Transformational and Transmodal Redesign in Children's Music Invention: An Exploration Using the Space of Music Dialogue

Abstract

Recent research in music education has addressed silences in the literature of learning and pedagogy, acknowledging there is need of more specific in-depth analysis of children’s rich and varied music invention. Children, according to recent research in multimodal social semiotics, select and redesign resources in and across modes to transform meaning and enhance learning in diverse contexts. Investigations in this field of enquiry have revealed how investment of interested action may, over time, enhance conceptual understanding as children apply previous learning in moments of transmodal redesign. Children’s inventive music made in their first school year, when viewed through the social semiotic lens in this study, was shown to promote cognition in music. Essentially, this thesis explored instances of transformational and transmodal redesign as realised in young children's music invention. Building on existing literature of the praxis of music, the aim was to clarify meanings made in multimodal music inventions by viewing, over six months, the interactions of five-year-old children in formal educational classroom and home settings. The researcher initiated weekly music classes in rural and urban schools. Visits were made to the homes of six children in order to initiate inventive music activities with families. Interactions were recorded on video, and observations and interviews with parents and children made. Parents captured, on video, additional music activities in the home. Other data sets (interviews, observations and field notes) were combined for exploration of individual and group music interactions across contexts.