The way children interacted and collaborated varied also according to their approach to the creative music making process and to the kind of musical task given by the teachers. In some cases it was the rule of the musical activity that explicitly prescribed some form of improvisatory here-and-now interaction or, alternatively, of musical creative problem solving with a definite composition as end result. In other cases it was the children themselves who chose differing approaches to free creative tasks, with some children opting for what in music-technical terms is called an improvisation and others for a composition. In the following, I briefly describe three types of Gestaltungen, ranging from extemporary improvisation, to planned improvisation, up to a finalised composition, and comment on the different kinds of interactions that they imply, both in the process of musical construction and in the performance.
Based on previous attempts about how they could imitate or contrast what a partner was doing, children engaged in a series of pair improvisations based on the following rule: along the circle, A begins with an idea, B joins in and they play something together (usually 20-30 seconds), then A stops. B invents a new idea, is joined by C, and so on. Here are some examples:
N. 12 Extemporary improvisation in pairs: "Dominoes"
Giacomo and Lorenzo (https://vimeo.com/104223319, dvd.21): Giacomo starts playing a random series of high notes on the xylophone, I ask him to find and repeat something, and he stabilises on a sort of melodic ostinato (e'ad'ac'a, unwittingly going minor). On this Lorenzo starts improvising single slow notes on the macrobeats, which could be interpreted as a melody on the ostinato.
Giacomo at the end does not play what he has in mind and says he 'made a mistake', interrupting the improvisation (nonetheless the fortuitous outcome is a concluding phrase). I would define this a 'proto-minor-ostinato-with-melody', the sprouting of a potential piece.
Valentina and Chiara (https://vimeo.com/104223369, dvd.22): Valentina plays three slow pairs of peaceful notes on the metallophone and a rest (an extended | du du du . |). Chiara finds a way to 'get in' by playing a single stroke on the darbukka, initially positioning herself after or on the first macrobeat. Scaffolded by a gentle nonverbal cue of Valentina, she eventually lands on the fourth
macrobeat, where there is a rest to be filled, and they repeat this a few times. Valentina leads the ending by slowing down and Chiara closes with the last stroke. I would term this interaction strategy 'complementing', i.e. filling empty spaces in what the other is doing, concurring to form a consistent and fluid whole. Potentially, what the two are doing here could become the basis for a third player to invent something on it.
Flavio and Andrea (https://vimeo.com/104223214, dvd.23): Flavio is excited to be allowed to play what he wants, and declares he will "do it loud". He begins with an energetic pulse on the bongos, I join in by playing a | dude du | on what I take as a 4-beat ostinato. He plays some variations, keeps well anchored to the common beat, and leads the ending by imperceptibly slowing down, stopping and then giving an assertive concluding stroke. His role here is that of a 'leader', taking decisions for both, confident that the partner will follow.
Sonia and Fabiana (in a different session – https://vimeo.com/104223762, dvd.24): this is an example of 'no apparent relationship'. Sonia plays a wobbly ostinato | dude dude dude du | on the darbukka, which she cannot repeat with sufficient stability to possibly enable Fabiana to enter in rhythmical relationship with her. Fabiana is almost on her own, exploring the possibilities of her
tambourine, hitting it or shaking it, staying musically 'alongside' and not in direct contact with her partner, even though they sit one beside the other and at times even look at each other. Sonia does not modify the course of her idea to adapt it to what Fabiana is doing. After a while Sonia just stops, and Fabiana stops a few seconds after her. There is not a clear and intentional ending in this short
interaction, which is interrupted rather than concluded.
Lorenzo and Giacomo (https://vimeo.com/104223676, dvd.25): Lorenzo begins with what I could define as a non-beat-based drone/melodic ostinato (c ggg, which could rhythmically be assimilated to a | du daka di | ), which he repeats with some variations/mistakes. Despite the irregularity of the ostinato, Giacomo succeeds in synchronising with Lorenzo's left hand, which is the first beat of the sequence. Here the more expert child, the swifter in terms of observation and synchronisation skills, follows the other by coordinating with the beginning of his partner's supposed cycle of action. This way there is a form of synchronisation and connection, even though there is not an underlying metrical grid.
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These are all examples of 'free improvisation' in which there has been no preparation at all, so the partners have to build on the spot a shared and possibly coherent idea of what they are doing. Repetition of a rhythmic/melodic pattern was a first-hand strategy of the first player to provide a sufficiently stable and clear idea for the partner to position herself in relation to it. In spite of the lack of technical skills, they were learning to play the instruments at the same time they were learning to improvise and compose together – there is a remarkable effort on their part in establishing 'musical intersubjectivity' in these improvisations. As Burnard (1999) points out in her study with 12-13-year-olds, the intention in improvisation as a performance-oriented form of music making is to 'get in' (gaining access or an entry point), 'carrying on' (maintaining continuity in the flow of playing), and 'stopping' (finding an ending).
In the examples above the immediacy of improvising is evident in how the children were attentively trying to take decisions during the musical dialogue with the partner, as there had been no possibility to make up a plan in advance. In some of the group work phases, instead, some of the children opted for what Beegle (2010) calls a 'planned
improvisation', i.e. a piece of music in which the basic traits are drawn in the preparation phase, but in the performance there is still place for new material emerging within the agreed structure. Here is an example with Flavio and Lorenzo:
N. 13 Planned improvisation: "Robot and sharks"
Lorenzo plays a roughly regular beat on the triangle and represents a robot walking on water, while Flavio scratches or hits the reco-reco to represent the sharks who are quarrelling and swimming under it.
