Musical make-believe playing: three preschoolers collaboratively initiating play ‘in-between’

Abstract

This study presents an analysis of a video observation of three six-year-olds interacting in front of a synthesizer in a Swedish preschool and using a new music technology (MIROR-Impro). It investigates how a musical role-play unfolds as an intermediate activity when there is a malfunction with the set-up of the technology and how it recommences when the technology is again functioning. The study is informed by a sociocultural perspective on playing and learning and analyses how the children communicate and negotiate in and about this activity. The analysis shows how they make use of this gap to develop mutual make-believe play and how they actualize and use some of their out-of-school experiences. How the children establish coordination into a joint activity and scaffold each other’s musical performance is also shown. The study relates to children’s music experiences in contemporary childhood and how early childhood music education can respond to these.

Keywords:

• children’s culture
• musical role-play
• new music technology
• sociocultural perspective
• make-believe play
• framing

Notes

1. Goffman is not traditionally seen as socioculturalist, but since his perspective is situational and focused on analysing activities, his concept of framing has previously been used in socioculturally informed studies for analysing activities (Lantz-Andersson 2009; Linderoth 2004).

Additional information

Funding

The work reported here was supported by the European Union FP7-ICT [grant number 258338], as part of the project Musical Interaction Relying on Reflection (MIROR).