Compositions of elementary recorder students created under various conditions of task structure

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of various levels of researcher-imposed task structure on the compositional products of elementary school recorder students. Twelve recorder students aged nine to 10 years each completed six composition tasks. Audio tapes of their compositions were given to four musicians who followed a Q sorting procedure to place the compositions in a rank order of recorder musicality. The total length of time spent on each task and the percentage of process stage time spent by the child for each task was compared with the type of task. The results suggest there is a relationship between the type of task and the musicality of the resulting compositional products. Pieces with the least amount of structure often were lowest ranked. The poem task led to compositions of higher musicality. The amount of time children spent on each of the tasks was not significantly different and was not a factor in creating works of higher musicality. Data from post-compositional interviews indicated that different children preferred different types of task structure.