A Piagetian perspective on singing development1
Stefanie Stadler Elmer
1. Traditional Piagetian research on musical development
There is no doubt that the genetic epistemology of Piaget is a very power
ful theory which has had a tremendous impact on developmental psychol
ogy and on various other disciplines (cf. e.g. Steiner, 1978; Kesselring, 1988;
Beilin, 1992). In the realm of musical development the two authors, Pfled
erer Zimmerman (1964, 1966a, 1966b, 1967, 1970, 1981, 1985, Pflederer
Zimmerman & Sechrest, 1968, 1979; Webster & Pflederer Zimmerman,
1983) and Serafine (1979, 1980, 1981), have had most influence on the way
Piagetian thinking has been applied. As I conclude from their work, they
share three assumptions concerning the core elements of Piaget's theory
and their application to music:
1. Applying Piaget's theory in musical development means investigating
its rational aspects, i.e. musical thinking (e.g. Pflederer, 1964, 1966a,
1967; Pflederer Zimmerman, 1993; Serafine, 1981).
2. Tue development of musical thinking is consistent with Piaget's formal
ized theory of the transition from the preoperational stage to the stages
of concrete operations and formal thinking. Thus, findings on musical
tasks are reconcilable with these stages (e.g. Pflederer, 1964, 1966a,
1967, Serafine, 1979; Webster & Pflederer Zimmerman, 1983).
3. A key concept underlying the Piagetian theory of intellectual growth is
that of conservation (e.g. Pflederer, 1964, 1966a, 1967; Pflederer Zim
merman, 1993; Serafine, 1979; Webster & Pflederer Zimmerman, 1983).
Based on these three assumptions, the main body of Piagetian research
literature on music has been concerned with the application of the prin
ciple of conservation to musical tasks. Most studies have tried to corrobo
rate the evidence of age-related stages concerning conservation in music
with the Piagetian stages of cognitive development.
The principle of conservation can be illustrated by the following well
known phenomenon: Two glasses containing equal amounts of water are
poured into a different shaped vessel. Tue quantity is conserved in the
face of irrelevant changes in shape. Essentially, conservation refers to the
1 Revised paper that was presented at the 3rd International Conference for Music
Perception and Cognition, ESCOM, Liege, July 23 - 27, 1994. This research pro
ject is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Nr. 1 1 - 37693.93
and Nr. 1 1 - 042221.94) . I gratefully acknowledge valuable discussions with
Franz-Josef Eimer, Madeleine Zulauf-Bernard, and Kurt Reusser.
A Piagetian perspective on singing development
109
ability to retain an invariant quantity in spite of variations in its appear
ance.
Children at the preoperational stage are easily misled in their judge
ments by perceptually more salient but irrelevant features, in this case the
size of the glass. Their observed failure to conserve quantity led to a verita
ble avalanche of studies to verify the phenomenon.
"Piaget's study of the conservation of quantity (number, mass, weight,
length, area, etc.) turned out to be among the most visible, engaging, and
provocative of his many experiments." (Beilin, 1992, p. 198).
In music such conservation tasks include, for example, conservation of
melody with change in tempo, accompaniment, harmony, instruments,
mode, etc. In these tasks, children are asked to compare each presented
pattern to a model and indicate on a response form whether the example
was the same or different from the model pattern. Generally, these studies
show that task performance tends to be positively related to age (cf. e.g.
Pflederer Zimmerman, 1983, 1986).
Tue existence of conservation as a phenomenon in music (or properly
said, the experience of invariant phenomena in music) is given by the fact
that there are deliberate compositional techniques that suggest conserva
tion-like rules. For instance, modulating, augmenting, reducing or reversing
a theme in a certain way constitutes a musical genre like a fugue or a
variation.
In the present context, two critical questions arise about the claim that
this phenomenon can be interpreted from a Piagetian perspective. i) What
status is to be assigned to the concept of conservation within Piaget's the
ory generally? ii) What do the findings on an age-dependent improvement
in performance on musical conservation tasks imply for a theory of musical
development?
