the sequence of musical development: a study of children's

The Sequence of MusicalDevelopment: A Study ofChildren's CompositionKeith Swanwick and June Tillman

A musical development sequence is proposed based on the psycho-logical concepts of mastery, imitation, imaginative play and meta-cognition, drawing on the work ofMoog, Piaget and the observationsof British writers. An interpretation of over seven hundred children'scompositions is undertaken yielding an eight-mode spiral of develop-ment that may have consequences for music teaching; for overallmusic curriculum planning, for appropriate responses to individuals,for generating progression in a session or project.

IntroductionEveryday observation tells us that children develop as they growolder and that this development relies on an interaction betweenthe genetic inheritance of each individual and the environment -the physical world, home, school, society. A second 'common-sense ' observation is that there is an element of predictabilityabout this process of development. We learn to walk before wecan run, to stand up before we can do either, to imitate before weutter original statements, to become capable of sexual reproduc-tion only when adolescence is reached. Of course, each personimposes his or her own style on these developmental processes,but that there is development and that there are at least broadpatterns of development are facts beyond dispute. Furthermore,it seems important, especially for teachers and parents, to havesome understanding, of this, a set of expectations that corre-sponds to the maturation of children in their care.

Maccoby tells us that we should notice two general meaningsof the term development. The first, which he calls a ' softer'meaning, is the idea of sequence, that development will occur ina certain order, 'early behavioural acquisitions are necessary,though not sufficient, for later steps to occur'. The secondmeaning ' goes beyond sequence', and points to ' broad develop-mental changes that occur in almost all children according to afairly standard timetable' (Maccoby, 1984).

In our study of the musical compositions of children betweenthe ages of 3 and 15, we are certainly finding that there is asequence, an orderly unfolding of musical behaviour, that there

B.J. Music Ed. (1986) 3, 3, 305-339. Printed in Great Britain 305

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Sequence of developmentKeith SwanwickandJune Tillman

are stages through which the musical utterances of children canbe traced. Because our study took place largely in one school itwould be unwise to be too dogmatic about identifying broaddevelopmental changes to a fairly standard timetable, especiallyto generalise this to 'almost all children'. However, this possi-bility is not ruled out and we have found several writers who,from quite different perspectives, seem to support our findings.

Strangely, with one exception, those researchers directlyconcerned with the musical development of children have beenleast influential for us. The classic text by Helmut Moog, TheMusical Experience of the Pre-School Child (1976) has, by defini-tion, little to say about the school-age child but is rich in detailso far as the very early years are concerned. Much of hisobservation is concerned with response to music in the role ofaudience, including an element of movement to music, inreproductive accuracy in singing and in the kind of songrepertoire acquired by children. Less is said about children'smusical utterances, the activity which we are calling ' composi-tion ', though we shall find Moog helpful.

A fine example of the analysis of children's compositions is tobe found in Loane (1984). Here he examines the compositionsof 11 - to 14-year-olds, undertaking an' assessment' for formativepurposes, in order that the teacher might respond adequately tothe children's music. His work is theoretically based on the ideasof Langer: music is seen as a 'way of knowing'. This sensitiveand subtle approach to the compositions of children, whilesaying little about development in the sense we are using theterm, illustrates very clearly the value of declaring a conceptualframework. Without such a framework, any account of musicaldevelopment in children will be simply descriptive, lacking ininterpretative power and the ability to relate the music of aparticular child to the music of others.

By happy chance, one of us was engaged in developing aconceptual framework relating activity in the arts to humanplay: at the same time, the other was working with children inprimary schools, building up a library of tape-recorded data.The theory and practice have come together in what we thinkis an exciting way, each illuminating and challenging theother.

The theoretical basisOur theoretical basis can be found in the paper The Arts inEducation: Dreaming or Wide Awake? (Swanwick, 1983). Part ofthe discussion centres on the idea that play, a very importanthuman activity, is intrinsically bound up with all artistic activity,the early and obviously playful activities of children beingsublimated into activities such as painting pictures, playingmusic and reading novels. A powerful influence in the develop-ment of this view is Piaget, though not the Piaget of tightlyformulated stages of development but the Piaget concerned with

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Sequence of developmentKeith Swanwick

andJune Tillman

fundamental human processes, the ways in which we make senseof and grow into the world.

Piaget notes that play in very early childhood is characterisedby the sheer pleasure of exploring and mastering the environ-ment, what he calls 'a feeling of virtuosity or power' (Piaget,1951). We can see how this impulse to mastery evolves intomusical activities. The handling of voices and instruments, thedevelopment of ensemble skills, the use of notations, delight inthe virtuosity of others; these are obvious elements of mastery.There is surely a continuum from the pleasure experienced bya baby who has just learned to drop things out of the pram, andfor sheer joy does this over and over again, and the satisfactionof the sitar player technically exploiting the potential of aparticular raga.

We ought to notice one other thing; control of materials

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presupposes delight in materials. Sounds themselves seem to beintrinsically interesting before and during the process of tryingto control them. We remember Grieg being excited as a boy ofsix by chords of the ninth, simply as a sound phenomenon; orKenneth Grahame (the author of The Wind in the Willows)writing about his boyhood ' strumming' on a piano where somenotes were red and some were green and some told of armiesmarching and, up above (it has to be a grand piano) 'the littlewhite men leap and peep and strive against the imprisoningwires'; and also Stockhausen, who writes for his performers ofGold Dust, ' after four days, late at night, without conversationbeforehand play single sounds without thinking which you areplaying. Close your eyes, just listen'.

Another Piagetian concept is called, simply, imitation. Imita-tion is also easy to identify in early childhood: it happens whena child submits to the world and attempts to resemble someaspect of it. S/he may identify with and pretend to be a parent,a friend, a tiger or a teacher. When we imitate something orsomeone, we give up some part of ourselves and take oncharacteristics of whatever is imitated. For Piaget, imitationrepresents a tendency towards 'accommodation'. We accom-modate to, change ourselves, pretend to be like; rather thanimpose our idiosyncratic view upon the world.

Elements of imitation are more obviously present in the artswhen they are representational; that is to say, when there isreference to events in life - in stories and drama, in poems andpaintings. Imitation is also obvious enough in programme musicand in opera, but it is also true that even in the most 'abstract'musical works there are elements of imitation. Every perform-ance of a Bach fugue has its own particular universe of gestures,of feeling and emphasis; it has expressive character. Musicalcharacterisation is a development from the ' let's pretend' imita-tion that we find in early childhood.

A little later on in infancy, play becomes imaginative andaccording to Piaget, 'subjects things to the child's activity,without rules or limitations'. Anyone who has close relationshipswith young children will know about imaginative play. Objectsand people are transformed into other than themselves andsometimes things are conjured out of the air. At one time, oneof the writers was accompanied on walks not only by his threechildren but also by a horse which, though invisible, made greatdemands on us all and caused us to open gates rather than climbstiles. This enigmatic animal was a fairly constant companionfor several months and was a vivid part of the imaginative worldof this particular child. For Piaget, imaginative play tendstowards what he calls 'assimilation' and stands at the oppositepole from imitation. The imaginative play-world is made by thechild for the child; events and objects are assimilated into thisworld and transformed to fit into the unique make-believeperspective of the individual.

