The quality of education in ECEC (0-6 years): The contribution of art music*
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Teaching (Today for) Tomorrow: Bridging the Gap between the Classroom and Reality 3rd International Scientific and Art Conference |
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Section - The importance of art education for the cognitive, social, and emotional development of children and youth |
Paper number: 057 |
Category: Preliminary |
Abstract |
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The Based on the analysis of a number of normative documents on early childhood education, both internal and external to the EU, my contribution will propose three areas of intervention to build a quality vertical curriculum centred on art music education: the musical preparation of staff, the organisation of the
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Key words: |
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IntroductionIntroduction: the notion of “quality” of education in the ECEC system
ImprovisationThe notion of “quality” is aat fundamentalthe aspectheart of lifethe thatdemocratic reflectsmodel ourof abilityeducation (Goal 4 Agenda 2030). In the EU, since the 2000s, the regulations on the ECEC - Early Childhood Education and Care (0-6 years) system show a holistic approach to dealchildhood, withfocusing everydayon uncertaintiesthe subjective right of every child to equal educational opportunities, insisting on the quality of education, attaching particular importance to the development of creativity, and challengessupporting throughthe intuitive,idea spontaneousof action.a Emphasising its unpredictablecoherent and adaptiveunitary nature highlights the essential role of improvisation in human existence and underlines its importancecurriculum in the way0-6 wesystem, copelinked to the subsequent segment of education and training.
The notion of “quality” in ECEC is the result of a long process. Initially, at the normative level, the idea of quality first prompted the expansion of public pre-school provision and the improvement of staff competences (2011, EU Communication, final 66). Then the same idea gave impetus to reducing inequalities and promoting equal opportunities for all (2013, EU Recommendation, pp. 112). More recently, quality has been included among the benefits of the curriculum to be promoted throughout the ECEC system. In this latter perspective, the 2014 document Proposal for key principles of a Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care, a report of the Working Group on Early Childhood Education and Care under the auspices of the European Commission, is very important. The document defines four criteria for quality services in the 0-6 system: 1. a safe and stimulating environment; 2. encouraging and friendly staff; 3. opportunities for intensive social and language interaction; 4. appropriate experiences to support children's cognitive, physical, social and emotional development. The continuous professional development of educators and teachers in order to acquire knowledge and competences, the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process, the definition of national guidelines and specific objectives, as well as the regular evaluation of progress, together with the involvement of parents, families in general and respondlocal tocommunities, life'sand complexitiesthe (Steinsholtdefinition &of Sommerro,an 2006).accreditation process, are some of the central aspects in defining the quality of educational services in the 0-6 system since 2014.
In an educational context, improvisation emphasises active engagement, spontaneity and interactive learning (Hickey, 2015; Linson, 2014). From a music education perspective, improvisation has educational value as it promotes2015, the developmentCouncil ofConclusions musical skills, personal growth, reflective and critical thinking, creativity and the ability to collaborate. Sawyer (2007) describeson the role of improvisation in music education and argues that it should be considered a central part of the discipline due to both its musical and broader pedagogical importance. He emphasises four key learning outcomes: a deep understanding of musical concepts, the ability to integrate knowledge through spontaneous music making, the ability to adapt to immediate change, and the development of collaborative skills. This is consistent with a perspective that emphasises how the structure of improvised music evolves in real time through socially negotiated interaction based on negotiation rather than following a prescribed form (Lewis, 2014).
Engaging with the concept of improvisation can be challenging as it can be understood in different ways and is open to different interpretations (Wilson & MacDonald, 2017). For adults, it is necessary to find a common point of reference to not only encourage children's creative musical play, but to actively share and converse with them about it. However, the inherent ambiguity of music (Cross, 2005) and improvisation (MacDonald et al., 2012) presents a challenge in creating this common ground. In order to find common ground with children, common interests such as a theme, activity or favourite things such as a story, character, song or game need to be identified to facilitate connection and communication. In this sense, Johansen et al (2019) emphasise the importance of teachers in defining musical activities in early childhood education and shapingprimary education in fostering creativity, innovation and digital literacy focused on education for active citizenship and the modespromotion of expressioncreative availableand innovative competences as a basis for «personal fulfilment and development, social inclusion and active citizenship» (2015/C 172/05, paragraphs 1-4 of the section “With Regard to children. However, this process can be challenging due to the often-overlooked power dynamics between childrenCreativity and adults that can influence children's improvisational behaviour (Wassrin, 2019). Such connections also help children to express feelings more easily, build confidence and create opportunities to introduce new activities.
In addition to the growing research interest in the characteristics of group improvisation with children, creativity and collaboration have been identified as key characteristics, even at a young age (Sawyer, 2003, 2007; Wassrin, 2019). Johansen et al. (2019) emphasise the distinctiveness of improvisation pedagogy in ECE contexts, highlighting the central role of kindergarten teachers or caregivers in defining what constitutes a musical activity and thus in shaping the modes of expression available to children. This challenge arises in part from a tendency to overlook the power dynamics between children and adults in society, which has led researchers in the field of music education to underestimate how such dynamics might shape the reported actions in children's improvisations (Wassrin, 2019)Innovation”).
This Inbrings studiesus withto 9-the fourth of the seventeen goals of the 2030 Agenda, which was signed by the governments of the 193 UN member states in September 2015. This goal is to provide quality, equitable and 10-year-oldinclusive children, Larssoneducation and Öhmanlearning (2018) and Larsson (2019) found that teachers provided a 'framework'opportunities for music making, for example by asking children to invent a story and express it through improvisation, while encouraging mutual support and avoiding judgement.all.
TheSubsequently, categorisationthe European Council Recommendation of emergent22 musicalMay features2019 also refers to the «high quality» of education and care systems in improvisation varies depending on the pedagogical approach or educational goal. Two general approaches are model-based (Kratus, 1991; Beegle, 2010; Whitcomb, 2010), where teachers follow certain rules and conventions of a genre or method, and process-based, where teachers design activities based on participants' contributions (Burnard, 2002; Kanellopoulos, 2007; Larsson & Öhman, 2018; Larsson, 2019)ECEC. In addition, a distinction is made between 'structured', teacher-led improvisation and 'free', child-led improvisation (Larsson and Georgii-Hemming, 2018).
