The aim of this study was to analyze children’s graphical notations as external representations of their experiencing when listening to simple sonic stimuli and complex musical fragments. More specifically, we assessed the impact of four factors on children’s notations: age, musical background, complexity of the fragment, and most salient sonic/musical parameter. One hundred and sixteen children — 8—9-year-olds and 11—12-year-olds with and without extra music education — were exposed to six fragments that differed from one another in terms of complexity and the most salient sonic parameter. Their notations were categorized by means of a classification scheme that differentiated between (a) global notations, which represent the fragments in a holistic way, and (b) differentiated notations, which try to capture one or more sonic/ musical parameters in their temporal unfolding. As expected, we found a significant impact of age and music education, with older children and children with extracurricular music education generating more differentiated notations. Furthermore, complex sounding fragments elicited much fewer differentiated notations than simple ones. We also found significant interaction effects between subject and task variables. Finally, we found a correlation between the sophistication level of children’s representations of the simple and complex fragments.
Ashkenazy, V. (Soloist), & London Symphony Orchestra. (1995). Rachmaninov: Piano concerto nr. 2 (Audio Recording No. 444 839-2 DF2). London: Decca.
2.
Auh, M., & Walker, R. ( 1999). Compositional strategies and musical creativity when composing with staff notation versus graphic notations among Korean students . Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education , 141, 2-9.
3.
Bamberger, J. ( 1980). Cognitive structuring in the apprehension and description of simple rhythms. Archives de Psychologie, 48, 171-199.
4.
Bamberger, J. ( 1982). Revisiting children’s drawings of simple rhythms: A function of reflection in action. In S. Strauss & R. Savy (Eds.), U-shaped behavioural growth (pp. 191-226). New York: Academic Press.
5.
Bamberger, J. ( 1991). The mind behind the musical ear. How children develop musical intelligence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
6.
Bamberger, J. ( 2005). How the conventions of music notation shape musical perception and performance. In D. Miell , R. Macdonald, & D. J. Hargreaves (Eds.), Musical communication (pp. 143-170). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7.
Barrett, M. ( 1997). Invented notation: A view of young children’s musical thinking. Research Studies in Music Education, 8, 1-14.
8.
Barrett, M. ( 2001). Constructing a view of children’s meaning-making as notators: A case-study of a five-year-old’s descriptions and explanations of invented notations. Research Studies in Music Education , 1, 33-45.
9.
Barrett, M. ( 2002). Invented notations and mediated memory: A case-study of two children’s use of invented notations. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 153(4), 55-62.
10.
Barrett, M. ( 2005). Musical communication and children’s communities of musical practice. In D. Miell, R. Macdonald & D. J. Hargreaves (Eds.), Musical communication (pp. 261-280). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
11.
Brown, A.L. ( 1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classroom settings. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2, 141-178.
12.
Clarke, E., & Krumhansl, C. ( 1990). Perceiving musical time. Music Perception , 7, 213-251.
13.
Cohen, S.R. ( 1985). The development of constraints on symbol-meaning structure in notation: Evidence from production, interpretation, and forced-choice judgements . Child Development, 56, 177-195.
14.
Davidson, L., & Colley, B. ( 1987). Children’s rhythmic development from age 5 to 7: Performance, notation, and reading of rhythmic patterns. In J. C. Peery, I. W. Peery, & T. W. Draper (Eds.), Music and child development (pp. 107-136). New York: Springer-Verlag.
15.
Davidson, L., & Scripp, L. ( 1988). Young children’s musical representations: Windows on music cognition. In J. Sloboda (Ed.), Generative processes in music (pp. 195-230). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
16.
Davidson, L., & Scripp, L. ( 1989). Education and development in music from a cognitive perspective . In D. J. Hargreaves (Ed.), Children and the arts (pp. 59-86). Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
17.
Davidson, L., Scripp, L., & Welsh, P. ( 1988). ‘Happy birthday’: Evidence for conflicts of perceptual knowledge and conceptual understanding. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 22, 65-74.
18.
De Corte, E., & Verschaffel, L. (2002). High-powered learning communities: Design experiments as a lever to bridge the theory/practice divide . Prospects, 32, 517-531.
19.
diSessa, A. ( 2002). Student’s criteria for representational adequacy . In K. Gravemeijer, R. Lehrer, B. van Oers, & L. Verschaffel (Eds.), Symbolizing, modeling and tool use in mathematics education (pp. 105-129). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
20.
Elkoshi, R. ( 2002). An investigation into children’s responses through drawing to short musical fragments and complete compositions. Music Education Research, 4, 199-211.
21.
Elkoshi, R. ( 2004). Is music ‘colorful’? A study of the effects of age and musical literacy on children’s notational color expressions . International Journal of Education & the Arts, 5(2). Retrieved 18 September, 2008, from http://ijea.asu.edu/v5n2/.
22.
Fung, C.V., & Gromko, J.E. ( 2001). Effects of active versus passive listening on the quality of children’s invented notations for two Korean pieces. Psychology of Music, 29, 128-138.
23.
Ginsburg, H.P., Kossan, N.R., Schwartz, R., & Swanson, D. ( 1983). Protocol methods in research on mathematical thinking . In H. P. Ginsburg (Ed.), The development of mathematical thinking (pp. 7-47). New York: Academic Press.
24.
Gromko, J.E. ( 1994). Children’s invented notation as measures of musical understanding. Psychology of Music, 22, 136-147.
25.
Hair, H.I. ( 1993-94). Children’s descriptions and representations of music. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education , 119, 41-48.
Hargreaves, D.J. ( 1986). The developmental psychology of music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
28.
Landis, J.R., & Koch, G.G. ( 1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics, 33, 159-174.
29.
Philadelphia Orchestra. (1976). Grieg: Peer Gynt suites nos. 1 & 2 (Audio Recording No. SBK 53257). Sony Classical.
30.
Reybrouck, M. ( 2001). Van grijpen naar begrijpen. Over cognitieve strategieën bij de omgang met muziek [From prehension to apprehension: Cognitive strategies in dealing with music]. Cahiers voor Didactiek 13. Deurne : Wolters Plantyn.
31.
Reybrouck, M., Verschaffel, L., & Lauwerier, S. ( 2009). Children’s graphical notations as representational tools for musical sense-making in a music-listening task. British Journal of Music Education, 26(2), 189-211.
32.
Smith, K.C., Cuddy, L.L., & Upitis, R. ( 1994). Figural and metric understanding of rhythm. Psychology of Music, 22, 117-135.
33.
Stokes, M.E., Davis, C.S., & Koch, G.G. ( 2000). Categorical data analysis using the SAS system (2nd ed.). Cary, NC: SAS Institute.
34.
Tan, S.L., & Kelly, M.E. ( 2004). Graphic representations of short musical compositions . Psychology of Music, 32, 191-212.
Upitis, R. ( 1987). Children’s understanding of rhythm: The relationship between development and music training. Psychomusicology , 7, 41-60.
37.
Upitis, R. ( 1990). Children’s invented notations of familiar and unfamiliar melodies. Psychomusicology, 9, 89-106.
38.
Upitis, R. ( 1993). Children’s invented symbols systems: Exploring parallels between music and mathematics. Psychomusicology , 12, 52-57.
39.
Walker R. ( 1978). Perception and music notation. Psychology of Music, 6, 21-47.
40.
Walker, R. ( 1987). The effects of culture, environment, age, and musical training on choices of visual metaphors for sound. Perception and Psychophysics, 42, 491-502.
41.
Walker, R. ( 1990). Musical beliefs: Psychoacoustic, mythical, and educational perspectives. Colombia University: New York Teachers College Press.