In imaginative play we create a world of transformed relation-

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MasteryControl of sound materials

Playand the three

elements of music

Imaginative playStructural relationships

(assimilation)

ImitationExpressive character

(accommodation)

Fig. 1

ships which we ourselves govern. This is clearly so with thecomposer-musician. A new realm is created in a musical com-position; for example, although the musical vocabulary ofMozart might often be fairly commonplace, 'of its time', it istransformed by the creation of new relationships, through theimaginative power of the composer. Imaginative play has to dowith structural transformations, with personal interpretation,reconstituting reality.

Figure 1 may help to summarise the relationships between theconcepts of mastery, imitation and imaginative play, and theanalogous musical play elements; control of sound, expressivecharacter and structure.

As we shall see, this theoretical starting point allows us tointerpret and to order the musical offerings of children in adevelopmental way. For it becomes clear from our data that themusical compositions of children tend to follow a broad sequenceof development through stages of Mastery, Imitation andImaginative play, in that order. Moog has observed the beginningof this process with six-month-old babies, where ' attention isgiven first and foremost to the sound itself. He cites otherresearchers who support this view, especially Mursell (1948).'There are strong reasons for believing that a young child'sprimary responsiveness to music is first and foremost the toneitself, and not, as is sometimes asserted without any goodevidence, to rhythm or to melody.' Mursell is prepared toemphasise this point, stating that 'during the pre-school andeven the kindergarten period, the child is much more preoccupiedwith the tonal content and appeal of music than with anythingelse about it'.

Moog notes that his own observations of young children leadhim to the conclusion that' during the second year it is still the


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sensory impression of the sound, together with the rhythm,which lie at the heart of musical experience' (p. 86). Moog alsoobserves that before the age of one year the songs of childrenbear 'no resemblance to what is sung or played to them' (p. 62).A good deal of what Moog calls musical babbling goes on, andthis is clearly related to the fascination of sound itself and thepleasure of beginning to control sound. After the age of 1,children begin to demonstrate the art of reproducing what theyhear, a form of mastery which increases progressively. There is,then, a clear indication here of a move from interest (delight) insound towards control of materials, and this seems to be thefirst important shift in the musical development of very youngchildren.

Although Moog does not develop a unified theoretical frame-work, he identifies an important change during the second yearconcerning movement to music. Somewhere between the agesof 18 months and 2 years children begin to 'match theirmovements to the rhythm of the music'. This is rather fitful andshort-lived, and not every child does this at this age, but it issurely the first presage of response to expressive character inmusic. When a person moves to music what we are seeing is aphysical imitation of the sonorous movement of music and,although movement to music made spontaneously tends todiminish in the later years of infancy, its presence at this stageis a helpful outward manifestation of this relationship.

One further example from the work of Moog will serve toreinforce the view that our preliminary picture of musicalengagement has some foundation and that there may indeed bea sequence of development to be observed, if we are patientenough to look for it. Moog notes (p. 114) that a new categoryof singing emerges at around the age of 4. He calls these songs' imaginative songs', and fortunately the word imaginative herecoincides with our use of it (unlike his use of the word' imitative',which refers only to the mastery of a song learned by imitation).Some of these songs tell stories, some of them are totally noveland some incorporate elements of songs already known butrearranged in new ways. Here, then, is a hint of the emergenceof imaginative play, the forming of new structural relationshipsfrom scraps of tunes already absorbed during earlier stages,though Moog would not consider the 4-year-old capable of'original creation' (p. 21). By the time children come to schoolthey have visited every corner of our theoretical triangle, withMastery most evident but with the first glimmers of Imitationand Imaginative play and, as we shall see, each mode ofplayfulness will be revisited and given more emphasis later on.

Unfortunately, for most children these are not reinforced athome and in the community and the unfolding of Imitation andImaginative play in music lags behind language and other areasof development.

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Collecting and analysing the compositionsThe first empirical task was to try to verify our hunch thatmusical development occurs in a particular order and that thissequence can be observed in children of school age. We neededa pilot study.

The most direct and uncomplicated way of doing this is toobserve the compositional processes of children. We define'composition' very broadly and include the briefest utterancesas well as more worked out and sustained invention. Composi-tion takes place when there is freedom to choose the ordering ofmusic, without notational or other forms of detailed performanceinstruction. Others may prefer to use the terms improvisation,invention or 'creative music'. All of these fall within ourdefinition of 'composition'. The advantage of this approach isthat we are observing relatively undirected musical processesrather than the products of polished performances, directlyinfluenced by teachers and peers.

Musical offerings were collected from children aged 3 to 9years in a South London primary school. The school wasracially mixed, having children of Asian, West Indian, African,Northern and Southern European backgrounds. The childrenchosen were taken so as to be representative of the mix in theschool, both girls and boys. They included those havingindividual or group lessons on an instrument and those who didnot. All the children had class music lessons with a musicspecialist (the researcher) that varied in length from 20 minutesa week for the 3 to 4-year-olds to two half hours a week forthe 5 to 7-year-olds and one half hour a week for the 8 to9-year-olds. In some classes this music work was followed upby the class teacher, particularly with the 3 to 4-year-olds. Thelessons all included elements of musical composition and someof the older children had been involved in quite long, complexprojects, including composing music for stories of some half-hour's duration, sometimes with dance and drama.

Each child was recorded individually or in a small group(2 or 3 at the most) and was given a variety of musicalopportunities.

(1) First of all, s/he was given one or a pair of maracas andasked to make up a pattern. (This instrument was chosen on thegrounds that it is easy to manipulate, demanding the leasttechnical skill, shaking being a baby's first movement.)

(2) Secondly, s/he was given a tambour and asked to make upa pattern for it played with the hand. (This was considered thenext most easy instrument to play.)

(3) Thirdly, s/he was offered a choice of instruments withwhich s/he would be familiar (tambour, maraca, Indian cymbal,triangle, claves, castanets, tambourine), including the maracasand tambour already played, and asked to make up a piece withit.

(4) The child was offered a choice of instruments with which


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s/he was not familiar and asked to make up a pattern for it. Thechoice offered was gato drum, cabassa, tambour, guiro, bassdrum, tubo and large cymbal. It was hoped to find out thegrounds on which the choice was made but the direct questionproduced little response.

(5) The child was offered the chime bars of E, G and A andone beater and asked to make up a pattern for them. (This gavea limited number of pitches to control.)

(6) The child was offered a xylophone with a pentatonic scaleand two beaters and asked to make up a piece.

(7) The child was offered a metallophone with the scale ofC major on it and two beaters and asked to make some music.(This further increased the pitch scope.)

(8) The child was offered a fully chromatic xylophone withtwo beaters and asked to make up a piece. (This gave yet morefreedom of pitch.)

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(9) The child was asked to ' say something' like,' It is sunnyand I am happy', on any of the instruments available. (Thiswas designed to see if the introduction of an extra-musicalidea (imitative play) produced different results compared withstarting from sound materials.)