MacGlone (2019) describes how conceptual tools and workshop roles are developed through music improvisation with young children. He defines group music improvisation as a process in which some or allOne of the content emerges spontaneously during the performance, with participants actively collaborating and shaping the music in real time. In an action research studyaspects of improvisationhigh with preschool children aimed at developing their musical creativity and sensitivity, activities included descriptive prompts (“What does a hedgehog sound like?”, “Are the drums good for rainbow sounds?”), open-ended prompts (“Just play.”) and the use of graphic symbols as a starting point for improvisation. Some situations illustrate a conflict of desire and power within the group and highlight the challenges the children face when they have to reconcile their own needs with those of others due to unresolved power dynamics. The children's ideas were developed into a shared repertoire of improvisations linked to stories such as “Princesses in a Bouncy Castle” and "Star Music”. Musical roles explore how children describe personal and interpersonal actions through their musical choices during improvisation (MacGlone, 2019). To broaden the horizons of musical improvisation pedagogy within structured musical play in the ECE context, two key constructs within ECE are highlighted: Creative Musical Agency (CMA) and Socio-Musical Aptitude (S-MA) (MacGlone, Wilson & MacDonald, 2021). CMAquality is demonstrated when a child independently develops and performs new musical material during a group improvisation, while S-MA is demonstrated when a child develops a musical response during a group improvisation that relates to and references another child's musical idea. By considering these constructs in the context of early childhood musical improvisation, this study aims to investigate how structured and unstructured musical activities promote children's creative and social musical engagement.
Multimodal Approaches to Music Education
Effective teaching involves all modalities, which is particularly possible in music due to its inherently multimodal nature. Considering the musical experience as a multimodal form of communication, music not only includes text, photographs, animations, colours, movements and other sounds that express ideological discourses in society, but also combines different information such as sheet music, gestures, lyrics and metadata (Way & McKerrell, 2017). By understanding and harnessing students' individual modal strengths, music lessons can provide rich sensory stimulation to enhance the overall learning experience (Scott-Kassner &Kassner, 2006).
Musical concepts are most effectively taught through discovery (Bruner, 1966), with activities such as improvisation, composition or musical tasks that encourage children to think while listening, performing or creating thus providing opportunities for exploration. Approaches such as Orff Schulwerk, Kodály, Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Suzuki and the method of Croatian educator Elly Bašić all emphasise «the importance of richplay, musicalcontact experienceswith thatnature, leadthe childrenrole toof understandingmusic, beforearts formaland learningphysical beginsactivity». Finally, in 2022-2023, the European Commission, Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, with its European Working Group on Early Childhood Education and Care (Bačlija SušićECEC), 2017).focused Thison approachquality ismonitoring and evaluation.
All these objectives are based on the ideaintegration of policy and pedagogy. This suggests that experiential learning through play, movement, listening and creativity develops children's sensitivity to music and fosters their creativity (Bačlija Sušić & Brebrić, 2022). Accordingly, their communicative behaviour in creative music workshops has been characterised as multimodal (Wassrin, 2016, 2019).
Children combine actions (such as movement, storytelling and singing) in a wayquality that emphasises the central role of ECE teachers in defining what counts as musical activity, taking into account the different modes of expression available to children (Johansen et al., 2019). In this context, some authors emphasise that the combination of activities such as movement, storytelling and singing can be at odds with ritualised musical activities in a circle, which often require children to remain seated and can be limitingsystem for children is one that provides them with developmentalopportunities needsfor orcognitive, difficultiesemotional-affective, (Young, 2006; Wassrin, 2019). Appropriate interventions tailored to children's needs by ECE teachers enhance children's musical experiencesphysical and reflectsocial the quality of the process through higher levels of children's engagementgrowth and well-beingbeing, (Bačlijanot Sušić,only Fišerphysical Sedinićbut &also Cvrtila,psychological, 2022).intellectual and spiritual.
In order to supportprovide musicalthese creativityopportunities, it is essential to design a unitary curriculum from 0 to 6 years, as set out in earlythe childhood,2014 adultsProposal shouldfor reflectKey onPrinciples their engagement with children's creative musical play, as understanding this play is key to improving improvisation pedagogy. Leaders of musical activities playfor a crucialQuality roleFramework asfor facilitatorsEarly whoChildhood effectively supportEducation and encourage children's creative development (MacGlone, Wilson & MacDonald, 2021)Care. InThe terms of improvisation and creativity in general, adults often have more opportunities to connect with children through various artistic and multimodal forms of expression, such as storytelling. Therefore, in viewdesign of the potentialunitary curriculum must be based on cultural education in order to promote the sense of storytellingcitizenship, aswhich ais multidisciplinarythe toolbasis withof greatcitizenship, pedagogical value that can be used in university classrooms as well as infrom early childhood and primary education (Arteaga Checa, Zagalaz Sánchez, & Cepero González, 1999), many authors have emphasised the importance of storytelling through music in teaching and in the development of professional skills (Rodríguez Lorenzo, 2016; Menéndez Valdeolmillos, 2020). Storytelling is always linked to a message, just like music, which in a way conveys a message. In the context of music education, storytelling therefore serves both as a teaching strategy and as a motivational tool (Bačlija Sušić, 2017; Horvat Vukelja & Heisenger, 2019).
Building on Vygotsky's model of mediated action, Activity Theory (AT) provides a framework for understanding how tools, rules and social structures shape human interaction (Engeström, 1987, 2001). In early childhood education, AT helps analyse the multimodal and multisensory nature of music improvisation and offers insights into pedagogical and social dynamics (MacGlone, 2019, 2020, 2022). The framework also explores physical and symbolic tools as mediating artefacts in practice. The use of Activity Theory (AT) in early childhood education settings (McGlone, 2019, 2020, 2022) enhances understanding and interaction, emphasising its multisensory and multimodal nature. As a reflexive tool, AT provides deeper insights into the complexity of the social and organisational practices of music improvisation in ECE.
As for the limited use of musical improvisation as a form of creative musical expression by children in ECE (Bačlija Sušić, 2023), this remains a relatively unexplored area for this age group. The aim of this research is to gain insights into children's creative musical expression and communication during collaborative improvisation in ECE, emphasising the multisensory and multimodal nature of improvisation and using Activity Theory (AT) as a reflexive framework to enhance pedagogy. The following research questions were defined in accordance with the research problem and aim
• 1. What are the most common modes and forms of expression and communication in ECE improvisation from a multimodal perspective?
• 2. Which mediating artefacts can facilitate improvisation in the ECE context by providing guidelines, rules and structure?childhood.
MethodMethods
Participants
Aarticle groupreports on the results of 25a childrentheoretical research that links the notion of “quality” of education and teaching in childhood – as studied from a singlecritical-comparative kindergarten group participatedperspective in theItalian, study, supervised by two music experts in collaboration with an educational rehabilitation specialistEuropean and ainternational kindergartenlegislation teacher.(see TheIntroduction) activities were conducted and monitored over a period of 3 months by two music experts in collaboration with a kindergarten educational rehabilitation specialist.
Instrument
In addition– to the video-basedidea participantof observation,a notescurriculum werethat takenintentionally alongside the video recordings. A checklist basedfocuses on thehistorical-cultural ATeducation frameworkfrom wasearly developed for the first analysis. A checklist based on the Attribution Theory (AT) framework covering subject, object, rules, division of labourchildhood and modesthat ofincludes expressionartistic wasmusic used to analyse the data. In line with the research aim and research questions, we focused on exploring the role of both physical and symbolic tools as mediating artefacts and the different modes of expression used in improvisation activities with children.education.
