Children's perception, production, and description of music expression (Education, learning)

I investigated whether children can demonstrate awareness of musical expression by discriminating between expressive and mechanical music fragments, performing familiar songs, and describing the fragments and songs. I further examined global or age-specific tendencies in scores and possible relationships among behaviors. Children (N = 60) from kindergarten, Grade 2, and Grade 4 completed three tasks in which they heard, played, and discussed expressive music. Descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and correlation coefficients were calculated to address the research questions. Results indicated task improvement with age, significant differences between kindergarten and fourth-grade scores in perception and description, and a significant relationship between perception and description, both overall and in kindergarten. © 1998 by Music Educators National Conference.