(10) The child was asked to sing a song that s/he had madeup. S/he was given the option of having words or humming or'lahing'. Sometimes, if no response was forthcoming, theresearcher sang a phrase to which the child responded. Thisusually consisted oilah, soh and mi. (The child would be familiarwith this activity from class lessons.)

All these were recorded together with the necessary conversa-tions. Later, procedure was refined so that each child was askedto repeat each task, to see the extent of his/her musical memoryand note which elements in the composition survived, anindication of what was important to the child. (In later interviews,tasks 3 and 4 were combined and task 8 was omitted. A newpossibility was added. Each child was asked to draw on the otherchildren and the researcher to make up a piece for a group ofinstruments. S/he was to decide which instruments they wouldplay and give any instructions s/he wanted.)

A tape was prepared, giving fairly typical examples of thework of children aged 3 to 9 years. Three examples were chosenfrom their second versions. The edited tape contained thesepieces but in randomised age order. In actual age order, thefollowing notes give a rough impression of what the judgesheard. (All notations are approximate. Some examples can befound on the accompanying cassette tape.)


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Three-year-old girl:(a) an attempt at a steady beat on a maraca with some

half-pulse notes;(b) eleven steady drum beats;(c) an uneven and irregular exploration on a xylophone using

two sticks going up and down the range of bars.

Four-year-old boy:(a) a steady beat pattern on a drum involving some half-pulse

notes;(b) an irregular exploration on the gato drum with two sticks,

sometimes hitting the wooden surround;(c) an exploration on a xylophone using two sticks involving

some pairs of quavers and with some underlying sense of a beat.

Five-year-old boy:(a) long irregular beat pattern on maracas which are sometimes

hit together;

J J J J J J J J J J Starts

long pattern on small cymbals - developed into a pattern involv-

a ExamP'e

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Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

Example 5 (a)

Example 6

ing some shorter and some longer notes - a fairly steadyunderlying beat which became more erratic towards the end - nosense of ending, several attempts at stopping

(c) a long exploration on a xylophone — developed into apattern involving short and long sounds with a fairly steadyunderlying beat - sometimes two notes were used together andsometimes the wood of the instrument is hit.

Six-year-old girl:

(a) J J | J J J I on a drum'(b) I J J I on small cymbal;

on chime bars.

Seven-year-old girl:

J7J] Jl J J73 J\| J>Jon a drum - the syncopation at the end was handled a littlehesitantly;

on a

xylophone with some development of melodic ideas;(c) an eight-bar tune on metallophone involving a good deal

of repetition and accompanied by a beat on small cymbals andIndian cymbals (difficult if not impossible to notate).

Example

Eight-year-old girl:

7 W J J I J J J |J J | J J J |J J |J J J IJ J-̂ ><wwwv\

scraped

Example 8

on a drum;(b) a development of a melodic pattern involving augmentation

and diminution on three chime bars;(c) twelve bars on the xylophone not clearly defined because

the beat got faster and appeared unsteady.

Nine-year-old girl:

w J J1J J J J J1J J J J | |on a drum;

(6) an eight-bar tune in four-time in clear-cut phrases involv-

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ing some half-pulse notes and some repetition of ideas on threechime bars;

(c) an eight-bar tune in four-time on a diatonic xylophonewith some repetition of ideas - clear-cut phrases - some sense ofthe potential of the diatonic scale - some syncopation.

Three independent judges were asked to listen to the taperecording containing the three items from all seven children,ranging from the age of 3 to 9. The age of each child was notrevealed and the age order was randomised. The judges wereasked to rank the ages of the children from the evidence theyheard on the tape. One of the judges, a teacher but notexperienced musically, found this task almost impossible andsaid so but the other two, who were both musicians andexperienced teachers, managed the task without too muchdifficulty and gave interesting reasons why they thought thata particular group of compositions were from an older or ayounger child. These comments were frequently to do with thelevel of mastery and the degree of structural organisation.

If we look at the estimated ages given by the two appropriatelyexperienced judges and compare them with the actual age wefind a strong relationship.

Actual ages

Judge 1

Judge 2

Fig. 2. Actual and estimated ages of children. (The statistical probabilityof the two judges agreeing so closely with each other and with the actualage order by mere chance is fairly remote. See Statistical Note 1.)

This is quite helpful. There do appear to be observabledifferences between the musical utterances of children that varywith age, at least when there is a musical environment in theschool. Questions remain: what are these differences and canthey be found in a larger sample? In order to answer it isnecessary to further refine the model so far developed, thoughit should be pointed out that the categories about to be describedwere not pulled out of 'thin air' or merely derived from theliterature but emerged as further analysis proceeded of severalhundred compositions offered by forty-eight children overfour years.

Towards a model of musical developmentAs we moved towards completing this analysis, the emergentpicture was strikingly confirmed for us by Malcolm Ross who,in a speculative book, puts forward his own description of theprocess of aesthetic development in the arts (Ross, 1984).

For the purposes of comparison with our own analysis, it will


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serve to pull out some of the key statements made by Ross givingfour periods of development in music, especially those categoriesof statement that coincide with his descriptions of the processin Art and Drama (pp. 129-30).

(1) (Years 0-2) Pure sensuous engagement with sound mater-ials, along with experimentation and beginning to relate musicto feeling or mood characterises, for Ross, the early years.

(2) (Years 3-7) This stage is characterised by musical dood-ling, especially vocal doodling, and the progressive mastery ofwhat Ross calls 'sound structures and patterns'. He notes thebeginning of anticipation in music. Interestingly, in Art andDrama he begins to see perception of expressive gesture de-veloping, of signs as ' representative' of experience.

In our terms, these two stages seem to correspond withdelight in sound itself leading to control of materials, the playelement of Mastery, moving into Imitation, where expressivecharacter, gesture, mood and feeling are recognised andreproduced.

(3) (Years 8-13) This, for Ross, is marked by concern withthe 'conventions of musical production', a desire to 'join theadult scene'. Programme or 'narrative and descriptive musicmakes sense'. There is a desire to become 'conventionallyproficient' and teachers must 'satisfy the demand for greaterconventional competence'. We shall meet this concept againshortly when we refer to an interesting paper by Robert Bunting(1977). For the moment it will suffice to notice that the importantelement here is that of working within an accepted musicalidiom.

(4) (Years 14 + ) Here music is seen as taking on greatersignificance as a form of personal expression, 'embodying,meaning and vision', significant for an individual or for acommunity.

If we are to take Ross's observation, that powers of anticipationbegin to develop during his second stage, as signifying thebeginnings of concern for structural relationships, then the over-arching sequence of development seems to run through Masteryand Imitation to Imaginative Play. We would emphasise thateach one of these is swept up into the next developmental thrustand is repeatedly revisited. For example, if we begin to handlea new instrument, or work in a new idiom, or explore a newpiece of music, we are sent immediately back to the problemsof mastery. It is important to be clear that we regard thesedevelopments as cumulative and cyclical and, to use the wordsof Maccoby, recognise that the ' early behavioural acquisitionsare necessary, though not sufficient, for later steps to occur'.

