Baahs and Beats

For the past 5 weeks I have been standing in for a tutor on the Early Ears Project. The project is a 2 year action research project partnership with Laboratory Media Education, Future Projects and Wendy Lecluyse, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies from Suffolk University.

Using music Technology and more traditional approaches from a music therapist, together with control groups, we hope to learn more about the impact of music technology on social, emotional and musical development.

The data and observations are being collected using selected parts of the IMTAP (Individualized Music Therapy Assessment Profile) framework developed for use in music therapy. I have used many assessment and quality frameworks in the past and contributed to the development of the Youth Music Quality Framework but I have found that the depth and detail of this framework has been very useful in provoking reflection in new areas of our practice. Because of the many specific and focused indicators in the framework, I have to ask myself things like “are the children bringing non musical play to the activity” and “are they showing interest from a distance”? It is these questions that provoked the engagement of Ben.

Ben is a 3yr old boy from Poland who speaks no english. He is very adept at going quietly unnoticed and it was partly the lack of entries in our data that drew him to my attention. Whilst observing him, i noticed him quietly playing with cars on his own and for some reason he started to become upset. As there were no children engaging in musical free play at that time I sat next to him and started playing cars (using my best car noises). Ben immediately started making car noises too and was then much happier playing cars for the rest of that session.

The Following week I took in two Roland Handsonic electronic hand drums. These have playing soft rubber playing surfaces that are velocity sensitive. During the free play session Ben came to the table with a toy goat in his hand. I picked up another toy goat and started a conversation with goat “baahs”. This made him smile , which is the first emotional response I have seen from him( another IMTAP indicator).

I started bouncing my goat on the Handsonic which triggered a 'boing” sound. I progressed onto saying “boing” when the goat hit the surface and “baah” when it was in the air. This made Ben laugh and soon he joined in with his goat. After a minute or so, this led to him making the verbal sounds too and from there we went on to soft boings then fast and slow boings (tempo and dynamics are also IMTAP indicators). I then reassigned different sounds to the Handsonic (some pitched, others just percussive) and let him explore the sounds. As he gained confidence, he started to improvise with singing at the same time. In just two sessions, I think this is a significant progression from non engagement to improvised singing.

Without the use of music technology I would not have been able to select sounds that engaged him without moving from where we were playing and losing that window of opportunity.

Without the IMTAP data collection and its indicators I might not have thought of approaching Ben with non musical play.

I think that for engagement and progression and the emerging work of music leaders in settings such as health care, special needs and early years, IMTAP is worth looking at and using to cross reference with the broader Youth Music Quality Framework to provoke new questions and responses from music leaders and participants.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Individualized-Music-Therapy-Assessment-Profile/...