As will be argued in the following, most previous work done in music
psychology in the name of Piagetian theory has, in fact, had only little to
do with the basic assumptions of the genetic epistemology of Piaget. This
is due to the fact that these studies have tended to isolate and simplify a
few concepts for experimental purposes and have failed to take into ac
count the theory as a whole (cf. Stadler Elmer & Zulauf-Bernard, 1995).
This observation accords with Beilin's (1992) comment about the countless
studies on conservation in child development generally where he says that
these have led to the formation of a rather distorted picture of Piaget's
theory that has hindered a full appreciation of the theory's potential con
tribution to psychology.
2. Objections to the main approach and an alternative position
1.) Piaget was not interested in cognition or thinking per se, but rather in
its genesis from actions to internalized thoughts. One of his central aims
was to understand and explain the continual emergence of new actions
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Stefanie Stadler Elmer
and cognition and its progressive adaptation to reality. He pointed out the
close relationship between action and thought and demonstrated that ac
tion is the basis of every higher conceptual form of cognition.
Although it is not possible to explain this theory in detail here (see e.g.
Fetz, 1988; Furth, 1972; Kesselring, 1988; Piaget, 1983; Seiler, 1991), it is
necessary to recall briefly the most important theoretical concepts. They
are represented in the tenn structure-genetic constructivism, another name
for the theory stemming from Piaget's work (cf. e.g. Edelstein & Hoppe
Graff, 1993; Seiler, 1991, 1994). This approach is adopted here principally
because it stands for a comprehensive and modified reinterpretation of
the theory Piaget developed during his lifetime.
Piaget's interest in action focused on its underlying structure in the sense
of its organization as a kind of unit, order, or Gestalt (for details see e.g.
Seiler, 1994). Cognition takes place through these structures which are
inherent in action, perception, and thinking and which always, through
their nature, include motivational and emotional aspects. Tue structures
are adaptively modified or constructed by means of assimilation and ac
commodation while proceeding towards a temporary and hence dynamic
equilibrium among the structures themselves in interaction with the socio
cultural environment. Tue concept of construction implies that there are
actual processes and lang lasting sequences leading from qualitatively less
adapted states to better adapted ones. lt was essentially with this perspec
tive on the genesis of cognitive structures that Piaget's approach differed
from traditional epistemology and so became relevant to psychology.
For an application of the structure-genetic constructivism approach or
Piagetian thinking to the realm of music, I propose looking at the ontoge
netical roots and examining the early sensorimotor actions involved in the
initial process of constructing musical structures. Human subjects initially
experience music through such actions as listening, moving, and vocalizing.
Hence, I suggest considering the following questions and assumptions:
How do early premusical and musical actions develop into such highly
organized actions as comprehending, performing, aesthetically evaluating,
and composing music according to the principles and norms of a specific
culture? Structure-genetic constructivism implies that early premusical ac
tions are internalized and reorganized. They then serve as musical struc
tures in experiencing, perceiving, interpreting, and producing music. What
are these processes which enable us to learn the rules of our musical sys
tem? Can we even identify an invariable sequence of qualitative stages?
What conditions are necessary to progress from one qualitative level to a
next higher one? How do children participate in their society's socio-cul
tural practices and, in doing so, make use of whatever implicit or explicit
instruction is available? And, seen from the other side, how do the experts
guide the novices' actions?
2.) Although Piaget's invariable stages of thinking development might
be the best known part of his theory (together with the principle of conser
vation), the stage-model is not central to the theory (cf. e.g. Schmid-
A Piagetian perspective on singing development
111
Schönbein, 1989a; Seiler & Hoppe-Graff, 1989). Further, the stages cannot
be generalized beyond the logicomathematical realm (cf. e.g. Piaget, 1984).
Piaget's developmental model is essentially a process-model aiming at un
derstanding the creation of new structures. Whilst he emphasizes the conti
nuity of the step-by-step process of building new structures by equilibrat
ing previous ones, he uses the concept of stage or period for a rather
'unnatural subdivision' (1984, p. 46) of developmental continuity for heu
ristic reasons. For this reason the three famous stages of cognitive develop
ment (sensorimotor period, period of concrete operations, and period of
formal operations) involve only the major developmental structures (cf.
e.g. Piaget, 1983). In his later work, he moved towards abandoning the
notion of stage, mainly because it had the misleading connotation of static
development rather than of continuous dynamic change (cf. Beilin, 1989).
