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only necessary for educators to direct children's attention to the melodies of
children’s songs, but also to direct attention to the pitch variations in live and
taped music. The educators could, the results of this study show, direct children's
attention to pitch variations to a much greater extent.
The basic elements of Music
The new view on knowledge and learning in the esthetic subjects is concerned
with constructing a pedagogical development perspective on children's learning
(Pramling Samuelsson et al, 2008). Therefore, educators in day nurseries play an
important role. The researchers mention two ways in which educators can help
develop children's aesthetic abilities. The first is systematic variation and the
second is conducting metacognitive dialogues with the children. This requires
that the educator knows what she or he wishes the children to develop and that
she or he can converse with the children in such a way that the children's experiences
become clearly visible for both the teacher and the children themselves.
When educators are aware of how and what children think about a particular
phenomenon, they can vary the aspects that are critical for children to be able to
understand a particular learning object. In this study, the researcher could, during
the music sessions, track a number of different situations in which educators
vary the use of the basic elements. However, in discussions they very seldom
mention or name the basic elements in their interaction with the children. One
can ask the question whether educators are at all aware of this theoretical problem.
The educators directed the children’s attention during the data collection to the
timbre quality in many different ways. They focus both on the sounds that normally
occur in our immediate environment and the timbre of different rhythm
instruments. The educators also draw the children’s attention to the sound qualities
of different animals. They give the children the opportunity of producing
varying sounds with their voice and body and in this way vary the activities focused
on timbre. However, they do not avail themselves of audio stories and
audio scenery, which could have further stimulated interest in tones and sounds.
With regard to the dynamics of the music, the educators adapt the dynamics to
match the message in the texts of the children's songs. They direct the children's
attention to the opposite pairs - great - small and combine them with the
concepts of loud - faint, which makes dynamic change more concrete for the
children. From the above, it is clear that the educators neither use dynamic
changes in pre-recorded music or by playing on melodic instruments, which can
give the children a bodily experience of dynamic change. The children in the
study were not allowed to perform experiments with sounds associated with
different dynamics to gain experience of how the dynamics affect the
experience. No explanatory discussions were made about the concepts of timbre
and dynamics, with the result that it is not certain whether the children understood
and comprehended the variety of activities that were found in the educators'
actions - where timbre and dynamics were included.
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