Children's descriptions of music: Overview of research

This paper examined studies which focused on various strategies for teaching discrimination between high and low pitches and labeling tonal direction, and on children's descriptions of varied conceptual changes in music. Implications from this research for researchers are that children and many adults appear to have a limited music vocabulary unless they are taught. Children have difficulty describing music. They can perceive and give non-verbal responses to changes in moods and musical elements before they can describe what they hear. The descriptive vocabulary for music given by children and adults, when using incorrect terms, is quite different. Thus adults should be cautious in interpretations of children's vocabulary. Advances in technology allowing multi-media presentations of sounds, language and moving graphics may provide new opportunities for helping children form and label concepts of music.