We have referred to the work of Bunting which appeared asWorking Paper 6 of the Schools Council Project, Music in theSecondary School Curriculum (1977). This paper has as its focusthe idea of the Vernacular, 'the common language of music',what Ross calls the 'conventions of musical production'. Itseems a remarkably perceptive view of developmental possi-

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bilities written from the perspective of a teacher in a secondaryschool.

Bunting identifies several modes of musical perception andthese descriptions fit well into our own developmental sequence,as established by analysis of the children's compositions. Hedoes not always appear to order his modes of musical perceptionin a developmental sequence but there are hints of this.


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Mastery - sensory response to sound materials -evolving into manipulative controlBunting uses three terms here: neurological; acoustical; mech-anical. The neurological mode he describes as 'the reaction ofthe nervous system to sensations of timbre, rhythm, pitch,quite independently of the analytical mind'. He notes that theuse of very high or low pitches or loud or soft instrumentationbrings the neurological impact of music forward. Related to this,the acoustical mode has to do with the interaction of sound withthe size and design of buildings in which music is played. Wecan be ' affected as much by the degree of resonance as sound isgiven, as by its pitch or syntactical meaning'. He gives asinstances the use of open strings and mutes or the use of spaceand distance for musical impact. In the compositions of our veryyoung children, at the age of 3 or 4, we notice an interest in verysoft and loud sounds, a big bang on the bass drum followed bysheer delight or fear, or a preference for the very soft soundsof a shaker or Indian cymbal. Both the neurological and theacoustical mode are evident in the young child's primary concernwith the tone colour of an instrument, experimenting with shortand long sounds, or slow and fast shakes of a shaker, or fingersand fists on the surfaces of drums.

In the work of these younger children it is often difficult tosort out exploration of tone colour from problems of mastery.Below this age, it is clear that the ' sensory impression of thesound', as Moog puts it, predominates. The programmatic taskat 3 to 4 tended to elicit pieces still primarily concerned withtimbre, as when a tubo (a small shaker) is explored, by a boy aged3.10 in response to the task of making up a piece about' Spring'.As children get older, the exploration becomes more deliberate;as in the case of a girl aged 4.3 for tambour, when, in the courseof a long composition with an uneven beat, she hit the woodintentionally, and an 'Autumn' piece for a pair of plasticcymbals, in which interest lay in the cymbals, which weresometimes clicked together and sometimes rubbed. The' scraper'provided opportunities, not only for scraping, but also fortapping, as in this short piece by a girl aged 4.8.

(Vague beat)Example 9

scraped tapped

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Example 11

The wooden agogo provided the same girl with the chance ofexploring rhythm and timbre together, giving rise to variations

Example 10 on:.nnm J t with a vague pulse.scraped

Both tambour and maracas provided children with chancesfor the exploration of timbre. A piece by a boy aged 4.5 showsthe hand being rubbed over the surface, while a boy aged 4.7uses his hand flat and in a fist. Maracas are sometimes usedtogether, sometimes separately and are sometimes knockedtogether. A composition from a girl aged 4.2 has the twoknocked together, although many other aspects are exploredsuch as gradual changes in dynamics and a change of speed atthe end. The beginning of phrase structure is shown in theopening, which is repeated.

J J J t J J J i J J J J J J J i l l

Example 12

Clearly, all these activities belong in the category of Masteryand move from curiosity and delight into experimental manipu-lation. There are other features. Bunting notes that' a composercan make music out of purely mechanical processes (for instancewhere hands on a keyboard move in contrary motion he mayaccept whatever harmonies result)'. Younger children are fasci-nated by the alternation of two sticks on pitched instrumentsand produce pieces in which pitch organisation is determined bymechanical alternation often producing trills and tremolos.Other patterns go up and down a series, as in this pentatonicpiece by a girl aged 5.0.

hit wood

mishit

A piece by a boy of 4.5 has exploration of scales and sequencesstarting on apparently random pitches, although there is someinfluence of the extremes of the instrument in the choice ofstarting and finishing notes.

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f r r i1 i | r r J J ^

r r r rJ J j J r-

J •» r r r r r r mDelight in sound and the urge towards manipulative mastery

through exploration is swept up into succeeding stages ofdevelopment and is evident in the musical productions ofchildren of all ages. At these later stages, though, interest in andcontrol of sound is combined with a developing concern forexpressive character and structural relationships. The moredeveloped explorations of older children include the use ofdifferent beaters for different purposes and experimentationwith more systematic ways of organising sound. Older children,when playing together, usually give some kind of starting andstopping signal and use a variety of methods of combination,including the 'layer' device, where players start and finish inseries, building up and then reducing the texture. Youngerchildren have very little idea as to how their sounds may becombined with the sounds of others. We noted an exuberantpiece for gato drum and metallophone, in which both playerspursued their own pulse patterns regardless of each other.There was, however, an instruction to stop!

With older children the visual and physical characteristics ofinstruments continue to exert an influence on musical produc-tions but in more sophisticated and structured ways. Theubiquitous glissando appears in early musical offerings as anending. The glissando is often used as a contrasting device, aswe noted in a piece by a girl aged 11.5.

mt=2±

glissando wmmglissandi slow

glissando

319BME 3


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Example 13

Example 14



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Example IS

Example 16

A melody by a girl aged 7.8 shows an inversion which appearsto be influenced by the visual aspect of the instrument.

r r r fAn interesting example of the use of mechanical patterns

occurs when more than one is used together. In one example,by a girl aged 11.7, each hand pursues its own muscularsequence in alternation with the other.

=F WIt is important to stress that the shift from sensory exploration

towards manipulative skills - the phase of mastery essentiallyconcerned with the materials of music — is an on-going concernat any stage of development and is reactivated every time weconfront a new musical idea, idiom or work. Readers mayperhaps share the experience of the writers in that, if deprivedof music for some little time, the first and most strikingimpression of music when it is rediscovered is of its sensorysurface, the sounds themselves. This is particularly noticeableat the start of a concert or when we come across musicaccidentally.

Imitation - personal expression moving towards thevernacularBunting uses the term illustrative, 'a way of giving musicmeaning by association'. He suggests a range of illustrativedevices, from such obvious things as a drum roll signifyingthunder to the more subtle possibility of a drum roll signifyinganger. This is important for us. In our category of Imitation, weare not referring to a rather crude copying of sounds usingmusical instruments. This kind of procedure, the literal makingof ' sound effects', is rarely present in the musical work of ourchildren of school age; nor is it observed by Moog at youngerages. Even at its simplest, music is much more abstract than this.

We are more concerned with the tendency of music to beexpressive, without being in any way illustrative, or representa-tional. Music rarely appears to have a conveniently describable' subject', yet does seem to contain an expressive charge: we heargestures, character and movement in music. Bunting appears tobelieve that this level of musical perception, which he calls the' symbolic mode' appears late, towards the end of schooling, ifat all. In this he may be misled by children's responses going'underground', blocking out the gaze of the outside observer,especially in adolescence. We detect expressive quality muchearlier on in the musical behaviour of children. Bunting puts

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it rather well when he says that 'musical rhythms and tensionsseem to mirror the flow of feeling within us in a direct,non-verbal and non-illustrative way. Most of us would considerthis music's most important quality and it is not a thinkingprocess but a feeling one' (p. 4).

