This bachelor’s thesis presents my findings about how children in the first grade of primary school construct and perform a musical story. Through my research I tried to establish how children form the vocal picture, their ability to connect socially during their musical creativity. The purpose of this research was to find out how children are able to understand and connect figures from stories on the basis of musical language, and how they are able to link them to folk music.
At the beginning of my research I selected a light folk story which is also present in the social environment of the children. I used an action research approach with video recordings and direct interaction in music lessons. On the basis of the collected material I determined that the children were able to create a functional and effective musical language. They also used it to connect to other artistic languages and the Slovenian folklore. The ability to form fiction varies from child to child depending on their background, given material, readiness to perform in a group and willingness to expose their creations. They are able to form their own musical accompaniment to present a figure or event; they do require help from a mentor to compile their musical creations into a fluid musical story. To support their creation the children are able to select and use appropriate instruments, and are able to formulate a basic and simple rhythmic ostinato. To fully immerse themselves into characters from folk story and their events depicted through musical expression, the children require additional help from a mentor, they are however capable of formulation the musical outline of the story on their own. Their musical and motor creativity gradually resembles child folk music.
Additional study in this field could be focused on how musical stories encourage creativity and fiction, as well as rhythmic and melodic motives when using music. I would continue to formulate a musical story by introducing written characters and adding drawn scenes.
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