The
reflectionsResearchfrom Design
ECECformative ethnographicobjectives methodsof were“active usedcitizenship” and “cultural participation”, identified by the European Union, in order to explore the children'snotion cultures,of experiences,“culture” feelings,as voicesa synthesis of “heritage” and activities in order to promote their development and well-being (Köngäs and Määttä, 20-23)“traditions”. InFrom parallel,a arts-basedpedagogical practicepoint -of anview, establishedthe researchreflection methodis forthen workingdeepened withby childrenbuilding (Hickey-Moodya 2011,bridge 2013,between 2015; Leavy 2015; Thomson 2009) - provided valuable insights into children's lived experiences and their connections to education, community and culture (Cahnmann-Taylor and Siegesmund 2017; Clark 2017; Thomson and Hall 2019). In practice,all these approaches also enhance children's multimodal literacies (Wolfe and Flewitt, 2010), enabling them to articulate and shape their identities and relationships to the world. These methods provide greater material agency to experiences and perspectives that are often challenging to articulate or represent (Kidd, 2009; Nunn, 2017), making them particularly valuableconcepts, in the ECEperspective context.of key competences for lifelong learning. Among these, the eighth key competence, cultural awareness and expression, is the main educational objective of music education in general and of art music education in particular, also in the ECEC system.
ToDrawing enableon Immanuel Kant, the reflections in this article also establish a deeperstrong qualitativelink analysisbetween history education and critical education. This connection is the basis for a specific model of themusic dataeducation collectedthat usingis primarily, but not exclusively, focused on art music. The article illustrates some pedagogical and didactic foundations of this model and projects it into the checklist,ECEC system, demonstrating its educational potential in the information was further analysed through a systematic coding process using thematic deductive analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), which was based on the AT theoretical framework that initially helped to structure the data. This flexible approach, informed by the theoretical or analytical interestsbuilding of theEuropean researcher, allowed for more detailed analysiscitizenship and a morequality nuanced understanding of particular aspects of the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006; King, 2004). A checklist based on the Attribution Theory (AT) framework was used to analyse the data, covering subject, object, rules, division of labour and modes of expression. In line with the research aim and questions, the focus was on exploring the role of both physical and symbolic tools as mediating artefacts and the different modes of expression used in improvisation activities with children.
Ethical Considerations
The ethical considerations for this study followed established standards for educational research. Written parental consent was obtained and participants were fully informed about the purpose and procedures of the study. Participation was voluntary and data were anonymised to protect confidentiality and privacy. The study was approved by the Ethical Research Committee of the Faculty of Teacher Education at the University of Zagreb.school.
DataResults
Defining CodesThe results of the reflections focus on three areas in which the collaboration of scholars and Categoriespolicy-makers in the European Union should be promoted, in order to affirm artistic music education as a factor in improving the overall quality of education in the ECEC system:
- the training of educators and teachers in the knowledge and understanding of art music;
- the development of historically and culturally oriented art music curricula both in schools and in the training of educators and teachers at university level;
- the provision and design of “music ateliers” in schools, i.e. specific musical learning environments.
For reasons of space, the discussion here will have little to do with the first point, since it is an area in which a wide variety of academic curricula are at play in different European countries. Instead, it will focus on the second point and provide some insights into the third, in order to offer working hypotheses to be shared by researchers in this field in the European Union.
Discussion: cultural-historical education and artistic music education
BasedIf onwe are to educate for active citizenship from an early age, as stated in the EU Council Conclusions of 2015, this is impossible without participation in culture. But what do we understand by “culture”? And what do we mean by “cultural participation”?
The notion of “culture” encompasses both the beliefs and values of a deductivecommunity, analysis,and thehence checklistits traditions, and the categoriescultural assets of physicalthat community, and symbolichence toolsits accordingheritage – the set of material and non-material objects that bear witness to AT,a whichcivilisation wereand alignedembody associations with certain social values, beliefs, religions and customs, and hence with the definedtraditions researchof questions,that servedcivilisation. asEducation a starting point. After familiarisation within the data, the initial findings of the physicalknowledge and symbolic tools were organised into codes as modes of expressions from the checklist, leading to the identification of new themes and categories that emerged from the data (Table 1). As coding is an ongoing and organic process, it was necessary to re-code the dataset, especially when some themes did not contain enough data or were too diverse, requiring them to be merged or split into separate themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006). To ensure that the selected themes or categories were unique and broad enough to capture related ideas across multiple text segments, the data were refined and condensed into themes that reflected the content of the important topics (Attride-Stirling, 2001). This iterative process ensures that the themes are coherent and at the same time can be clearly distinguished from each other. This ultimately allows researchers to gain a clear understanding of the themes,traditions and cultural heritage of a civilisation promotes and encourages participation in a culture, because it fosters a sense of identity and belonging to a group, an understanding of previous generations and their relationshipshistory, and the overarchingdevelopment narrativeof theya revealsense aboutof identity and cultural awareness. The latter, together with cultural expression, has been identified by the dataEU as the eighth key competence for lifelong learning (BraunEU &Council Clarke,Recommendations 2006)2016 and 2019). In order to encourage students to develop this eighth key competence, historical and critical education from an early age is essential, because:
- without historical knowledge, we cannot understand the reality in which we live and act;
- without criticism, understood since Kant as a reflective act leading to discernment and thus choice, we cannot arrive at self-determination and thus at what is good for us.
The thematichistorical-critical analysis,approach guidedin bycultural formation trains students' ability to contextualise and problematise facts, phenomena and objects, including music. It therefore leads to an increase in the physicalintellectual andqualities symbolicof toolsstudents, as well as the construction of a sense of belonging to a community (AT)La checklist,Face was& expandedBianconi, 2014). The earlier we start with additionalthis detailskind fromof notes and recordings and grouped into codes and categories/themes that emergededucation, from the dataECEC (Table 1).
Table 1 Results of Thematic Analysis: Codes and Categories
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Followingsystem, the stagesbetter: ofwe dataare analysisnot describedused byto Braunthinking & Clarke (2006),that the originalintellect data fromis the checklistgreatest were refined into codes and categories/themes. The following codes were defined based on the data presented in Table 1: Body percussion (BP), Movement (M), Storytelling (ST), Musical game (MG), Counting rhymes (CR), "Musical Suits" from Story (MS), Orff instruments (OI), Song (S), Song story (SS), OI improvisation (OII), Sound improvisation (SI), Role selection (RS) and leadership (RSL), Voice improvisation (VI), Voice exploration and improvisation (VII), Visual stimuli (VS), Recorder improvisation (RI), Story and association (SA).