Thus, the notion of stage within Piaget's theory should be seen in a subor
dinate position to the concept of structure (e.g. Seiler & Hoppe-Graff,
1989). And it goes almost without saying that the stages are not intended
to be associated with chronological age, although age is sometimes used
in a broad sense to provide orientation.
From this discussion, it follows that Piaget's outlined cognitive stages
cannot simply be transferred lock, stock and barrel to another domain
such as music. Just two arguments are given below to support this objec
tion to the approach usually adopted in Piagetian research on music.
i) Even within the Piagetian tradition, an overall generalization of the
cognitive stages has been questioned. Already in the early seventies Seiler
(1973), a highly respected Piagetian scholar, introduced the concept of
domain specifity: He doubted whether the fact that an individual was capa
ble of formal thinking in one domain meant that this quality was then
necessarily present in all domains. Domain specifity means that certain
qualities of thinking developed in a specific domain do not automatically
generalize beyond this domain.
ii) This concept of domain specifity challenges the presumed validity of
Piaget's stages for the development of musical abilities because it requires
the specific nature of music to be taken into account. Tue cognitive stages
delineated by Piaget describe and explain the genesis of logical and mathe
matical thinking. In this domain, thinking at its most abstract highest level
is necessary. Such thinking is in the form of abstract and flexible thought
within complex systems which follow context-independent, enduring, and
almost universally valid laws or rules. As far as the phenomenon of conser
vation of quantity is concerned, it serves as just one among many other
characteristics of the transition in logical thinking from the preoperational
to the concrete operational stage. lt has the advantage of making the com
pensatory mechanisms apparent. For Piaget it offered a particularly fa
vourable opportunity to see the equilibrium at work.
Tue logicomathematical domain which Piaget liked to study stands, in
some ways, in complete contrast to music. Music expresses, subjectively or
collectively, aesthetic sensations within a given cultural system. This musi-
112
Stefanie Stadler Elmer
cal cultural system has rules that govern the temporal organization of
sounds at various levels. These rules are culturally dependent and some
vary according to the era, social subgroup, region, occasion, etc. , because
they are not rigid, but rather social conventions mostly implicit for musical
practices. Of course, we can rationally think in music and even apply math
ematical tools for analyzing various aspects. But this is not the essential
part of what we generally mean by the term 'music'.
Music always includes the bodily experience of organized sounds
through listening, moving, and performing. There are involved emotions.
Tue social or collective participation in these activities conveys cultural
meaning of a specific nature that cannot be replaced by another expressive
means or semiotic system. As such, music has developed over time and
become a socio-cultural means (or 'tool' , see Wygotsky, 1976) for express
ing and eliciting emotion and meaning on a collective as well as individual
level.
Tue specific nature of music appears, therefore, to be closer to language
than to logic and mathematics because both music and language are semio
tic systems whose acquisition necessarily requires the sensorimotor coordi
nation of vocal sounds and the active and adaptive participation in the
individual's surrounding socio-cultural linguistic and musical practices.
As music is conveyed and transformed from one generation to the next,
its instruction and acquisition are essentially determined by social interac
tion and may hence be seen as a co-construction that takes place in a
specific socio-cultural context.
From this discussion I conclude that if we want to understand and ex
plain how musical abilities evolve, we cannot simply isolate certain con
cepts of Piaget's abstract theory without understanding its core assump
tions with respect to genetic epistemology and without considering the
nature of music as a specific semiotic system. Moreover, adopting a Piage
tian perspective does not mean one has to try to corroborate stage-like or
even age-dependent development, but rather one is free to concentrate on
the psychological (micro- or macro-) processes of creating new actions and
thoughts.
