Estonian children’s improvisational songs, the nature of performance and songs’ coherence with the Western tonal musical canon

Abstract

In this preliminary study, improvisational songs of 43 Estonian children (22 girls, 21 boys, M age = 5.5 years, age range: 2-8 years) were collected using the AIRS Test Battery of Singing Skills (ATBSS). Improvisational songs from two tasks of the ATBSS (song completion and song creation) were evaluated by three experts according to the performance's coherence with the relevant criteria of children's songs in the Western musical canon (a song has a melody and a rhythm and ends on the tonic) and the spontaneity of the singing process. Combining these two parameters we could describe four types of songs. Due to the size and diversity of the sample, this article does not report statistical evidence to support the proposed typology, but rather reports trends in the results to provide new research questions for further research. The results show that most of the children in this study had acquired the rules of children's songs in the Western tonal musical canon by the age of four and could apply them in creative test-like situations, whether they did so consciously or spontaneously. Most of the children were consistent with their song-making strategies (conscious vs. spontaneous) during the two different improvisational tasks.In this article, we report the results of a preliminary study of 43 Estonian children who were tested using the test battery developed within the framework of the international project

Identifying style-types in a sample of musical improvisations using dimensional reduction and cluster analysis.

“…Singing is a universal human activity that is considered to be one of the most natural means of human expression (Lomax, 1968; Nettl, 2015). For example, children have a natural tendency to sing spontaneously early in development (Dalla Bella, Giguère, & Peretz, 2007), and several studies have sought to analyze the products of children’s vocal improvisations (e.g., Campbell, 1998; Cohen, 2011; Moog, 1976; Moorhead & Pond, 1978; Raju & Ross, 2012; Raju et al, 2015; Sundin, 1997; Young, 2002). Even though singing begins naturally as a process of vocal play during the early years of life, not all individuals continue to sing or make music after childhood (Nordoff & Robbins, 1983).…”

Music Cognition from Birth to Adolescence: A Structuralist Approach

“…Another study of creativity in Estonian children of 2-8 years of age showed that their self-made songs were similar in creativity to their Canadian peers than to children in Japan (Raju et al, 2015).…”

Improvised song endings in a developmental perspective: A mixed-methods study

“…As Kartomi (1991) has argued, children at play produce many improvisations that may quickly dissipate or turn into new songs. These vocal practices are a staple of early childhood (Bjørkvold, 1992; Moorhead & Pond, 1978) and are often taken as evidence of musical development (Raju, Välja, & Ross, 2015). Improvised songs are said to submerge over the course of time (Barrett, 2006; Knudsen, 2008; Young, 2006), particularly with children’s entrance into formal schooling, when “play-based provision gradually shifts in favor of a more product-oriented, skills-based approach to education” (Marsh & Young, 2016, p. 463).…”

“…Two recent studies suggest that culture, context and the nature of tasks impact children’s vocal improvisations and invented songs (Adachi & Trehub, 2011; Raju, Välja, & Ross, 2015). A question that remains to be answered is whether children’s improvised songs change over the course of development, and if so, what is the nature of such changes and what influences them.…”

“…At baseline, children were tested on the original ATBSS components, but these were supplemented with additional scales and melodies created by the second and third authors (see Figure 2), to identify potential directions of change in children’s pitch-matching and improvisation skills over time. Additionally, as in Raju et al (2015), the text found in the melodic prompt for the original improvisation task (component 7) prompted many children to make animal sounds instead of producing an actual song ending, and was dropped when children were tested again in Years 1 and 2.…”