It is in the songs of children that the first signs of Imitation,acts of musical expression, begin to appear. It may be that thepersonal and ' non-technical' nature of the human voice makesearly expression more likely. The exuberant imitation of feelingin improvised songs is well caught in a composition by a girl of4 in response to the idea 'the sun is shining'. (On tape-example9.)

rhythm vague O

q> J Jt fShiny shine shine shi-ny shine shine

vague pitch v

r mmshine shine shine shine shine shine

T j rshine shine shine shine shine shine

accel.

shine shine shine shine shine shine

mmshine shine shine shine shine shine


andJune Tillman

Example 17

After a steady beginning with some element of repetition, thewidening intervals and increase in speed give us an almostfirst-hand experience of the excitement generated by the idea of' shine'. Although the idea of' shine' is an external one, it is clearin this performance that the child is taken over by a sense ofshining. She herself shines: the process of imitation is clear. Twosongs, one by a girl aged 4.5, the other by a boy aged 4.7, clearlyshow that they are able to catch and hold expressive characterin their music.

Fish are far (?) Fish are there The

-vague tuning N ^.vague tuning.

fish are growing in the wa ter

Example 18

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Example 19

m S3The sun is out, the sun is out The

trees are sum-me- The

leavesJ. J»J

are out the leaves are com- ing the

leaves are allJ'U

round

Example 20

These songs go well beyond manipulative control. They alsoshow the emergence of a musical vernacular.

The instrumental pieces are much less developed but we candetect an expressive intention in a good number of them — areflective quality about a chime bar improvisation, despite itsunsteady pulse, an expansive gesture in a maraca pattern whichstarts as a steady pulse with no regular metre and then buildsup with a crescendo and accelerando to an explosive climax atthe end (a boy aged 4.5 and a girl aged 4.7). Changes in loudnessand speed frequently play a crucial part in determining expressivecharacter.

An important shift in the process of Imitation is from thepersonal and idiosyncratic towards socially shared Vernacularconventions. The imitative aspect of expressiveness, the senseof 'pretending to shine' in musical gestures, may begin asPersonal expression but is soon swept up into a community ofmusical commonplaces; shaped phrases and received melodies,rhythm patterns and repeated formulas. What Bunting calls 'thecommon language of music' takes over as the dominant influence,as learned songs are incorporated into the musical inventions ofchildren, as metrical patterns, syncopations and phrase-shapesare acquired within general musical conventions. Moog noticedthis to some extent in the singing of his 4-year-olds but itbecomes much more evident by around the age of 7, whenmusical gestures are more stylised, borrowed from tradition,though perhaps with modifications.

j J HT3|J J rm\The contrast between this kind of thing and' Shine' is striking

yet very frequently observed. What is imitated is not so muchan expressiveness arising directly from the child's state offeeling but an entry into a world of cliche, where expressivecharacter appears to be secondhand. This may seem a regressive

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step, but it is certainly an important and necessary one ifchildren are to share musical procedures. The music is notwithout expression but the expressiveness tends to be borrowed,as when common rhythmic or melodic patterns are repeated,or when fairly conventional answering phrases appear, un-ambitious musical gestures.

Example 21

Example 22

It is often difficult to decide what is happening to melodiesthat are already known. Is the tune being attempted, thoughinaccurately, or is a new tune being invented on a kind ofsubconscious model of that already learned, as in the case of thisincomplete transformation of 'A Sailor went to Sea' ?

Example 23

j J jvague tuning

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Example 24

Example 25

Of course, just as we shall still find examples of sensoryexploration and manipulative interest, it is also possible,throughout this long period of development, to find directpersonal expressiveness. The main thrust of development,though, is from the Personal to the Vernacular, from individualexpressiveness to that which is socially shared. As Ross puts it,there is a desire to become 'conventionally proficient'. As weshall see, this desire returns again in a much stronger form inthe third main surge of development, which is related to Piaget'sconcept of imaginative play.

Imaginative play - the speculative merging into theidiomaticWe take from Bunting the term Speculative. He writes: 'acomposer may seek out new ideas by speculating on acceptedmusical conventions. Extreme cases are atonality and indeter-minacy, but less radical speculations have always been part of ourmusical tradition.' Any musical speculation clearly depends ona grasp of the vernacular, for speculation implies that there isnot only sufficient manipulative ability but also a history ofpersonal and public expressiveness, there has to be a context ofsocially shared musical possibilities in order to create surprisesand deviations from these norms. Around the age of 10, thoughusually closer to 11, we notice the emergence of the Speculativeout of the commonplaces of the Vernacular. It is on this abilityto identify new relationships that any grasp of musical form ispredicated.

First attempts at musical speculation sometimes appear to bea kind of regression to earlier stages of manipulative insecurity.Some of the earlier fluency seems to be lost in a new phase ofexperimentation which is often focused on melodic development.A typical example comes from an 11-year-old girl:

Some basics of the Vernacular — steady pulse and phrase -seem to erode as a search begins for the exact pitches which helpto generate structural interest.

glissando

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andJune Tillman

We notice in music by a boy aged l l a similar concern withmelodic development, employing a mixture of metre in the firstinstance but on repetition becoming fixed in duple time.

Example 26

Example 27

Another boy of 11 appears to be speculating with melodicinversion. There is an initial hunting for a note as the inversionpattern is started and (probably) a mis-hit at the end.

Example 28

A piece by a girl aged 11.6 shows a bold attempt at atonality.Here again, the rhythmic control seems subordinate to searchingfor notes within a new structural framework of pitch relation-ships.

J J i Example 29

J

I

1

d 1Le! 1

hn=s \1 J»Qj "We also find at and after the age of 11 many examples where

speculation is more securely integrated into a style. This permitsmore effective surprise. The next example, played on a gatodrum, shows the speculative impulse working in two ways. Each

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Example 30

Example 31

Example 33

repeated section employs at the second hearing a different levelof indeterminate pitch of which this particular drum is capable.This may seem to be simply a typical device from the vernacularmode, that of antiphonal repetition, but in this case it is sowell used that we interpret it as speculation with the timbre/pitchof the gato. On the second level, she has developed a shortrhythmic fragment and added a clear ending 'tag', a kind of'punch line', which gives variety that would not have beenpossible by just repeating the pattern, perfectly controlled withinthe framework of the piece. She has grasped the vernacular andexperimented with it successfully to produce music that hasexpressive character and an elegant form. (Taped example 17.)

|J>|J J J?tJ>|J J J T $ J > | J JJ»|J J t J | j I

The use of the unexpected is often seen at the very beginningor ending of pieces, as in the next example, a maraca piece bya girl aged 11.2:

j Jtapped together tapped together

J Jtapped together

A boy aged 11.9 produced this tambour piece:

u J

|J J | t J J

nn\nn\nnSometimes rhythmic devices of this kind are combined with

melodic exploration, as in this composition for chime bars by agirl aged 11:

Ii»j- u $

mI M - I J»J «

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A song by a boy aged 11.9 shows both melodic developmentby the procedure of inversion and an ending emphasis by leap,which is in complete contrast to the general stepwise movementof the melody:

A girl of 11.6 explores octave leaps but deliberately changesthe character of the composition at the end, intentionallysurprising us:

j j r r i j J f

These examples are typical of the work of our 11-year-olds.In so many of their compositions there is an obvious delight inthe formal possibilities of music with their potential for effectivesurprise.