3. Singing development from a Piagetian perspective
3. 1. Theoretical considerations
There are several reasons for emphasizing the crucial importance of sing
ing in musical development and education. Firstly, singing is universal to
all children. From very early on in life the human voice is able to structure
sounds and to express and elicit affection and emotion. Ontogenetically, a
child's vocal expression gradually adapts to the language and the music of
the surrounding social culture. Tue infant's vocalizations are important
premusical actions that precede later musical constructions as is the case
A Piagetian perspective on singing development
113
for language (cf. e.g. Papousek, 1994). At an early stage in vocal develop
ment, prosodic and melodic vocal expressions are indistinguishable. In
early childhood or until a child starts to learn an instrument, singing is
the most important activity for producing melodies that, in normal cases,
gradually approximate the rules of her or his culture's music system.
Singing, even in its elementary form, already encompasses all basic mu
sical components, that is the organization of the articulated sound's pitches
(qualities of produced sounds, pitch categories, intervals) and its timing
(phrases, length, pulses, stresses, tempo, rhythm), with the optional use of
speech sounds (phonemes, syllables, words). By the manner in which a
child expresses herself melodically, she implicitly reveals her cognitive un
derstanding of musical rules. This understanding is not at all conscious.
More explicit reflection about musical activities and about cultural rules
occur only later in musical development when other representational
means such as symbolic notation or linguistic concepts can be applied to
them.
Singing is an adaptive and constructive process. Thus, it is unlikely that
the vocalized musical structures should to be determined exclusively by
internal factors that would provide the musical harmonics (overtones) as
part of an innate and universal musical program in our brains (as is
claimed e.g. by Bernstein, 1976), analogous to Chomsky's 'Language
Acquisition Device' (1965). Rather, the already existing biological struc
tures constitute the necessary basis for building more differentiated and
integrated structures. This gradual process of constructing vocal musical
sounds is neither wholly predetermined by biological factors nor is it acci
dental, but happens in a continuous flow of social interactions when intu
itive and deliberate instruction in music making takes place. By means of
continuous assimilation and accommodation processes, the child's sound
organization is slowly adapted to its society's conventions for communicat
ing and expressing sensation and emotion. Socially shared musical activi
ties are co-constructive, and I consider especially its emotional quality to
be crucial to its development. Every musical experience is accompanied
by its own emotional quality. This emotional quality affects the evaluation
process in that it can promote or impede the dynamics of further construc
tions. Besides these socially shared musical activities, which represent the
more external conditions of musical development, I would like to empha
size the more internal dynamics of musical constructions.
Referring to Fetz (1981, 1982) and his extension of Piaget's genetic epis
temology to the arts, I distinguish two different types of singing which
I consider to be relevant to understanding the internal mechanisms of
development. Tue first concerns the reproduction of whole songs or frag
ments by immediate or delayed imitation of given song-models. In this
activity, adaptation, or more specifically accommodation, in Piaget's termi
nology, to the conditions and demands of the situation dominates.
Tue second type of singing consists of spontaneous improvising or in
venting. In this action the child is guided by her sensations, emotions, and
114
Stefanie Stadler Elmer
previously elaborated musical structures developed in other situations. In
Piaget's words, this involves assimilation, i.e. the integration of external
elements into the individual's evolving or completed structures.
These two singing activities are functionally interdependent inasmuch as
their underlying structures can be transferred from one context to others.
Theoretically this can be describe as follows: In imitating a given song
model, the child reactualizes acquired structures, or in other words, she
vocally matches the song-model as far as the structures permit. Tue more
elaborate the musical structures and transforming strategies available, the
better the approximation to the rules of the model. Thus, imitation is a
reorganization of existing structures and their transformation in order to
accommodate to given requirements.
Spontaneous improvisation or invention can be characterized as playful,
free, and relaxed singing that typically accompanies other activities. In this
process, musical structures which are particularly impressive, intrusive, eas
ily memorable, or emotionally attractive to an individual are playfully re
actualized and reorganized. Tue notion of a haunting melody is indicative
of one aspect of this process.
Tue extent to which a young child freely vocalizes and sings while play
ing, a predominantly assimilative activity, again affects her ability to use
her favorite structures to accommodate to a given context. High activity
in one of these singing activities affects the other one, and vice versa. How
does this process work in detail? How does an individual child organize
her singing activities, for instance in learning a new song?
