mesmo que as estruturas reflexas iniciem o processo, a harmonia é uma construção social. Assim, para o entendimento das regras que movem o Sistema Tonal, será necessária a influência externa, a busca deste conhecimento fora de si próprio. / The purpose of this research is to follow the musical development of children aged 2-5 in order to identify the unique behavioral aspects of each child on the activities. It tries to understand the cognitive processes for their musical achievements, particularly when they are dealing with Western music constructed within a tonal harmonic framework (major and minor modes). The research is an exploratory study with eleven children and works with two different empiric sources. The first one is the Individual Portfolios which records the growth of each subject of this study. The second one is the intentional experiments to analyze the interaction between the subjects and modes. The data collection techniques, the analysis and the interpretation inspire themselves on Piaget's Clinical Method. The mainly reason to chose this methodology is to be able to expose the children's behavior and thoughts for the analysis and to learn how to introduce the experiment in order to incite the children's responses. The data analysis indicates that children interact with harmony using their practical intelligence, which is based on concrete actions. We believe that children are able to have reflexes reactions about some sounds constructs really early on their lives. After that, these sensations will get names and children will start to talk about the minor mode 'sad effect', for instance. However, harmony is a cultural phenomenon and, to be learned, it will require the appropriate use of logic.

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo acompanhar o desenvolvimento musical de crianças entre dois e cinco anos, identificando as singularidades que caracterizam seu engajamento nas atividades e buscando compreender os processos cognitivos que asseguram suas conquistas na área da música, especialmente frente às demandas dos modos do Sistema Tonal. A pesquisa se delineia como um estudo exploratório e envolve duas fontes de evidências empíricas: (a) portfólios individuais dos sujeitos, que registram a trajetória musical de cada um dos onze sujeitos que participaram desta pesquisa, explicitando suas singularidades e como realiza as atividades propostas; e (b) experiências intencionais formuladas para colocar em evidência a interação entre os sujeitos e os modos. Para propor, observar e conduzir os diálogos com os sujeitos durante as experiências intencionais e, para analisar e interpretar todo o material empírico, este estudo inspira-se nos princípios do Método Clínico. No que concerne aos aspectos gerais do desenvolvimento musical, a análise de dados mostrou que, a criança cria formas de compreensão obtendo um conhecimento de natureza prática. A inteligência prática funciona tomando como base a realização concreta das ações, para construir a partir das explorações realizadas e coordenações necessárias uma teoria sobre aquilo que manuseia. Referente às construções harmônicas, acredita-se que a criança desde muito pequena já é capaz de ter algumas reações de ordem reflexa aos diferentes agrupamentos de sons. Por volta dos quatro anos, as crianças passam a nomear estas sensações e a considerar o efeito "triste" do modo menor. No que concerne às regras harmônicas, muito caminho há pela frente até que a criança seja capaz de entender progressões e fazer uma leitura do que ouve de forma apropriada. Mesmo que as estruturas reflexas iniciem o processo, a harmonia é uma construção social. Assim, para o entendimento das regras que movem o Sistema Tonal, será necessária a influência externa, a busca deste conhecimento fora de si próprio. / The purpose of this research is to follow the musical development of children aged 2-5 in order to identify the unique behavioral aspects of each child on the activities. It tries to understand the cognitive processes for their musical achievements, particularly when they are dealing with Western music constructed within a tonal harmonic framework (major and minor modes). The research is an exploratory study with eleven children and works with two different empiric sources. The first one is the Individual Portfolios which records the growth of each subject of this study. The second one is the intentional experiments to analyze the interaction between the subjects and modes. The data collection techniques, the analysis and the interpretation inspire themselves on Piaget's Clinical Method. The mainly reason to chose this methodology is to be able to expose the children's behavior and thoughts for the analysis and to learn how to introduce the experiment in order to incite the children's responses. The data analysis indicates that children interact with harmony using their practical intelligence, which is based on concrete actions. We believe that children are able to have reflexes reactions about some sounds constructs really early on their lives. After that, these sensations will get names and children will start to talk about the minor mode 'sad effect', for instance. However, harmony is a cultural phenomenon and, to be learned, it will require the appropriate use of logic.