Based on the aforementioned codes, the following categories/themes were defined, representing broader thematic groupsasset of the data:human Multimodal story-based musical activities, Storybeing, and songthat we should invest in it with education from early childhood and with the transmission of knowledge in the next school segment. Historical-critical cultural education is therefore the foundation of intellectual education and the guarantee of cultural participation. I would like to emphasise that by “intellectual formation” I mean the development of the human being in all its multiple, interdependent dimensions: cognitive-cultural, critical-aesthetic, affective-emotional, linguistic-communicative, relational-social, identity-related and intercultural, and kinesthetic-physical (Cuomo, 2018, pp. 65-67). Intellectual formation should therefore be understood as mediators in creative musical expression/improvisation, Story-driven collaborative role-playing and leadership in musical improvisation, Vocal improvisation as a multisensory and multimodal form of expression, and Story, association and leadership in recorder improvisation.
Considering that themes should be specific yet broad enough to encompass related ideas from multiple text segments (Attride-Stirling, 2001), while being concise, coherent and clearly distinguishable (Braun & Clarke, 2006), two main themes were identified after reviewing the themes obtained: Multimodal and multisensory approaches as a basis for musical improvisation and creative expression, and Storytelling as a mediating tool for the framework of collaborative musical improvisation.holistic.
The firstarts thememake emphasisesa significant contribution to intellectual formation as their contents have a high aesthetic and epistemological value. However, these contents are not easily accessible: they require a didactic mediation that leads students to an understanding of how works of art are created and how their construction corresponds to precise historical and cultural values, and through this understanding, to the useacquisition of differenttools modalitiesfor suchhigh-level asaesthetic stories, associations, Orff instruments, sounds, songs, counting rhymes, musical games, body percussion, movement and other modalities in combination with sensory input to foster musical creativity and improvisation.participation.
TheAt secondthe theme,University Storytellingof asBologna, for a mediatinglittle toolover twenty years now, we have been developing a pedagogical-didactic model for music that focuses on educating students to understand music in its historical and cultural context. The starting point is the frameworkdidactics of collaborativelistening, which aims to develop an understanding of what a given musical improvisation,object highlightsis, i.e. how it is constructed and why it is constructed in a certain way. The didactics of listening can enable students to understand that the rolestructure and form of storytellinga piece of music, past or present, its materials and their organisation, the functions of the piece in creatingthe society in which it was created, the places, modes and contexts of its performance, are all expressions not only of the poetics of its author, but also of the culture of that society, its values and its “taste”. By taste, I mean a frameworkphilosophical-aesthetic forcategory groupthat must be considered in its historical context. The model developed in Bologna then branches out from the didactics of listening into the didactics of musical activities,production fostering(performance, leadership skills through role-playingcomposition and enhancing collaboration during musical improvisation.
Multimodal Story-Based Musical Activities
This category includes various multimodal activities, including Body percussion (BP), Storytelling (ST), Musical games (MG), Counting rhymes (CR)improvisation) and the "Musical Suits" (MS) approach, which integrate music, movement and narrative elements to promote children's engagement and learning. The children introduced themselves in a circle with body percussion, playing different rhythms on their bodies while saying the syllablesdidactics of theirmusic names.history, Some shy children did not want to participate. After everyone had introduced themselves, the activity leader remarked that they were "real experts in body percussion" (BP/1).
Through the two brothersunderstood as travelling musicians and main characters, the children learnt about instruments such as the guitar and the recorder, while through the character of a girl who sang, they learnt that the voice is also an instrument that needs to be cared for and nurtured. “We mustn't shout or scream, because then the voice becomes restless and disappears - what we call 'SHOUTO'”. Through the association of a “musical suit”, the children were fully involvedtraining in the storytelling.research Throughof thissources. interactiveThe experiencedidactics theyof developedlistening to music is at the heart of the Bolognese pedagogical and didactic model, i.e. it precedes all the other practices of musical knowledge transposition, since it aims to create an awareness of different sounds (SI/1 - creating different sounds inspired by stories - tapping, animal voices), the importance of caring for their instruments and voices, creativity, teamwork and an appreciation of music and performance (ST/1). In the musical game, the children represented trees that a blindfolded child had to avoid in order to reach the goal. The children shouted: "I'm here, I'm here" (MG/1, M/1). To choose the child who would play the main role, the children used a counting rhyme (CR/1).
Story and Song as Mediators in Creative Musical Expression/Improvisation
This category includes the following codes: ST as a stimulus; "musical suits" (MS) as a symbolic tool and leitmotif; body percussion (BP), Orff instrument, improvisation (OII), song as a symbolic mediator that deepens the theme (S) and a new short story ("song story" - SS) that introduced the activity of learning a new song, and counting rhyme (CR) to choose from. Inspired by the story, a sound improvisation was spontaneously added to describe the night in the story, which served as a prompt for improvisation: "At night no one works, everyone sleeps. Only when you hear the deepest silence can you start to play". One child spontaneously began to snore, which the other children quickly picked up on and laughed as they joined in the sound improvisation (SI/2).
The song was seamlessly integrated into the storytelling through a new short story ("Song Story" - SS/1). For example, the children found the song "Under the Stone a Crab Dwells" particularly interesting and it became an integral part of thehistory activityand "Atculture. Starting from the Bottomdidactics of the Sea" (S/1). After usinglistening, the countingteacher rhymedevelops forthe selection (CR/2)teaching and improvisationlearning withof Orffmusic instruments (OII/1), a new short story was added whentowards the children'sother concentrationtwo begantransposition to wane (ST/2). According topractices, the ECEdidactics teacher'sof report,musical production (performance, composition, improvisation) and the childrendidactics wereof stillmusical humminghistory, thislinking song long after the activity had finished.
Story-Driven Collaborative Role Play and Leadership in Musical Improvisation
In this category and theme, the children take the initiative to lead the play and choose activities. Storytelling encourages this leadership by motivating children to take on roles and improvise. This process encourages group synchronisation and collaboration as children work together to build on each other's ideas and create shared narratives. Through these activities (Table 1), children not only practise their creativity, but also improve their ability to work and communicate effectivelythem in a group.
For example, the children again suggest their own counting rhymes to divide up the roles, which reinforces their senserelationship of involvementcontinuity, andthat agency. For example,is, in thean activityuninterrupted "At the Bottom of the Sea", where all the children wanted to play the big rain stick, 'like a real sea', a counting rhyme was again used to allocate roles and choose instruments within the storycycle (CR/Cuomo, 3). Furthermore, in the activity "In the Anthill", when the facilitator said "We have two xylophones today", the children replied: "I want it, I want it...". After the facilitator asked: "How do we decide?", the children suggested a counting rhyme themselves (CR/4)2018).
