‘Bejazzled’: employing attributes of pre-schoolers’ play to facilitate musical interactions with jazz

ABSTRACT

Although early childhood caregivers in South African townships integrate singing into their teaching on a daily basis, they are often unaware of how to facilitate other musical interactions through movement, playing instruments or body percussion. The ‘Bejazzled’ action research project was initiated to facilitate these interactions through collaborative teaching between a caregiver and a music educator. The aim of the ‘Bejazzled’ project was to generate a conceptual framework that describes how jazz could successfully be integrated into the educational programme at an informal early childhood development centre by utilizing existing attributes of pre-schoolers’ play (spontaneity, inventiveness, openness and curiosity) to indicate learner responses related to jazz such as spontaneously creating music, discovering new musical experiences, responding to music through movement, and exploring music through play. These learner responses could foster growth in the early years to transcend musical boundaries, strengthen gross motor skills, cultivate listening and language skills, and contribute to social and emotional development.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood
• play
• music education
• jazz
• ECD centre
• improvisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Mignon van Vreden is a lecturer in undergraduate and postgraduate music education at the School of Music at North-West University, Potchefstroom. She is passionate about early childhood music education, musical play, music integration, children's choirs, jazz, musical theatre for children, music and movement, piano playing and the role of music in early childhood development. She regularly presents workshops on music integration for educators with little or no musical training and composes songs for young children.

ORCID

Mignon van Vreden http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2550-8551