3.2. Song acquisition process
Before describing the empirical data, I would like to briefly comment on
one account of song acquisition popular in the recent literature (for an
overview see Stadler Elmer, 1996a, 1996b).
According to Hargreaves (1986), most writers on song learning agree
that, generally, words are learned first, followed by rhythm, contour, and
intervals in that order. There are several objections to this postulated se
quence where words dominate over melody. First, studies of early infant
vocalization show that the production of prosodic patterns are not con
vincingly distinguishable from the singing of melodic contours, and that
the vocal expression of prosodic and/or melodic features precedes the ar
ticulation of words (cf. e.g. Papousek & Papousek, 1981). Second, the song
components, words, rhythm, and melody, are interrelated in such a way
that they cannot be put in an additive sequence. Moreover, treating these
as discrete, any possible meaningful interrelationship between a song's
melody and lyrics is excluded. Even if we use this idea of sequence rather
loosely, it still makes the singing process appear to proceed unidirection
ally from speaking to singing. Third, case studies by Kelly & Sutton-Smith
(1987, n = 3) and Stadler Elmer (1995a, n = 2, see also below) show that
A Piagetian perspective on singing development
115
musically active children from musically stimulating homes proceed with
their singing from a musical base, whereas the "relatively unmusical" chil
dren proceed with words and the incorporated rhythm. A predomination
of speechlike vocalization in songsinging would, therefore, be more likely
with children with a clear developmental advantage in speaking over sing
mg.
4. Empirical example
In order to explore the psychological processes involved in the emergence
of new musical structures in children's singing, I adopted the methodology
of micro-analysis (cf. e.g. Schmid-Schönbein, 1989b). In this, the detailed
description of selected behavioral patterns that proceed over periods of
time, allows individual children's sang acquisition processes to be recon
structed theoretically and empirically (for details see Stadler Elmer,
1995b).
4. 1 . Procedure
42 children between the ages of 2;7 and 8;10 years were instructed in learn
ing new songs in natural interactive settings. Either individually or in
groups of two or three, the children were shown a book with pictures
that semantically corresponded to the songs presented simultaneously and
vocally by the researcher. Tue songs were specially composed to ensure
their novelty, and included some unconventional melodic rules deliber
ately applied. Tue rules common to all the songs were that they had the
same length (4 bars), regular pulses and an even meter, but different in
tervals and contours. Several sessions were recorded on audio or video
tapes with each child. Tue whole researcher-child interaction was kept as
natural as possible for the child. Tue researcher tried to make the child
feel at ease, and to encourage, scaffold, and reinforce the child's attempts
to sing. Tue micro-analyses of each individual child's consecutive singing
trials encompass detailed verbal protocols about the child's actions as well
as about his or her social interactions. In addition, all analyses of songsing
ing were carried out with the aid of a computerized pitch analyzer, where
the computer yields curves of the fundamental frequency as a function of
time (cf. Hess, 1983). In a subsequent step, the acoustical data can be
reduced with great accuracy to a limited set of qualitatively different pitch
categories (see Table 1). This method has two main advantages over just
an auditory analysis using conventional notation. Unlike with conventional
musical notation, the pitches' quality and its position within the frequency
continuum can be assessed not only in more detail but also in an objective
and reliable manner. In this way, observer bias, such as categorical percep
tion (cf. Siegel & Siegel, 1977) can be ruled out.
116
Stefanie Stadler Elmer
A detailed conceptual framework allows several now accessible and
simultaneously present parameters to be specified. These, together with
analyses of the child's actions and social interactions, provide a rich 'micro
scopic' view of the progressive co-constructive processes involved in joint
and solo singing.
In what follows, I take short excerpts from two case studies made so far
to illustrate the research, which is still ongoing.
Two boys, 4;5 and 4;7 years of age, were selected according to their high
and low achievement levels in vocal pitch matching tasks. Thus, one child
(T.) is considered to be an experienced and the other a poor singer ( A.).