In the sameECEC activity,system, the guidancequality of a child's development, and therefore of her or his learning opportunities, depends directly not only on the quality of the gongcare playershe inor he receives, but also, and above all, on the activitypath emphasisesto leadershipknowledge of the world and collaboration,of initiallyoneself ledthat is fostered by the musiceducational teacherprocesses in which she or he is involved. It is therefore essential to promote access to, and lateruse of, the symbolic systems of the social and cultural reality in which the child lives. These systems include musical art, which should be consciously taken overinto account in educational planning for the purposes of aesthetic development, musical education and cultural participation (Cuomo, 2023).
Knowledge of art music as a heritage should be considered a cultural right (Cuomo, 2024). This right should be affirmed through a specific artistic-musical education, to be introduced already in the ECEC system, precisely in order to promote a high quality of services, as advocated by the childrenEuropean throughUnion. From this point of view, however, there are two main problems: the symbolicspecific rolecompetences of the gongteaching playerstaff (RSL/1). This combination encourages dynamic group interaction, withand the gong player leading the group through the processestablishment of groupan improvisationartistic-musical with Orff instruments (OII/2) and stimulating creativitycurriculum in theearly integrationchildhood. ofThese sound,two movementaspects (M/2)are andundoubtedly singing. The gong player played a central role in guiding the flow of the activity, ensuring that the children worked together effectively as they explored and expressed their musical and creative abilities through the story-inspired improvisation process.linked.
Vocal Improvisation as a Multisensory and Multimodal Mode of Expression
The visualtraining stimulusof early childhood educators and teachers in ECEC is a complex issue. In specific academic courses, future professionals should acquire historical and cultural competence in art music in order to be able to work with children using both compositions with notes and compositions with sounds. This distinction derives from the history of music, which in the 20th century has seen composers not only grapple with the codification of sounds in different musical languages, but also focus on purely sonic creative processes, including noise, even organised noise, timbral innovation and the exploration of new frontiers of sound. I will not dwell on the training of educators and teachers in the ECEC system here: as already mentioned (VS)see Results), this is a complex issue that primarily concerns the need to harmonise the ECEC academic paths of the EU countries towards a solid artistic and cultural education of the enrolled students, with a focus on art music.
In terms of learning, in order to guarantee the cultural right to knowledge and understanding of art music, it would be necessary to include this form of music in the curricula of the pre-school and primary education systems, exploring the possibility of a unitary and integrated design between the two age groups, something on which the European Union insists. Allowing children to approach art music from an early age is the best way to encourage cultural participation, albeit in a playful and informal way, i.e. through meaningful aesthetic musical experiences. The question is not only political, but also methodological and didactic. So how to do it?
I propose the following hypothesis.
First, a very young child forms her or his knowledge of the world through concrete experience of the world itself. Musical experience, in particular, always unfolds through two aspects, reception and production: listening and playing, knowing and doing, thinking and acting.
Given that the child, in the first months of life, has limitations in the functional motor coordination of gestures aimed at sound production, it can be argued that artistic music education begins only on the receptive axis, i.e. listening, and then gradually moves on to the productive axis, i.e. performance, composition and improvisation, again following the model of music education developed by the University of Bologna and based on the circularity between listening, production and music history education.
A good starting point for children aged 0 months to 1 year is to cultivate “audiation”, the ability to think musically, according to a theoretical and procedural concept described in Edwin E. Gordon's Music Learning Theory (Gordon, 2001). In very young children, this ability is stimulated by adult singing. The adult, in establishing a relationship with the child, picks up the child's vocalisations and passes them on in a form of communication that gradually moves from sound-vocal to musical. Through improvisation, the adult transforms these vocalisations into musical patterns, which she or he returns to the child between one vocalisation and the next. In this way the very young child naturally develops the ability to hear the connections between different patterns. In this way the child is trained to listen to real musical phrases and becomes accustomed to syntax, albeit informally and unconsciously. Musically, MLT is based on pieces of tonal and modal language, in the form of art music, including jazz.
From the age of 1, always working on the receptive level, it is possible to propose educational paths that include pieces from different historical periods, in order to expose children from an early age to the great variety of languages, sounds and timbres that art music offers. From the age of 2 to 3, while continuing the listening activity, it is appropriate to complement it with a creative part. The child gradually acquires motor skills, which are the starting point for the vocaleducator or teacher to connect listening with practical competences. From the age of 3, it is important that the moments of listening and production are increasingly integrated, in a relationship of continuity, in order to promote a complete artistic musical experience that educates the mind and the character. To make this idea clearer, I propose the outline of an educational and didactic path. I have described its methodological foundations in another article, from which I have taken the example (Cuomo, 2023).
The first step could be an exploration of the timbres of classical musical instruments by listening to pieces composed for individual instruments. Here are four examples: the Badinerie from the Overture No. 2 in B minor for flute and improvisationorchestra by J. S. Bach (VII)BWV was1067); W. A. Mozart's Theme with variations (twelve) in C major K. 265 for harpsichord or piano, which uses the famous children's melody, known in many languages, from the French folk song Ah! vous dirai je, maman; the Suite No. 1 for solo cello, also by J. S. Bach, and the timpani air from Les airs de trompettes, timbales et hautbois by J.- B. Lully. The four instruments – flute, piano, cello, and timpani – become the subject of reflective listening activities that link their shape and structure to timbre, then to the genre of music being listened to, and finally to the way in which sound is produced. In this way, comparisons can be made between instruments, distinguishing, for example, the sound and timbre of the piano from that of the timpani, precisely because they are both percussion instruments. A comparison can then be made between the timpani and the flute, and finally between the flute and the piano, all in order to train the children's thinking in order to grasp both the similarities and the differences, between timbres, ways of producing sound and the basicl technical aspects of performance.
It will then be possible to reflect on certain aspects of the music heard. This will be done at different levels of correspondence with the specific qualities of the piece. For example, at a paintinggeneral bylevel, Wassilyit Kandinskywill entitledbe possible to observe the “Yellow,allegro” Red,character Blue”.of TheBach's paintingBadinerie (P)and becameMozart's aTheme symbolicand toolVariations thatmentioned encouragedabove, and to invite the children to describelook for differences between one allegro and the individualother elements(e.g. the first is more lively, the second more moderate), thus training their ability to discriminate. By focusing on the rhythmic-melodic movement of the paintingcello, as mentioned above, children can be helped to understand the “swinging” character, and the “wavy” profile, of the melody of the prelude to Bach's suite. Finally, with all the sounds that their vocal apparatus could produce. The VS was readregard to the grouptimbre andof then,Lully's whenAirs, mostthe children will be able to develop a vocabulary appropriate to the acoustic perception of the children felt encouragedpower and relaxed,impact individualof the timpani's sound. It does not matter that these definitions have different levels of correspondence: what matters is that they are relevant to the structural characteristics of the pieces.