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo acompanhar o desenvolvimento musical de crianças entre dois e cinco anos, identificando as singularidades que caracterizam seu engajamento nas atividades e buscando compreender os processos cognitivos que asseguram suas conquistas na área da música, especialmente frente às demandas dos modos do Sistema Tonal. A pesquisa se delineia como um estudo exploratório e envolve duas fontes de evidências empíricas: (a) portfólios individuais dos sujeitos, que registram a trajetória musical de cada um dos onze sujeitos que participaram desta pesquisa, explicitando suas singularidades e como realiza as atividades propostas; e (b) experiências intencionais formuladas para colocar em evidência a interação entre os sujeitos e os modos. Para propor, observar e conduzir os diálogos com os sujeitos durante as experiências intencionais e, para analisar e interpretar todo o material empírico, este estudo inspira-se nos princípios do Método Clínico. No que concerne aos aspectos gerais do desenvolvimento musical, a análise de dados mostrou que, a criança cria formas de compreensão obtendo um conhecimento de natureza prática. A inteligência prática funciona tomando como base a realização concreta das ações, para construir a partir das explorações realizadas e coordenações necessárias uma teoria sobre aquilo que manuseia. Referente às construções harmônicas, acredita-se que a criança desde muito pequena já é capaz de ter algumas reações de ordem reflexa aos diferentes agrupamentos de sons. Por volta dos quatro anos, as crianças passam a nomear estas sensações e a considerar o efeito "triste" do modo menor. No que concerne às regras harmônicas, muito caminho há pela frente até que a criança seja capaz de entender progressões e fazer uma leitura do que ouve de forma apropriada. Mesmo que as estruturas reflexas iniciem o processo, a harmonia é uma construção social. Assim, para o entendimento das regras que movem o Sistema Tonal, será necessária a influência externa, a busca deste conhecimento fora de si próprio. / The purpose of this research is to follow the musical development of children aged 2-5 in order to identify the unique behavioral aspects of each child on the activities. It tries to understand the cognitive processes for their musical achievements, particularly when they are dealing with Western music constructed within a tonal harmonic framework (major and minor modes). The research is an exploratory study with eleven children and works with two different empiric sources. The first one is the Individual Portfolios which records the growth of each subject of this study. The second one is the intentional experiments to analyze the interaction between the subjects and modes. The data collection techniques, the analysis and the interpretation inspire themselves on Piaget's Clinical Method. The mainly reason to chose this methodology is to be able to expose the children's behavior and thoughts for the analysis and to learn how to introduce the experiment in order to incite the children's responses. The data analysis indicates that children interact with harmony using their practical intelligence, which is based on concrete actions. We believe that children are able to have reflexes reactions about some sounds constructs really early on their lives. After that, these sensations will get names and children will start to talk about the minor mode 'sad effect', for instance. However, harmony is a cultural phenomenon and, to be learned, it will require the appropriate use of logic.

Summary: The aim of my research anchored mainly in musical anthropology is to describe, analyze and interpret motivations of the members in the children's music choir and their reasons to continue despite all the demands and difficulties. In addition to the basic ethnomusicological concepts I work with the theory of experience of making the music - the concept called "flow" as characterized in the book Flow (The psychology of optimal experience) by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1996 and the concept of functionality of institutions and their influence on the choir members by Philip Zimbardo - The Luciffer Effect, 2014. This work is methodologically based on the qualitative research paradigm of social sciences and is based mainly on semi-structured interviews with former members of the choir. Key words: ethnomusicology, czech children's music choir, motivation, flow, discipline