Here, I focus on these two children's song acquisition processes just
from the initial phase of acquisition of one song to the point where each
child had produced two solo versions. Fig. 1 shows the vocally presented
model with its deliberately composed unconventional melody. Table 1 con
tains the list of the symbols used for indicating the various qualities of
vocal sounds produced.
Tab. l: Tue symbols indicate the pitch qualities produced. Tue height and the posi
tion of the symbol indicate the pitch range and the position in the continuum,
respectively. Phrases (defined as the utterance during breathing out) are marked
by the brackets. Tue event number indicates the total number of occurrences of
this song without differentiating between presentation, joint singing, and solo sin
ging. Tue arrow (Fig. 3) indicates help by the researcher.
•
Stahle and clearly identifiable pitch
Identifiable pitch , starting with upward or downward
micro-glissando
Identifiable pitch , ending with upward or downward
micro-glissando
Unidentifiable, fuzzy pitches, upward or downward
/
✓
�
'
/
U nidentifiable , fuzzy pitches within context of singing
(prolonged vowel ) , no direction
1
Unidentifiable pitches within context of speech (short
vowel)
D
"'
A Piagetian perspective on singing development
117
Song model
G4
F4
E4
8.5 secs
so
- - - - - - - � - - - - - �- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - � - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - / \
\
\
I
\
\
I \
\ I
\ /�
/�
/•
..._
- - - - - - - - - - �- - - - - � - - -
-'- •-
04
C4
- - -�
•-
- -- -
•
/
-- -
/
-- -- -- -- -
:,
- - - - - - - - ��
\
\
•
do
Fig. 1: Vocally presented model song
4.2. Results and discussion
Tue initial phase of learning a new sang begins with listening to its pre
sentation. Here already the two children differed with respect to the onset,
quality and quantity of their spontaneous joint and solo singing. T. quietly
listened to two vocal presentations, joined in singing correctly the third
one and then, shortly afterwards, started his first solo sang version (see
Fig. 2, event 4). During the following three presentations, he spontaneously
joined in singing correctly ( events 5 to 7) and then produced his second
solo version (see Fig. 3, event 8). Note that the singing of this second solo
was interrupted by his demand for further help. When he was given the
next single note with its corresponding ward by the researcher, he then
continued to complete his solo. Later in this process (not presented here),
he succeeded in singing the entire new sang correctly.
The poor singer's initial phase consisted of ten sang presentations dur
ing which he made only one fragmentary attempt at joint singing using a
pitch far lower than the presented notes. Thereafter he performed his first
solo shown in Figure 4 as event 11. Tue next song-event occurred as a kind
of mixture. A. produced the first two bars and after a short silent break,
the researcher finished with the remaining two bars. Then followed A.'s
118
Stefanie Stadler Elmer
T . 1, eve nt 4 , 7 .9 s e c s
G4
F4
E4
�
�
"'
- - - - - - - - \ - - - -( \ - - - - - - . . . . . . . . . . . . \ . .
I \
\
\
I
\ /"
\
\
/�
-
. . . . . . .
--
so
. . . .
-
- . . . . . . . _ / _ . . - . .•. . . . .'/. . - � ' - . - . - - �� - - - . . - - - - - - - . - . - - . - - - � L
\
\
\
/',
D4
C4
. . . . . . . . . .
--------·--.-
. .
--------·------
·
-
.
, r�
\ I
- - - - - - - - - �- - - - - -
.
\
-\
do
--------
Fig. 2: Tue experienced singer's first solo version
second solo version depicted as event 13 in Figure 5. Later in this process
(also not presented here), A. started to accompany this song's lyrics with
the melody of a well-known song that has a slightly similar beginning.
During several consecutive sessions, he failed to approximate the new song
melodically and made no attempts to abandon the well-known adopted
tune.
As lyrics and melody always imply temporal and metric structures such
as grouped stressed and unstressed syllables, the song's temporal frame
work appeared to be present already in the initial phases of the two boys'
learning processes. Both children interestingly took over the exact length
(in terms of number of notes or syllables) of the presented model as a
kind of scaffold. However, the experienced child filled it at first with a
partly invented tune and neglected the lyrics while the poor singer filled
the temporal scaffold with words and neglected the melody and its sub
sumed parameters in both initial song versions. Generally, with regard to
other temporal parameters, the pulses or beats were regular within
phrases, whereas the breaks in-between phrases may vary slightly (this
variation is not shown in the figures). The song's durations or tempi varied
in the course of the two processes (again this is not shown in the figures).