(https://vimeo.com/104224060, dvd.26)
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In the subsequent comments Flavio also explained that by hitting the reco-reco he was pretending that the sharks say "what a traffic today!". He will later on mention this piece as significant to him. The pattern of meaning making here is that of associating some form of imagery or narrative with the structure of the music. The strategy they are using is that of finding a rough idea or plot of what they want to do and then dive into the action without verbalising too much. This way they have a frame of reference which is sure enough to hold their playing together, but at the same time open enough to allow for extemporary digressions or unexpected ideas coming up during the performance.
Children did not have the same preferences as to the kind of strategy they adopted for working together: whereas Lorenzo and Flavio clearly preferred to intentionally improvise, other children were more inclined to fix ideas in the group work phase so that they could have a secure base and a detailed shared understanding of what they were going to do. Here is an example of pair composition with Sandra and Giacomo, which illustrates the interaction between them both in the process and in the resulting product:
N. 14 Pair composition "layered rhythm ostinato": planning and performing a piece
During the group work phase Sandra had initially found the rhythm | ka|du du | (handing: rr – l), backed by Giacomo with a pulse on the macrobeats | du du |. Then Sandra transformed her rhythm into | du .kadu de | (r ll r – l rr l – the handing turns), and Giacomo supported her with microbeats | du de du de |. Giacomo synchronised with Sandra, adjusting his strokes to possible
uncertainties in her playing. Sandra had also found a tremolo as an ending formula.
In the first rendition of the ostinato (https://vimeo.com/104224413, dvd.27), however, they happen to begin together and the rhythmical Gestalt resulting out of their attempt to synchronise anyway is a different ostinato, which takes shape in the first few seconds: Sandra gets to a | du dude | and G to a | du de du de | with a slightly faster tempo than before. After a while, perceiving that this is not what they intended to do, Sandra seeks to recover her initial idea, but does not succeed and is forced to go back to the other rhythm. Also their ending is not effective and they appear to be a bit disappointed. Having noticed that something had gone wrong, I invited them to play it again, but leaving Sandra enough time to play her rhythm alone a few times. Giacomo had to wait and then adapt to her. As the more expert player, he has the scaffolding role of establishing and
maintaining the synchrony. The second performance
(https://vimeo.com/104224435, dvd.28) is the 'correct' one, exactly what they wanted to do. After a while Sandra gets lost for a moment – the handing which turns at each time is technically not easy – but they soon recover rhythmical unity (they change phase, though). They react very quickly to each other and both contribute to re-establishing contact. They also perform well the ending they had planned: Sandra plays | dude dude du | nonverbally signalling it to Giacomo, and they close together.
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Giacomo's and Sandra's piece deserves particular attention, because it was the first example in this group of a truly rhythmical, i.e. pulse-based, instrumental interaction between differing rhythms – it marked the breakthrough for the group in progressing towards parts-playing. The issue for the children here was to correctly perform the musical ideas they had previously generated, refined and confirmed. It is an issue of memory and control. As this piece is an 'aural-based composition' (Burnard, 1999; Hickey, 2012), there is no notation supporting the process of exactly replicating the ideas they have fixed, so they have to rely solely on their ability to remember things in order to perform them correctly. The problem of 'keeping to the plan' arose in many other cases through the project, where children had to cope with unexpected mistakes due to uncertainties in the technical execution or in the memorisation of the music.
The focus of the study and of our pedagogical approach was on moments in which children jointly generate ideas, and not so much on finalising reproducible pieces. As
teachers we did not 'push' for replicable compositions to be worked out over time, revised, and then practised enough to be performed as a closed work. In this project children mostly made up new pieces each time, so that their Gestaltungen were always to some extent open and maintained some improvisatory traits, even in the case of 'planned and rehearsed' pieces. Towards the end of the school year children began to consciously use the words 'improvise' vs 'compose' and to differentiate between the process of interaction in group improvisation as opposed to that in group composition. Perhaps the clearest expression of this awareness was provided by Lorenzo in the context of a dialogue/interview in the second-last session in which we also talked about improvisation and composition:
L: [improvising is] to take one thing and... and... change it, the pieces, while you do it before an audience.
Then, comparing his own group's way of working in composition with that of an improvising group, he says
L: we have been preparing this performance for some time A: uh, uh
L: we have done it this way. Instead F and G have done it with the drums but they have improvised. So, in the session for the parents they can change everything
Thus, the difference that Lorenzo sees between improvising and composing as a group is the possibility of changing something in the performance. Lorenzo represented in this group the member who is best able to put his reflections into words. Based on the data, I would claim that for the rest of the group this difference was only intuitively understood and practically experienced, but by no means as well articulated as, for example, the 12- 13-year-old children of Burnard's (1999) study were able to do. A finding of this study is that these 5-7-year-old children were at best beginning to conceptualise creative music making as distinguishable in improvisation vs composition. Their way of creating and playing music was largely processual, to a certain extent based on an invariant
framework which had been agreed upon, but on the whole still very open. It was more the process of giving form (Gestaltung) that was the important thing, the process of
manipulating the material and playing with it. With regard to understanding children's creative actions and interactions in music an adult-musicological perspective might miss the point (this resonates with Burnard's conclusions). In my view, the perspective of early childhood research is much more appropriate in grasping this kind of 'musical play' as based on children's ownership of it, on their active emotional and relational engagement, on the activity in itself (rather than the product) as the significant core of the experience, and on the open-ended process of interaction among co-players as fostering high levels of shared understanding, reciprocity and cooperation (Broadhead, 2010; Wood, 2010; Wood & Attfield, 2005 – see chapter 4).