The purpose of this study is to analyze Swedish songs for children and their respective illustrations in songbooks and digital material from a gender perspective. The analyzed songs were the ten most frequently answered songs from a survey sent out to people working with early childhood education. The theoretical framework consists of gender theory where central concepts include performativity, representation, heteronormativity, the heterosexual matrix and hegemonic masculinity. This combined with semiotic theory paves the way for an analysis of both the lyrics and their corresponding illustrations. Through a qualitative analysis the study finds that there is a strong overrepresentation of male pronouns and characters in the material and that gender often is portrayed in a stereotypical way. Especially the female characters are portrayed with attributes to emphasize their gender. However the study also shows that inclusive and gender neutral representation in songs is possible and exists in a minority of the analyzed material. The study concludes that a continuous dialogue between coworkers in preschools about gender representation in songs is needed to fulfill the preschool curriculum goal to prevent reproduction of restrictive gender patterns.

Investigations carried out by us in Murcia have brought to the fore the changes in children's orality as expressed in their songs. We have analyzed many children's songs transmitted through the oral tradition, which, in experiments in situ, we compiled from all the provinces of that Region and covering the entire XX century, given that the persons who enlightened us were aged from 4 to 99. Our fieldwork was not only limited to assembling the music and text of the songs, but also included the social, cultural and functional data of each song, whereby the analysis assumed an Anthropological profile. This thesis shows how children's songs have always been predetermined by the changing circumstances suffered by children throughout the entire century. The relationship between children's musical orality and the changing social and cultural climate in Murcia is possibly an indication of similar processes in other geographical areas. / En investigaciones realizadas en la Región de Murcia hemos venido verificando cambios en la oralidad infantil a través de sus canciones. Hemos analizado numerosos cantos infantiles de transmisión oral recogidos en trabajos de campo de todas las comarcas y décadas del siglo XX, pues acudimos a informantes entre 4 y 99 años. Esos trabajos no se limitaron al acopio de los elementos musicales y textuales de las canciones, sino que incluyeron datos del contexto social, cultural y funcional de cada una, por lo que el análisis entró en el campo de la Antropología musical. Esta tesis muestra cómo las canciones infantiles han venido estando sobredeterminadas por el entorno cambiante de la infancia a lo largo del siglo. La relación entre oralidad musical infantil y el mutante entorno socioeconómico de Murcia puede revelar procesos similares en otras áreas geográficas.

Uppsatsen strävar efter att utveckla kunskap om sambandet mellan förskollärares didaktiska ingripanden och förskolebarns möjligheter till att kreativt utforska och uttrycka musik. Undersökningen utgår från ett kulturpsykologiskt perspektiv som betonar interaktionen och det individuella kreativa prövandets betydelse för det musikaliska lärandet. Förskolebarns musikaliska utveckling påverkas av förskollärares musikaliska kompetens och didaktiska förmåga att uppfatta och stödja barns egna musikaliska uttryck. För att kunna observera barn och pedagogers förhållningssätt till spontant kreativt musikskapande, erbjöd jag tre pedagoger och deras barngrupper en överraskning, en resväska fylld med ordinära och hemgjorda rytminstrument som jag kallat den hemliga lådan. Metoden gav mig också möjligheter att utforska musikdidaktiska alternativ till förskolans traditionella musikverksamhet, de gemensamma och vuxenstyrda sångsamlingarna. Barnens lust och förmåga att utforska den ”hemliga lådan” var påtagligt stark och öppnade upp för ett mer ostrukturerat handlande. Barnen kunde röra sig fritt och inspirerades av varandra. Något som inte visade sig var pedagogernas förmåga eller vilja att ge sig hän i det kreativa musikskapandet, samtidigt såg jag många exempel på när en öppen och bejakande inställning hos pedagogerna möjliggjorde för musikalisk kreativitet. Studien visade även exempel på pedagogers bristfälliga förståelse för meningen med denna typ av ljudligt och kreativt musikutforskande. Barnens handlingsutrymme och deras nöje av att befinna sig i ”flow” kunde bryskt avbrytas av vuxnas behov av kontroll. Förhållandet mellan det lekfulla musikutforskandets ljudliga, intuitiva och ostrukturerade form och förskoleverksamhetens syn på uppförande och ordning verkar vara problematisk. Bristen på kreativt ljudskapande i förskolans verksamhet ska kanske inte enbart tolkas som en musikpedagogisk fråga. / The thesis aims to develop knowledge about the connections between preschool teachers’ didactic interventions and preschool children’s opportunities to creatively explore and express music. The research is based on a cultural-psychology perspective, which emphasizes interaction and individual creative experimenting in musical learning. Preschool children’s musical development is affected by preschool teachers’ musical competences and didactic abilities to notice and support the children’s own musical expressions. In order to observe children’s and teachers’ relations to spontaneous music creation, I brought three preschool teachers, and their classes of children, a surprising item: a suitcase full of home-made musical instruments, which I called “The Secret Box.” In addition to being able to observe spontaneous music creation, bringing The Secret Box made it possible for me to investigate musical-didactic alternatives to preschool’s traditional musical activity, which is adult-directed group singing. The children’s lust and ability to explore The Secret Box was apparent, and it enabled more non-structured activity. The children moved freely and inspired each other. Unfortunately, most teachers did not interact with the children’s creative music making – they merely let them experiment on their own. Furthermore, my investigation included examples of teachers’ inabilities to perceive any meaning with the discussed types of creative music making and musical exploration. The children’s opportunities of expression and their “flows” were occasionally abruptly put to an end because of adults’ wants of control. The contrast between playful, noisy, and spontaneous music exploration, and teachers’ conceptions of order and children’s proper demeanor, appeared problematic. One conclusion of this thesis is that lack of creative music making in preschool might be caused by organizational factors beyond the scope of music didactics.