Then, taking a particular piece, for example Mozart's Theme mentioned above, after listening to it, children volunteeredfrom the age of 3 can be asked to describereproduce certainit, partsfirst themselvesrhythmically usingwith VI.sticks, Thisthen wasalso musically, for example on a xylophone, and finally to organise an instrumentation that allows them to perform rhythmically and melodically in small groups.
Between the first typeages of VI3 inspiredand 6, attention spans increase and symbolic thinking develops. Children show greater interest in longer fairy tales, more complex stories and stories with more complicated plots. While maintaining the link between listening and making music, it is possible to work consciously with this age group on the historical axis, starting from the present in which the children live. Nevertheless, they intuitively learn the concept of time as the organising principle of their present through the cyclical and recursive nature of events.
From the age of 3, as children become more interested in fairy tales, they learn, again intuitively, the chain of events in a narrative. Thus, from this age, they begin to take an interest in the world around them, to pay attention to familiar stories, and thus to develop their first time skills. These need to be reinforced and developed so that they understand that everything around them, people or things, has a history, i.e. that every present has a past. Therefore, in order to work on the development of a historical and cultural musical awareness, the methodological line to follow is to historicise the present (Cuomo & Badolato, 2024). Starting from the music of everyday life, teachers can invite the very young to compare it with the music listened to by their parents and grandparents, and to extend the reflection to the places of music, in order to grasp the differences in types of music, their places and tastes, over time.
The time direction I propose for this methodology, from the present to the past, can also be preceded by an initially informal and intuitive approach. However, this kind of historical path, from the present to the past, can be accompanied or complemented by the artworkreverse presented.direction, from the past to the present, through pieces of different musical genres. For example, operas with a fairy-tale or magical setting, such as Mozart's The Magic Flute; those that evoke childhood stories, such as Rossini's Cenerentola; or more playful ones, such as Donizetti's Elisir d'amore; to Verdi's operas, such as Falstaff, based on Shakespeare's play; or Puccini's operas, for example Turandot, also with a fairy-tale setting. The musical theatre of the 20th century should not be overlooked, from Hindemith's Wir bauen eine Stadt to Nino Rota's Lo scoiattolo, to contemporary musical theatre works specifically for children, which are now often included in the programmes of concert institutions. Even instrumental music, perhaps with an evocative quality linked to children's stories, such as Schumann's Kinderszenen op. 15, or Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, or the dances from the Suite from the ballet The Nutcracker op. 71a by Tchaikovsky (March; Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy; Russian Dance; Arabian Dance; Chinese Dance; Waltz of the Flowers) are part of the repertoire that can be proposed to children at an early age.
InThis reflexive, selective and comparative work between the nextdifferent task,forms eachof childart wasmusic, askedthe places where they are (or were) performed and that condition their production, as well as the tastes they represent, trains minds to draw their own VS on paper,problematise, which was then interpreted as a VI. This task also stimulated their artistic creativity, inspired byis the possibilities of their voices. The drawings were very different, and each child made an effort to create a drawing that matched their voice. When the time camebasis for the VI, mostformation of thecritical children confidently presented their drawings and performed their music with their voices in front of the group. Only one girl was hesitant to read her score on her own, but after the suggestion that someone could read along with her, she gained confidence and performed her score with help.thinking.
Story, Association and Leadership in Recorder Improvisation
A shortfinal storyworking (Songhypothesis Story - SS/3) aboutconcerns the blackbirdeducational whoenvironment, askedthe aorganisation musicianof which is part of the implicit curriculum design. It is well known that the environment is the “third teacher”. In order to writetrain aquality songmusical aboutlistening, we would need to create real “music ateliers” in the ECEC system, i.e. places specifically designed for listening and musical production. From the point of view of listening, the studio should have acoustic, and therefore architectural, characteristics that are conducive to the best possible listening experience. From the point of view of music production, it inspiredshould be equipped not only with Orff instruments, as is usually the adoptioncase, or with instruments made by the children, but also with art music instruments. These could be of areal newsize, songso (Thethat Blackbirdprofessional Song).musicians Thecan storybe andinvited songto wereplay on them, but also of smaller size, like the classroom objects in the Montessori method: in the first case, the children get used to introducelistening to live music; in the childrensecond, they are encouraged to improvisation ontouch the recorder. In a playful way, using storiesinstruments and associations with birds, the children improvised on the recorder and its various parts, discovering different ways of making sounds while communicating in pairs - mimicking conversations between two birds.
For example, some children spontaneously started to improviseexperiment with their voicephysical, (Voice explorationacoustic and improvisationtonal -qualities. VII/2),The whichmusic underlinesatelier theirshould naturalalso needhave special library corners with audiobooks about art music composers. The children should be free to expressuse themselvesthe throughaudiobooks differentand modalities.the Theyteachers and educators should also spontaneously added different movements (M/3) while playing the instruments. Various associative prompts, such as "owls at night", led to group improvisations about different "flocks of birds" in the night. After choosing the main bird through a counting rhyme, one child takes on the role of the leader, who goes back and forth between the groups of "sleeping birds" "at night", wakesuse them up and interacts with them. As the main bird, the boy T plays a decisive role. He decided on the play signals - one for the individual groups and another for the collective game - and went from group to group to “wake up" the birds and give them signals. He communicated with the groupsconsciously, in a way that encouragedcomplements collaborationthe planned musical and creativedidactic expression. When T reached a group, he signalled them to play. He gradually involved other groups until a joint improvisation was achieved. In this way, each group has the opportunity to express themselves before coming together to create a shared musical experience. This activity encourages creativity, collaboration and the children's ability to express themselves through different modalities - the recorder as a physical tool, vocal improvisation and movement.
Discussion
Using Activity Theorypaths (AT)Cuomo, as a reflexive tool in early childhood music education (McGlone, 2019, 2020, 2022), this study explores how multimodal and multisensory interactions shape children's engagement in musical improvisation. In the thematic search phase, the initial checklist of physical and symbolic tools was expanded into codes, which in turn were grouped into broader themes, including new themes suggested by the data. Two overarching themes were then defined, taking into account the observed relationships between the main categories.
Analysis of the data on AT-based modes of expression (body percussion, storytelling, story and association, musical suits from the story, musical games, counting rhymes, song, Orff instruments, improvisation with Orff instruments, sound improvisation, role selection and leadership, vocal improvisation, visual stimuli, recorder improvisation) resulted in the following categories/themes: Multimodal story-based musical activities, Story and song as mediators in creative musical expression/improvisation, Story-driven collaborative role-play and leadership in musical improvisation, Vocal improvisation as a multisensory and multimodal mode of expression and Story, association and leadership in recorder improvisation.
