The Recording Preschool Children's performances and reactions through Music Awakening Activities

Abstract

Music Education, heretofore referred to as "Musical Awakening" ("MA") of pre-school aged children, isn’t intended to develop musical skills as an academic pursuit but rather hopes to facilitate the blossoming of individual personalities. The goal is to foster enhanced expression, relaxation, communication, and socialization. To create a pedagogical model of MA, several musical activities were designed. The aim of the study is to quantify and qualify experimentally acquired data for the purpose of the implementing a pedagogical approach to MA. Musical aptitude, psychological factors, behavioral characteristics, and reactions were considered and documented. The sample size consists of 8 children (postnatal and preschool aged) participating in a regimen of 9 educational activities distributed over 5 lessons. A limited statistical sample is presented here. Our model includes the performance of, and the reaction to, musical activities relative to 4 criteria: Behavior; Expressiveness; Vocalization (participation in song); Mobility (response to percussion instruments). Ultimately, conclusions are drawn from the acquired data and these observations are summarized here for the purpose of creating a pedagogical model that is useful to teachers. Casual and anecdotal observations are referenced within this study but are simply stated to provide commentary. This study is presented for the purpose of enhancing ways by which pre-school music educators can better understand and interact with their pupils.

Keywords

• music awakening; music education; music pedagogy; preschool education