Child A.'s songs lasted longer on average (mean = 9.7 sec) than child T.'s
(mean = 7.9 sec, the model lasts 8.5 sec). Throughout the whole learning
A Piagetian perspective on singing development
119
T . 2 , e v e nt 8 , 9 . 4 s e c s
G4
F4
E4
D4
C4
. . - - -
-
-,
- -
-
- - �·
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - . - .
-
-
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
so
. . .
- . . . - - - - - -� . . . . . ... . .'-� - - - - . . . . . . . . . ·• - - - - 4 . . . . . . - - . . - . . . � �
\
/ \
\
\ /
/
-...
\
\
•
t
/
-
...
\
\
X
· - - - - - · · · · · · · · · - - · · - · · · · · · · - - - - - - · · · · · · · - - - - - -
\
-
'
do
- •· -- · - - - - - - -
Fig. 3: Tue experienced singer's second solo version
process, the poor singer's phrasing consisted of smaller units than those of
the experienced singer.
Hence, there was a marked difference between the two boys concerning
the musical qualities they were able to express with their voices. A basic
level of musical expression is indicated by the quality of the produced
pitches (ranging from clear to fuzzy, see symbols in Table 1) . Child A.'s
singing displayed in Figures 4 and 5 show that he produced the lyrics in a
voice that was clearly higher pitched (and louder) than his speaking voice.
But most of his vocal sounds' pitches were unidentifiable and fuzzy, thus
were not yet forming more or less stable pitch categories. Only later in
this process did he start to alter this voice quality more in the direction of
a singing voice. In contrast, the experienced singer T. produced clearly
identifiable pitches most of the time.
Tue next higher level of vocal musical expression builds on the first one
and concerns the organization of the pitches in the form of conventional
categories (intervals) . As long as child A. failed to produce more or less
identifiable pitches, there was hardly any higher order of melodic organiza
tion in his way of producing sounds. Since only the lyrics he reproduced
corresponded to the singing conventions modelled by the researcher, we
can say that his way of singing a tune remained idiosyncratic in the sense
120
Stefanie Stadler Elmer
A . 1 , event 1 1 , 10.2 secs
A4
G4
F4
E4
so
m1
D4
C4
do
Fig. 4: Tu e poor singer's first solo version
it was still far from the rules inherent in the conventional practice of songs
inging. He had not yet acquired the structures permitting him to imitate
a given tune and so, his attempts at producing musical sounds were so
unconventional that it was impossible for others to memorize or reproduce
them.
Later in this learning process, A. was encouraged to use his singing
voice whereupon he started to use the already acquired tune of a tradi
tional song. He accompanied the lyrics of the presented song with that
adopted melody. Thereby, he gradually changed the vocal pitch qualities
towards singing but not, as I have described above, towards the presented
melody. Tue slight similarity between the beginnings of the two tunes (that
presented and that adopted) seemed to make him ignore the rest of the
melody. During several sessions, he persisted in sticking to his adopted
tune and made no attempt to approximate the presented one.
Tue figures for child T.'s vocal pitch organization (Fig. 2 and 3) show
that the pitch intervals between notes approximated the conventional in
terval categories. Tue computer analysis, however, allowed deviations
A Piagetian perspective on singing development
121
A . 2 , e v e nt 1 3 , 9 . 8 s e c s
/
C5
B4
A4
G4
F4
E4
so
m1
D4
C4
do
Fig. 5: Tue poor singer's second solo version
which would hardly have been perceived otherwise to be visualized. What
is most striking about this child's pitch organization is the fact that in both
versions he approximated the structure of a tonic triad (do, mi, so), al
though this was not given in the song model presented. He kept on using
this melodic structure for a while, sometimes even more clearly, until he
succeeded in abandoning it and taking over the presented melody. His way
of melodically structuring a new song with the tonic triad suggests he had
some cognitive knowledge of conventions for building melodies.