The transition from the Imaginative Play element of theSpeculative to the Idiomatic is somewhat similar to the develop-ment from Personal to Vernacular expression seen in the previousstage. There seems to be a periodic swing of focus, of psycho-logical emphasis, between a more idiosyncratic relationship withmusic and the desire to conform to accepted norms. In the caseof the Vernacular, the acceptance is of the most common musicalprocedures, involving such elements as pulse, metre, sequentialpatterns and phrase. With the Idiomatic, the accepted musicalconventions are more strictly denned, often vigorously asserted,and usually defended with conviction. Frequently, the chosenidiom comes from the range of rock and pop music, though itis possible to find other strong commitments to a particular styleor type of music between the ages of 10 and 15 years.

As with the Speculative phase, there is still tremendousconcern for the excitement of sound materials and music'sexpressiveness, but the Speculative mode has initiated a newconcern for musical form which is to persist thereafter, and thiscan still be seen despite the sometimes less experimentalproductions of an Idiomatic kind. Frequently, stylistical


andJune Tillman

Example 34

Example 35

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Example 36

authenticity is at a premium and, in many circumstances, islinked with dress, social behaviour, complete life-style. Insome senses children have less freedom than was the case at theSpeculative level, but they do have much more security and thefeeling of belonging to an accepted musical convention. Teachersof young people at around this age commonly report resistanceto anything but the accepted idiom and, in some cases, it seemsthat imaginative Speculative activity goes underground whilerepeated cliches dominate the musical landscape. However,speculation can be kept alive, and often emerges from inside theadopted convention. It has not been our main concern to collectcompositions from children above the age of 11 or 12, but wedo have some examples from the 14 to 15-year-old age-group.Among them is a striking calypso for bass xylophone.



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andJune Tillman

Here we can see that the calypso idiom is well assimilated butwith strong elements of the Speculative in the use of rests andsubtle variations and in the repetitions at the end. There is avery strong similarity between this and a published song,though the student believes her piece to be original and has sincearranged it for a performing group. Conscious or unconsciouscopying is a frequent feature of the Idiomatic mode where thestylistic focus is more specific than in earlier vernacularcompositions.

Two more 14-year-olds worked from the expressive idea of a'Storm'. The piece, though, is not at all programmatic and isbased on a clearly idiomatic motif repeated several times.

Example 37

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Towards the middle of the composition there is a passagebased on note clusters, an idea adapted from a contemporarypiece they had recently heard at a concert. Following this, themotif on the piano is resumed and fades away until only anIndian cymbal is left. Once again the element of speculation iscarried forward into the Idiomatic and, in this case, musicalfeatures from two quite different traditions are deliberatelyjuxtaposed.

Meta-cognition - from symbolic value tosystematic developmentWe feel able to speculate and project a fourth level of develop-ment which occurs beyond the age of about 15 years. Theemphasis here would seem to be upon what psychologists callMeta-cognition. Basically, meta-cognition is to become aware ofone's own thought processes. We are using the term here in aspecial sense, meaning self-awareness of the processes of thoughtand feeling in response to music. Central to this awareness is thedevelopment of a steady and often intense commitment to whatBunting calls 'the inner emotional content of music at a personallevel'. A strong sense of value, often publicly declared, permeatesthis stage. This coincides with other developments frequentlynoted in the mid-teens; religious commitment, political affilia-tion, intense personal relationships and hero-worship have allbeen observed; we may ourselves have experienced them.People are not only intensely self-aware at this time but also arefrequently articulate and wish to talk with others about theirexperiences and emerging value-systems. Bruner, in Towards aTheory of Instruction (1966), puts it this way; 'intellectualgrowth involves an increasing capacity to say to oneself andothers, by means of words or symbols, what one has done orwhat one will do. This self-accounting or self-consciousnesspermits the transition from merely orderly behaviour to logicalbehaviour, so called. It is the process that leads to the eventualrecognition of logical necessity - the so-called analytic mode ofthe philosophers - and takes human beings beyond empiricaladaptation' (p. 15).

Although the transition from the Idiomatic mode into this newlevel of awareness is gradual and frequently imperceptible,there is a difference between the kind of commitment we havedescribed to a particular musical style and the first stage ofmeta-cognitive development which we, adapting Bunting, callthe Symbolic. The shift can be seen in the tendency for individualsto go their own way and be less concerned about any generalconsensus. People may begin to find that music of a particularkind begins to correspond with special personal needs. Therecord collections of, say, 17-year-olds are likely to be muchmore diverse than the recordings of young people at the age of13 and before, when musical preferences seem largely determinedby social consensus. It is possible to view this new commitment

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as the first full flowering of aesthetic appreciation, involving allprevious levels of response but adding to them a strong elementof self-awareness, when young people can be overwhelmed byintensity of feeling and become acutely conscious of the fast-expounding boundaries of self.

It may be that, for many, such a level of response to musicis never reached and only very few people engage with music atthis level. Whether or not this need be so is another question.

The ultimate development within the Meta-cognitive modewe call the Systematic. There is plenty of evidence for this in thewritings of musicians, especially composers. Here the strongsense of value within meta-cognitive processes leads to acommitment to systematic engagement. New musical universesare rolled back and this creation, not just of music but of musicalsystems, can be observed either in new generative musicalprocedures - we may think of Schoenberg and serial technique -or of talking and writing about music in a way that borders onthe philosophical - and here we might think of Hindemith,Tippett, Cage, Copland and such personal documents as theletters of Beethoven. Not only is the value of music strongly feltand declared; the field of music is expanded by new processesor perspectives and these are offered to other minds.

The spiralThus we can see that the processes of musical developmentappear to lead us through four fundamental transformations.

Mastery

(15+)

Meta-cognition

Imaginativeplay ^Speculative

Imitation.

(10-15)

(4-9)

(0-4)


andJune Tillman

Towards social sharingFig. 3. Musical development.

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It may be helpful here to summarise each of the eightdevelopmental modes which appear in the spiral.

SensoryHere the child is concerned with the impressiveness of sound,especially timbre. There is also a fascination with dynamiclevels, especially the extremes of loudness and softness. Thereis much experimentation with a variety of sound sources,conventional instruments being only one source amongst many.There is desire to investigate the nature of sound, so that, forexample, maracas are shaken and hit together, the wood of thedrum is tapped as well as the skin, various parts of the handsand fingers are used to play the tambour. At this level, thoughthe elements are fairly unorganised, pulse is unsteady andvariations of tone colour appear to have no structural or expres-sive significance. The activities of children up to about 3 yearshave this character of unpredictable sound exploration.

ManipulativeThe child is acquiring increasing control of techniques involvedin handling instruments and other sound sources. S/he ismoving towards control of steady pulse and the interest intimbre and the other surface effects of sound shifts towards thecontrol of particular devices, such as glissandi, scalic andintervallic patterns, trills and tremolos. Compositions tend to belong and rambling and are frequently determined by the actualphysical structure of instruments themselves. Increasing controlin the manipulative mode is most apparent in the work ofchildren of 4 and 5.