In their shared goal of communicating left-wing principles to children through music, Marc Blitzstein's Worker's Kids of the World (1935), Aaron Copland's The Second Hurricane (1937), and Alex North's The Hither and Thither of Danny Dither (1941) exhibit a fundamental unity of purpose that binds them both to each other and to the extensive leftist pedagogical efforts of their time. By observing the parallel relationship among these three children's works and contemporary youth organizations, summer camps, and children's literature, their cultural objectives and stylistic idiosyncrasies emerge as expressions of a continuously evolving educational tradition. Whereas Worker's Kids comes out of the revolutionary Communist aesthetics of the Composers' Collective and the militant activism of The Young Pioneers, The Second Hurricane and Danny Dither reflect the increasingly accommodating educational efforts of the American Popular Front.

Colonialism in Africa had an impact on the indigenous peoples of Africa and this is shown in some of their games. The purpose of this study is to gain deeper insight into Basotho children's games and to demonstrate that the Western ideas of music and games are not necessarily the same as Basotho folk children's conceptions. The literature on Basotho children's games is reviewed though not much has been contributed by early and present Basotho writers who have generally approached it from the angle of literature without transcribing the songs. The Sesotho word for games (lipapali) embraces entertainment but a further investigation of it shows that aspects of learning of which the children were aware in some cases and in others they were not aware, are present. These are supported by musical examples and texts. The definition of play versus games is treated (with regard to infants and children) and these two concepts are still receiving constant attention and investigation by scholars and researchers as the words are synonymous and can be misleading. Infants' play is unorganised and spontaneous while games are organised structures. Furthermore, play and games are important in child development education. In this study, they are given attention in order to lay the foundation for the understanding and interpretation of games used in both cultures. It is a misconception that African children's games are accompanied with music in the Western sense. Hence, the word `music' in Sesotho children's games takes on a different connotation from those in the West. Music' in Sesotho children's games embraces not only tunes that are sung, but game verses chanted in a rhythmic manner as opposed to spoken verse. Yet, mino (music) exists in Sesotho and is equivalent to the Western idea. These chanted rhythms and games are analysed against the backdrop of specific cultural dimensions for children depending on the function of the game played. The results of this study indicated that though the idea of music in children's games is not the same, games are an educational in character building and learning. Recommendations are made for educationists and music educators. / ART HIST, VIS ARTS & MUSIC / DLITT ET PHIL (MUSICOLOGY)