How Children Ascribe Meaning to Improvisation and Composition: Rethinking pedagogy in music education

This paper is taken from doctoral research which sought to discover how children engage in and reflect on their experiences of improvising and composing. The study was carried out at a comprehensive Middle School in West London where 18 self-selected 12-year-old children participated in weekly music making sessions. Data collected over a six-month period included observations, interviews and the examination of musical artefacts. This paper reports on interview methodology based on constructivist elicitation tools to understand how children ascribe meaning to improvisation and composition. It was found that children represented these phenomena in three ways: (i) distinct forms distinguished by bodily intention; (ii) interrelated forms co-existing functionally in context; and (iii) inseparable processes. The pedagogical significance of what is under description here will be discussed.