Children's verbal, visual, and kinesthetic responses: Insight into their music listening experience

The purpose of this study was to examine cognitive processes made manifest during the repeated listening to a musical example by second- and fifth-gra de students. More specifically, I explored patterns that emerged from the c ontent of the verbal, visual, and kinesthetic responses during music listen ing, when children were compared by grade. Twelve students (six in second-g rade and six in fifth-grade) met with me for two, 30-minute interview sessi ons. They were asked to listen to an excerpt from Bach's Brandenburg Concer to No 2 in F, 1st movement and perform verbal, visual, and kinesthetic task s. First, the students provided a concurrent verbal protocol of the listeni ng experience. Each student listened to the same piece of music a third tim e and provided a visual representation--a drawn map--of their listening exp erience. Then the students verbally described what they had drawn. They wer e also asked to guide me through their music listening experience by pointi ng to the map as they listened to the excerpt. The final portion of the int erview consisted of the students listening to the musical example and provi ding kinesthetic descriptions of their music listening experience. After th is task, the students viewed the videotape of their movements and verbally described them in relation to the musical example. To obtain a sense of con sistency among their responses, I met with each student for a second interv iew session. The procedure, script, and musical example from the first inte rview were also used during the second meeting. At the conclusion of the se cond session, I presented the students with semistructured interview questi ons, that prompted students to clarify to expand their verbal, drawn, and m ovement descriptions. Data analysis began with the examination of details g leaned from the individual student interviews and then the children as a me mber of a larger group--as second-graders ro fifth-graders. I compared the perceptual and affective content and growth of the children's responses ren dered in each of the three response modalities. The content of the children 's responses to each sensory mode was compiled and then considered by grade , using the following 'lenses' in order to interpret their responses: -perc eptual responses (responses dealing with formal musical elements or the per formance of the music) -effective responses (responses related to musical m ood, preference, emotion, evaluation of the music) -use of incorrect or cor rect musical terms -style of thinking: linear (sequential account of musica l events or affective responses) or non-linear (non-sequential account of m usical events or affective response) -degree of differentiation (degree of detail in the responses) Findings: -Fifth-graders used more sophisticated t hinking strategies in order to provide descriptions of more differentiated musical information. Fifth-graders tended to search for standard musical la bels, although they often chose incorrect terminology to describe the music al selection. -Fifth-graders exhibited more responses indicative of affecti ve response. More fifth-graders explained that their responses were guided by the music--an indication of aesthetic response to the musical events. -C hildren, regardless of grade, compared the Bach except to prior musical exp erience (performance and listening). -Verbal responses provided the foundat ion for all children's visual and kinesthetic responses. Fifth-graders prov ided more diverse topics which were also less programmatic in the verbal mo de. -Second-graders' visual responses were less differentiated than fifth-g raders' visual responses. -Children's style of mapping varied according to grade level. Second-graders tended to draw pictures' fifth-graders used words and combin ations of markings to describe the music listening experience. -Visual and kinesthetic modes of response to describe perceptual information. -More fif th-graders than second-graders were 'kinesthetic listener'. -Style of think ing for all children varied per mode of response, although linearity of thi nking was more readily visible in fifth-graders' responses. The kinesthetic mode of response best captured children's linear thinking patterns.