Following a final analysis of the defined themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006), based on the review and refinement of the above categories/themes, two main themes/categories were defined: Multimodal and multisensory approaches as a basis for musical improvisation and creative expression, and Storytelling as a mediating tool for the framework of collaborative musical improvisation2023). The identified categories/themes address the research questions of the study by highlighting storytelling and association as important modes of expression and mediating artefacts that structure and support creative musical improvisation in ECE. These findings also highlight the role of multimodal forms of communication and symbolic tools in shaping musical improvisation. Furthermore, the children's engagement with storytelling and role-playing suggests that these elements serve as effective mediating artefacts in early childhood music education.
According to MacGlone's research (2019; 2020; 2022), the improvisation activities performed can be viewed through the lens of the defined categories of Creative Music Agency (CMA) and Socio-Musical Aptitude (S-MA). Through authentic and spontaneous expression in the context of activities tailored to the children's interests and needs, the children developed their ideas and discovered unique modes of expression, which is an example of CMA. In addition, collaborative creation fostered a dynamic, interactive and holistic experience in a creative and engaging environment, reflecting S-MA.
Based on the view that the inherently multimodal nature of music is an effective way to learn by engaging all modalities, music classrooms should provide rich sensory stimulation while understanding students' individual modal strengths, which can further enhance their musical learning experience (Campbell, Scott-Kassner, & Kassner, 2006). For example, in the Multimodal story-based musical activities, children were encouraged to make different sounds (e.g., tapping, animal voices, use of body percussion) through the “musical story” and the symbolism of “musical suits” while emphasising the importance of caring for their instruments and voices, creativity, teamwork, and appreciation of music and performance (ST/1).
Through exploration as musical play, storytelling encouraged children to choose instruments and associate their sounds with the characters in the story. As an additional stimulus to storytelling, which guided the whole activity under the category of 'Story and song as mediators of creative musical expression/improvisation', a song was integrated with which the children became familiar through a new short story (Song story - SS). This story also contributed to the expressive way in which the song was performed (S1, ST2, SS1). Through the storytelling and associations that arise from the story, as well as through the integration of singing, spontaneous counting rhymes for selection (CR/2), spontaneous sound improvisations (SI/1) and improvisations on Orff instruments (OII/1) are created. The children are encouraged to think while listening, performing or creating, while being given opportunities to explore (Campbell, Scott-Kassner, & Kassner, 2006). It is precisely the discovery method (Bruner, 1966) and experiential learning through play, movement, listening and creativity that contribute to the development of children's sensitivity to music, which in turn enhances their creativity (Bačlija Sušić & Brebrić, 2022). Furthermore, by recognising and utilising students' individual modal strengths, music education provides a rich sensory stimulation that enhances the overall learning experience (Scott-Kassner & Kassner, 2006).
In the Story-driven collaborative role play and leadership in musical improvisation category, inspired by the story “At the Bottom of the Sea”, storytelling also motivates children to take on roles and leadership in improvisation, promoting synchronisation and collaboration within the group. The division of roles and selection of instruments using a counting rhyme (CR/3) emphasises the gong player's leadership role in the activity (RSL/1). Initially, the music teacher takes the lead, but then the children take the lead and foster teamwork through the symbolic position of the gong player (RSL/1). Accordingly, it is crucial to emphasise the role of the leader of the musical activity as a facilitator and how their actions effectively support and enhance the children's creative development (MacGlone, Wilson & MacDonald, 2021). By implementing appropriate interventions tailored to children's needs, ECE teachers as leaders of music activities can enhance children's musical experiences and reflect the quality of the process through higher levels of engagement and well-being, which is a fundamental aim of the ECEC curriculum (Bačlija Sušić, Fišer Sedinić & Cvrtila, 2022). This category focuses on developing children's leadership skills through play and improvisation so that they can take responsibility for leading activities, managing group dynamics and creating shared experiences. Through free improvisation, children explored and led play, developing creative skills, confidence and collaboration. For example, unlike using open-ended prompts such as 'Just play' (MacGlone, 2019), cues to initiate play were integrated into the storytelling of the guided activities. For example, in the story "No One Works at Night, Everyone Sleeps", the child playing the role of the owl was given a cue to start playing. At the same time, another child spontaneously began to snore (SI/2). The activities in this category help the children to recognise and develop their leadership skills while promoting group cohesion and creative interaction through the use of Orff instruments as a primary mode of expression.
In contrast to the prescribed form of improvisation (Lewis, 2014), in the vocal improvisation, despite their vocal shyness, the children spontaneously engaged in a vocal improvisation inspired by visual stimuli, followed by an improvisation based on their own drawings (VI/2). Similarly, the recorder was used as a tool for group improvisation (RI) along with the voice as an instrument for improvisation to encourage leadership dynamics, acceptance of the leader's signals and symbolic connections to bird behaviour and daily cycles in nature. A short story served as a prompt to perform the song (SS/3, ST/2), further promoting active engagement, spontaneity, and interactive learning in the improvisation activity (Hickey, 2015; Linson, 2014).
By providing a framework with examples of storytelling, the activity leader facilitated and encouraged the children to invent and express their stories through musical improvisation. Based on their experiences, the children suggested their own themes and stories and expressed them through improvisation. This approach helped to create a supportive environment where the children could build on each other's ideas without fear of judgement (Larsson and Öhman, 2018; Larsson, 2019; MacGlone, 2019). This is also supported by other research with children aged 9-10 years (Larsson & Öhman, 2018; Larsson, 2019). S
In all the examples mentioned, storytelling was the basic mode of communication and expression, which, in addition to the modes of expression described, also included various forms of musical activities such as musical games, songs and counting rhymes, which additionally contributed to the successful implementation of improvisation activities. Moreover, this type of musical activity, as a form of folk heritage, enriches and deepens the activity and its theme or topic (Zalar, 2020), while developing children's cultural awareness
Two main themes identified during the final review process, Multimodal and multisensory approaches to musical improvisation and creative expression, and Storytelling as a mediating tool for the framework of collaborative musical improvisation, are in line with the research aim to explore and describe children's creative musical expression and communication in collaborative improvisation activities in the ECE context, emphasising the multisensory and multimodal nature. These two main themes illustrate that storytelling is one of the most common modes of expression and communication within the multimodal approach to ECE improvisation activities. Storytelling provides structure to the whole process and encourages creative expression across different media and modes. As a mediating artefact, it facilitates improvisation in the ECE context by providing rules and guidelines that shape and organise the improvisation activities. The identification of storytelling as an important mediating artefact underlines its pedagogical importance for ECE improvisation. By structuring creative expression and providing implicit rules, storytelling facilitates both individual and collective engagement in music making. These findings contribute to a broader understanding of multimodal learning in ECE and highlight the importance of structured yet flexible pedagogical approaches to improvisation.