Besides these salient melodic features, the two boys also differed in
how they made use of the song presentation. Whilst the experienced child
spontaneously joined in with the presenter's singing and used this activity
as a scaffolding, the poor singer's rare attempts at joint singing always
failed to approximate the presented notes.
122
Stefanie Stadler Elmer
Tue selection of the two boys on the basis of their pitch matching abili
ties suggests perceptual qualitative differences between their singing. Tue
micro-analyses presented of their initial phases in learning a new song
provides more precise insights into the reasons for the perceived differ
ences and their different approaches to solving the problem posed. To
summarize, their different strategies mainly concern: the quality and quan
tity of their joint singing and the extent to which they used it as a scaffold
ing in learning the song, the quality of the vocally produced musical
sounds, and their organization on a higher melodical level. For both of
them, the song's temporal framework (length of notes or syllables with
their metric pattern) served as a basic scaffold, but the experienced singer
began by filling in a melody, while the poor singer reproduced the lyrics.
Tue experienced singer was more advanced in his musical development
and this led him to use differentiated musical structures to such an extent
that, even though he accommodated new experiences only slowly by integ
rating those into his already acquired assimilation structures, he complied
with musical conventions. Tue less differentiated musical structures of the
poor singer were highlighted by his persistence in assimilating the lyrics
with their incorporated temporal framework at the expense of the melody.
He did not have enough elaborated assimilation-structures to accommo
date a given tune according to applied conventional norms.
These short excerpts from the initial phases of two song learning pro
cesses provide an example for a process-oriented method that is Piagetian
in its approach. Tue focus is on individual changes at a micro-analytic level
and accounting for such social-interactional (or instructional) aspects such
as how the researcher provides the scaffolding and modelling of a song.
This allows an improved understanding of developmental changes by
following the course of actual adaptive actions and their underlying struc
tures. In this way it is possible to conceptualize developmental change on
a step-by-step basis, provided that the relevant theoretical features and
components have been clarified previously and made accessible at the em
pirical level. After assessing the individual processes micro-analytically,
the next research step will consist of identifying regularities that relate to
a developmental sequence at a more abstract level.
5. Conclusion
In this paper I have taken a critical approach to the theoretical implica
tions of the widely used paradigm of conservation which has all too often
been unreflectively invoked in the literature. Although conservation-like
or invariant phenomena exist in music, the concept of conservation refers
to a specific ability and as such has only a minor status within Piaget's
theory. lt is relevant to the transition from the preoperational to the con
crete operational stage where it stands for an easy accessible phenomenon
for demonstrating the mechanisms of equilibrium. Tue great attraction of
A Piagetian perspective on singing development
123
the concept of conservation in research into music development and other
domains seems to be largely due to its counterintuitive simplicity. A fur
ther misuse of Piaget's theory results from a misinterpretation of the con
cept of stage as age-related and static. Together, I maintain, these two
misunderstandings have provided a misguided basis for research in the
Piagetian tradition. Although Piaget's theory no longer appears to be as
fashionable as it used to be in the seventies, it still has an extraordinary
influence on psychology. According to Beilin (1989, 1 992) , this theory is
still being further developed without abandoning most of the core assump
tions of the original theory. For him " . . . it is more than a theory: lt is a
research program on a vast scale." (1992, p. 191). Thus, the field is still
open for new discoveries and for developing a variety of new paradigms.
This paper on singing development is intended as just one among many
possible contributions to this enormous field.
Abstract
Tue purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it briefly characterizes how
Piaget's theory has been mainly applied in music psychology and education
to date. After discussing the major shortcomings of this approach, the core
elements of the theory as applied to music are re-evaluated. Second, a new
theoretical approach is proposed and elaborated in more detail with re
spect to the development of singing. Tue focus on singing is motivated by
the fact that it is an elementary and universal means of expressing the
basic musical parameters, namely the timing of pitches, from early on in
ontogeny. Finally, the delineated approach is exemplified with an excerpt
from the initial phase of song acquisition of two pre-school children.
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