Personal expressivenessDirect personal expression appears first and most clearly insong. In instrumental pieces it is mostly evident through theexploitation of changes of speed and dynamic level, climaxesbeing created by getting faster and louder. Signs of elementaryphrases (musical gestures) appear. There tends to be littlestructural control and the impression is frequently of spon-taneous and unco-ordinated musical gestures emanating directlyfrom the immediate feeling experience of the child, without agreat deal of reflection and shaping.

VernacularHere, patterns, both melodic and rhythmic, start to appear,marked by repetitions. Pieces are often shorter than previously.Expressiveness is now contained within established musicalconventions and, in particular, the structure of phrases, whichincreasingly tend to fall into two, four or eight-bar units. Metreemerges more often along with syncopation and little sequencesof melody and rhythm. Here children seem to have entered thefirst stage of conventional music-making. What they do is oftenpredictable and they have clearly absorbed into their musical

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vocabulary much from their musical experience both inside andoutside of school, while singing, playing and listening to others.The Vernacular mode begins to appear at about the ages of 5 or6 but is much more clearly established at 7 or 8.

SpeculativeWith the Vernacular fairly firmly engaged, the deliberaterepetition of patterns makes way now for imaginative deviation.Surprises occur but they are not yet fully integrated into thestyle. Control of pulse and of phrase, which was clearly apparentat the earlier stage, now appears less fixed as children hunt forthe 'right' note or attempt to introduce a deviation whichdoesn't quite work. The evidence here points to much greaterexperimentation, a willingness to explore the structural possi-bilities of music and to contrast with and vary an establishedmotif or melody. At times it appears that there is a musicalformulation in the mind of the child that is not quite realised.Speculative procedures become apparent in the work of10-year-olds.

IdiomaticStructural surprises now become more firmly integrated into aparticular style. Any contrast is frequently at the end of a phraseor piece when a pattern has been clearly established from whichthere can be deviation. Answering phrases, variation and ending' tags' are common. Technical, expressive and structural controlbegins to be established realiably over longer periods of time.There is a strong tendency to move towards what childrenregard as a 'grown-up' musical style or idiom. The world ofpopular music is especially influential here. Previous tendenciesto work in a speculative way outside the conventions of metreand melody can be suppressed. Children seek to enter recog-nisable musical communities. This is most apparent by the agesof 13 or 14.

SymbolicGrowing out of the Idiomatic is a strong personal identificationwith particular pieces of music, even turns of phrase andharmonic progressions. These appear to be developed from thestylistic clusters which, in the previous mode, were felt to bemusically and socially important. At the Symbolic level there isa growing sense of music's affective power and a tendency tobecome articulate about this experience. Musical values becomemore idiosyncratic and commitment to music is frequentlybased on an intensity of experience that is felt as unique andhighly significant. The Symbolic mode of experience is dis-tinguished from previous levels by the capacity to reflect uponthe experience and to relate it to growing self-awareness anddeveloping value-systems. It seems unlikely that we shall findmusical meta-cognitive processes before the age of about 15.


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SystematicAt the Systematic level we think of the fully fledged musicalperson, capable of reflecting on his or her musical experience.There is consciousness of the stylistic principles underlying thechosen idiom(s). There is the beginning of aesthetic speculationand the possibility of creating new 'systems'. Musical composi-tion may be based on general principles of consciously organisedgroups of musical materials (such as the use of the whole-tonescale, serialism, electronically generated music and so on).Musicians and others often feel the need to write and talk aboutthese processes, often in a philosophical way. Even if they donot, we can still find evidence of a strong value commitment tomusic which involves expanding musical possibilities in asystematic way.

Left to rightIt would be inappropriate in a paper of this kind to do more thanhint at the significance of the pendulum swings from left to rightand back again as the spiral is traversed, though there is clearlymuch that could be developed here, taking in the work of Piaget,Bruner and others. We would simply draw attention to eachshift from left to right as representing a move from the moreindividual and personal to the schematised and social. There aremany fascinating theoretical and empirical roads to be troddenhere. For the moment we will merely notice that the stages onthe left-hand side of the spiral appear to be egocentric andexperimental, while those on the right seem to be dictated byconventions within which the tendency is to be more derivativeand less original. Bruner writes that myths, art, ritual and thesciences are all 'expressions of this deep-lying tendency toexplicate and condense, to seek steady meaning in capriciousexperience' (1974, p. 31). It may be this move from capriciousexperience to steady meaning that is seen in our left-to-rightswings.

There is clearly much scope here for further development, forthe replication of observations and for the testing of this scheme,as pictured in the spiral. To our knowledge this is the first timethat such a model has been systematically developed, and it ishoped that people might use it as a profitable starting pointrather than as the final word. We would also wish to drawattention to the approximate age specifications. These are to beby no means taken as rigid, nor is it to be assumed thatindividuals may not fall outside these general boundaries. Ageshave been indicated merely to point to the relationship betweenour model and the data, to give a feeling of reality to this complexand difficult enterprise. Figure 4 shows the proportions of 745compositions as they are observed to reach the highest develop-mental mode.

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Personal Manipulative Sensory

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3 4 5 6 7 8 9Age (years)

Fig. 4. Musical development spiral - distribution of levels by each age.This analysis is based on 745 compositions from 48 children collectedover a period of four years. There is thus a longitudinal dimension tothis study. (See Statistical Note 2.)

10 11

Implications for music teachingThere seem to be three levels at which we can begin to see theimplications for musical transactions in classrooms and studios.The first of these is in terms of general curriculum planning,especially in schools. It has seemed to many people that formalmusic education in Britian is somewhat arbitrary and thatexpectations of children at different ages are by no meansuniversally shared. The result of this is that is is perfectlypossible to find little or no apparent development in musicalterms over several years at school. Indeed, it might be said thata lack of sense of achievement may account for the disenchant-ment towards music in schools that has frequently been observed,especially by the middle years of British secondary schooling.

If our assessment is anywhere near correct, then the overallcurriculum implication is that we should focus our musicalcurriculum activities towards broad aspects of musical develop-ment. In the very early years of school, sensory exploration andthe encouragement of manipulative control would be crucial. Inthe primary school this is taken forward and the expressiveelements of music, grounded in the personal and exploratorybut moving towards vernacular control, would be the centre ofour work. This could be related to movement and dance and to

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visual and other images which help to promote, stimulate andintensify expressiveness. By the age of 10 or so we would belooking to further the production and recognition of musicalspeculation, a recognition that all musical form depends oncontrasts and repetitions and that surprises are crucial to musicalencounters. This, we know, may be transformed through ado-lescence towards an idiomatic 'hardening of the arteries'. Evenso, we should strive to keep the speculative alive whilst makingit possible for young people to enter a ' grown-up' world (ratherthan the classroom world) of music. Much soul-searching willbe needed in order to transform present opportunities intosomething that more nearly matches the development of childrenand the demands of music, including appropriate instrumentsand purposeful student groupings.