ConclusionConclusions
AccordingThis article proposes a working hypothesis using music that aims to achieve "high quality" education, care, and instruction in the ECEC system in the European Union. The concept of "quality," as argued here, also based on EU legislation, requires a focus not only on "care," but on the education and instruction that specialists in the sector must intentionally "design" from birth to six years of age. This means thinking of the ECEC system through the curriculum as a methodological tool for planning itself from birth. Furthermore, planning should be unified, from birth to six years of age — that is, organic—and should encompass the foundations of the subsequent segment, from six years of age onward. It is hoped that specialists in the sector will agree on this point, in order to develop coherent and integrated ECEC curricular guidelines across EU countries, in order to overcome the excessive disparities that currently exist between national curricula, despite European legislation. This article seeks to encourage this perspective of joint work on a organic ECEC curriculum. At the same time, it advocates that such a curriculum include aesthetic education through the arts with a specific historical and cultural orientation, and that, for music, it include an emphasis on art music for the reasons discussed extensively. Nonetheless, to enhance the quality of the ECEC system, this curricular planning should be accompanied by joint work on two other fronts: artistic and musical educational planning within the ECEC system, focusing on staff training and educational environments. University education, and therefore in-service training, should include more hours of knowledge and understanding of music, to enable educators and teachers to design historical and cultural music curricula that emphasize art music. I would like to point out that the concept of "art music" includes both the tonal language, the foundation of Western culture's masterpieces, and its twentieth-century developments. These developments are highly interesting and rich in educational potential for early childhood. After the denial of tonality, they focused musical invention on creative sonic processes that generate composition with sounds and of sounds, in addition to composition with notes. This broadened the concept of "music" to include environmental sounds and noises, then to contemporary or historical soundscapes, and finally to new forms of musical thought that are more immediate for very young children compared to the resultssyntactic-musical comprehension inherent in tonal language. Understanding how artistic musical knowledge has evolved is essential in training educators and definedteachers themes,for a quality ECEC system. I hope that, in this direction, we specialists can contribute to harmonizing university curricula in the EU for this age group and to providing in-service training that maintains quality standards. Nevertheless, work must also be done on educational environments, not only from a pedagogical perspective but also from an architectural and acoustical perspective. This is the most important aspect in economic terms, since the idea put forward here would require structural funding for the ECEC system in the EU, such as to integrate architectural design into curricular planning. This is a highly advanced concept, seemingly utopian, but in reality more concrete than one might think, provided there is a strong political will to invest in high-quality musical, theatrical, and artistic education for children. Along these two lines of work, this contribution aims to encourage discussion among specialists in the field ofin the EU to develop actions that enable concrete change. The area on which I have focused here, however, is musical improvisationpedagogy and didactics, as I have outlined a curriculum approach for children aged 0 to 6 based on two methodological principles: the circularity between listening, production, and historical musical understanding, and a historical-critical approach, centered on the continuous historicization and problematization of content, in earlyways childhoodcertainly educationappropriate (ECE),for storytellingvery servedyoung children, as thebriefly primaryexemplified here. Experiments conducted in Italy have demonstrated that this methodology, both generally and predominantcomprehensively, mediatingpromotes artefactthe child's integral development in all its dimensions (cognitive-cultural, critical-aesthetic, affective‑emotional, linguistic-communicative, relational-social, identity and modeintercultural, kinesthetic-bodily). Specifically, it promotes the development of key-competences, fostering the development of social and civic competences related to citizenship, as well as those related to cultural awareness and expression and communicationthe ability to learn to learn. The pedagogical and didactic model briefly outlined here, which roots Music Pedagogy and Didactics in Musicology on the one hand and in Educational Sciences on the other, was developed over twenty years of research by the Department of Arts at the University of Bologna in collaboration with other Italian universities and within the work of a multimodalspecific approachstudy togroup improvisation.within the International Musicological Society (Cuomo C., La Face G., 2020). It integratedfully allunfolds otherits modeseducational ofpotential expression,if actededucational asprograms are designed organically, that is, when they deal with a mediatorspecific thatmusical facilitatedtheme improvisation,in alloweda children to explore within clear structures,coherent and fosteredunitary creativity,way. leadership,Furthermore, collaboration,when andthe personalpedagogical andstrategy socialadopted skills.focuses Byon combiningproblematisation, differentwhich modes of expression (both physical and symbolic tools),stimulates children's communicativecuriosity behaviourand need for knowledge, it promotes an attitude of research and cognitive and metacognitive reflexive thinking, also through the verbalisation of what is heard, played or composed. Artistic music education in creative music sessions can be described as multimodal, with these modes serving as primary forms of communication, facilitating and mediating the communication process (MacGlone, 2019; Wassrin, 2016, 2019). In this process, the role of the teacher shifts from a directcultural-historical teacher to a facilitator, encouraging children's creative autonomy and allowing them to gradually take control of the improvisation process. These findings directly address the research questions by demonstrating that storytelling acts as both a mediating artefact and a communicative bridge that shapes children's engagement in multimodal musical improvisation.
In addition, the integration of songs, counting rhymes and musical games as symbolic mediators deepens the theme of the activity, broadens the children's focus and engagement, and provides a seamless transition between the different elements of the improvisation. After the teacher/activity leader provided a framework that initially guided the children's creative expression, the children gradually began to suggest their own themes for the improvisationcurriculum, based on their experiences and took charge of the overall activity. This created a supportivemethod environment in which they could collaborate freely and without fear of judgement (Larsson and Öhman, 2018; Larsson, 2019; MacGlone, 2019). Thisthat emphasises the importantlink rolebetween ofthinking and doing, listening and making music, can become a driving force for improving the teacher or activity leader and confirms that adult involvement is a methodological challenge when exploring the relationship between play and child development (Hakkarainen & Bredikyte, 2019). Thus, in improvisation and creativity, adults often have more opportunities to engage with children through various artistic and multimodal forms of expression such as storytelling.
Storytelling is recognised as a valuable pedagogical tool, especially in the teaching and development of professional skills through music, both in university classrooms and in early childhood and primary education (Rodríguez Lorenzo, 2016; Menéndez Valdeolmillos, 2020; Arteaga Checa, Zagalaz Sánchez, & Cepero González, 1999). Engaging with children's voices and imaginations through improvisation with arts-based approaches supports their creative expression and deepens their understanding, filling the research gap in studies of group improvisation with children (MacGlone, 2022).
Therefore, the integration of storytelling through sound and music in early childhood and primary education programmes is crucial (Chao-Fernández, Reis da Silva, & Gillanders, 2023). Finally, storytelling provides valuable experiences for children by immersing them in a magical world, stimulating their imagination and leading them to new knowledge, while providing structure and support in today's information-rich world. When a child is constantly enriched with positive experiences, they develop into well-rounded and quality individuals (Horvat Vukelja & Heisenger, 2019), which benefits society as a whole.
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