Musical Analysis of Sesame Street: Implications for Music Therapy Practice and Research

Abstract

The use of music to teach social, motor, and academic skills to students is common practice for the music therapist. Sesame Street (produced by the Children's Television Workshop) is concerned with teaching preschoolers similar kinds of skills through the electronic medium of television. The primary purpose of this descriptive study was to review a select number (N = 21) of 1-hour Sesame Street programs to categorize and quantify the various ways music is employed in program production. Some of the descriptive analyses tabulated across and within programs included: (a) number and duration of music and nonmusic segments; (b) number of segments that included music as a structural prompt, discriminative stimulus, or background; (c) number of songs (structural prompt segments) employed to teach academic and social skills; (d) tempo and melody ranges of songs used to teach skills; (e) kinds of voices used to sing the songs (male/female, child/adult); and (f) styles of music. Results revealed more music (71%) than nonmusic (29%) segments; an average of five music segments per program directed toward teaching academic skills; three segments directed toward social skills; frequent use of adult male voices to sing songs; frequent use of musical tempi ranging from 121–180 beats per minute, frequently occurring melody ranges of a 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th; and use of a wide variety of musical styles. Important music variables that may prompt questions for additional research and that may contribute knowledge of potential music therapy procedures are discussed.