The second way in which such a model may inform the musiccurriculum concerns individual development. It ought to bepossible for a teacher to identify where a child is on the spiralat any given time. Although we teach classes, people develop asindividuals. If we are aware of the next likely stage of develop-ment, that for example manipulative ability may lead to personalexpression or that engagement in the vernacular may lead to themore imaginatively speculative, then we are more likely to askthe right kind of question, to suggest a more relevant possibility,to choose material or suggest an activity that may have morepersonal meaning and consequence for the individual. Themodel here has just as much significance for the studio teacheras for the teacher in school classrooms. It might also be thatsensitivity to the concepts which we have attempted to articulatehere may help us all to understand what is musical about music.In other words, we shall be able to see the relationship betweenmusical phenomena, here called Materials, Expression, Form andValue along with their psychological correspondences Mastery,Imitation, Imaginative Play and Meta-cognition. For example,once we grasp that musical expression is a form of imitation thenwe can immediately see relationships with movement, drama,poetry and visual images; we can also understand how music canbe expressive without necessarily representing anything else,that a musical gesture is an abstraction of a physical gesture. Wemay use programmatic ideas to get the imitative process goingbut will always avoid the literal translation of objects or eventsinto music and will look towards the next stage of development -musical speculation.

The third set of implications for the music curriculum has todo with the role of the teacher. How, for example, do we proposeto start up a certain activity, or to introduce a new musicalprocedure or idea? Here we must repeat something of import-ance. The overall development outlined in this paper is reacti-vated each time we encounter a new musical context. If we takeup a new instrument, for example, no matter how experienced weare, we shall first be engaged with the sensory properties of thesound (possibly even the feel and smell of the instrument),

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before moving to manipulative engagement and, fairly quickly,into expressive and structural procedures. To take anotherexample, if we come across a style of music that is unfamiliar weare first attracted by its sensory properties, become aware ofthe manipulative articulation and then begin to penetrate itsexpressiveness, eventually responding to its structural specula-tions before feeling at home in the idiom. All of these processeswill take place before it could ever become important for us ata symbolic or systematic level.

Let us, for instance, take a fairly simple example of a com-positional project. We may have decided to base this activity onthe materials of short and long sounds. Let us make sure that thefirst stage of the Sensory is properly entered, no matter what theage or previous experience of the children. There are differentkinds of shortness; a very long sound has a very different effectfrom one that is only moderately long. These perceptions are animportant pre-condition for sensitive Manipulative control.Now we must learn how to sustain long sounds, what techniquesmay be involved on different instruments - the use of beaters,for example, to continually activate sound as a tremolo. We maynow move to explore the expressiveness involved in combiningshort and long sounds into patterns that communicate (i.e.imitate). Is each student able to generate a short Personalmusical gesture from short and long sounds? Is expressivenesscommunicated? We might then move to consider how thesesounds can be caught up into existing musical practices, theVernacular. Shall we choose to organise them within a frameworkof pulse and metre or within other musical conventions? If thechildren are above the age of about 9, we shall certainly wantto turn them towards the Speculative. Can we create a surpriseusing short and long sounds ? Can they make a piece that holdsthe interest? Can we devise episodes that relate to one anothereither as contrasts or as repetitions? Are we concerned tobroaden the range of what is considered to be Idiomatic ? Thiswill certainly lead us to encounter the music of others, asperformers or in audience.

What is being suggested here is a strategy for curriculumdevelopment. We start from a collection of musical materials;then, no matter how tightly or loosely we organise the learningprocess, we shall be looking for the next question to ask. Askingthe next question depends on having an idea as to what possibledevelopments might be 'round the corner'. In our spiral, so tospeak, we have many corners. The transition from one mode tothe next is often so smooth as to be almost unnoticed, thoughoccasionally it will occur as a leap. An awareness of thesepossibilities must surely be helpful, and we shall at least avoidthe danger of predicating a curriculum upon a narrow view ofmusical response. We would certainly not wish to limit ourselvesto the sensory, to personal expressiveness or to the speculative,but will also notice the importance of manipulative skills, ofentering a general musical vernacular and recognising idiomatic


andJune Tillman

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procedures. Crossing from side to side of the spiral is a develop-mental necessity.

All the indications are, then, that there is such a thing asmusical development and that it takes place in a certain sequence,the 'softer' meaning of the term development; certain develop-ments are necessary for later growth to occur. Whether or notthe stronger sense of the term 'development' holds is stillproblematic. Our evidence suggests that there may be broadchanges that occur in ' almost all children', though whether thisis to what Maccoby calls a 'fairly standard timetable' is stillundemonstrated, though supported by many writers. With thechildren we observed there does indeed appear to be a sequence.We suspect that, if children are in an environment where thereare musical encounters, then this sequence will be activated. Ifthe environment is particularly rich, then the sequence may befollowed more quickly. The opposite may also, unfortunately,be true: in an impoverished musical environment, developmentis likely to be minimal, arrested.

The intellectual journey which has culminated in the writingof this paper has been difficult, erratic and exciting. We hopethat some of the excitement may be caught by others and thatthis work may be taken further. It is, after all, important for allof us to feel that there is 'something round the corner'.

ReferencesBRUNER, J. S. (1966) Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.BRUNER, J. S. (1972) The Relevance of Education. Harmondsworth:

Penguin, 1974.BUNTING, R. (1977) The Common Language of Music. Music in the

Secondary School Curriculum, Working Paper 6, Schools Council,York University.

LOANE, B. (1984) Thinking about children's compositions. BritishJournal of Music Education, 1, 3, 205-31.

MACCOBY, E. E. (1984) Socialization and developmental change. ChildDevelopment, 55, 317-28.

MOOG, H. (1976) The Musical Experience of the Pre-School Child(translated by Claudia Clarke). London: Schott (first publishedin Germany, 1968).

MURSELL, J. L. (1948) Education for Musical Growth, p. 30. London:Ginn.

PIAGET, J. (1951) Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood. London:Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Ross, M. (1984) The Aesthetic Impulse. Oxford: Pergamon Press.SWANWICK, K. (1983) The Arts in Education: Dreaming or Wide

Awake? Special Professorial Lecture, London University Instituteof Education.

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Statistical Notes(1) The Spearman rank correlation coefficient gives the followingprobabilities on the relationships between the judges and betweeneach judge and the actual age.

Judges 1 and 2: p = 0-89, P < 001Judge 1 and actual age: p = 082, P < 002Judge 2 and actual age: p = 0-71, P < 005

(2) Table 1 gives the highest levels in the spiral judged to bereached in 745 compositions across the age-range 3—11 years.

Table 1


andJune Tillman

Age

SpeculativeVernacularPersonalManipulativeSensory

Total

3

000

1831

49

4

02

4812945

224

5

01

40193

63

6

01224140

50

7

421

9124

50

8

539

181

54

9

2229

430

58

10

3118600

55

11

6864

640

142 745

X2 = 1755-3, P < 0001.

Note on the musical examples

The accompanying cassette tape gives further examples ofchildren's compositional processes. We should emphasise thatthey are not exceptional but are typical of what the childreninvolved in this study produced. There is no sense in which theyare prepared, public performances. They are part of everydayclassroom musical transactions. It is as such that they should beheard.

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the sequence of musical development: a study of children's

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