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This is to certify that the
thesis entitled

UNWRITI'EN STORIES: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC CASE STUDY
OF FOURTH-GRADE STUDENTS' MUSICAL IDENTITIES

presented by

JULIE DERGES KASTNER

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for the

M. M. degree in Music Education

 

 

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UNWRITTEN STORIES: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC CASE STUDY OF
FOURTH-GRADE STUDENTS’ MUSICAL IDENTITIES

By

Julie Derges Kastner

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF MUSIC
Music Education

2009

ABSTRACT

UNWRITTEN STORIES: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC CASE STUDY OF
FOURTH-GRADE STUDENTS’ MUSICAL IDENTITIES

By
Julie Derges Kastner

With the goal of improving elementary music education, the purpose of this study
is to describe the nature of four fourth-grade children’s musical identities. This study
explored the role that various musical experiences play in the development of musical
identities, speciﬁcally through the constructs of musical self-concept, musical self-
esteem, and musical self—efﬁcacy. Although research exists to explore musical identities
in each of the identity constructs and in the holistic musical identities of adolescents and
adults, more research is needed to holistically explore the developing musical identities
of children. Four fourth-grade children from a Midwestern elementary school served as
the primary participants, along with their parents and elementary general music teacher.
Ethnographic methods were used to collect data, including ﬁeldnotes, interviews, and
participant journals.

In musical self-concept, being a musician and enjoyment emerged as themes. In
musical self-esteem, personal assessment, awareness of others, and motivation emerged.
In musical self-efﬁcacy, ensemble participation and future musical goals emerged. Two
global themes, family inﬂuence and control/agency also emerged. Recommendations for
music teachers include providing opportunities for students to exert agency in many
musical roles and receive constructive feedback from peers. Music teachers should

recognize the inﬂuence of and foster communication with family members.

Cepyright by
JULIE DERGES KASTNER
2009

DEDICATION
I dedicate this thesis to the memory of my father, William Howard Derges, for showing
me how to live with passion and love, and for always playing the bass line in our

improvised duets.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I extend my sincere gratitude to my advisory committee, including Dr. Cynthia
Taggart, Dr. Michael Largey, and Dr. Mitchell Robinson, for their encouragement and
insights into research, children, and identity. I also thank Dr. Sandra Snow for sparking
an interest in learning how children see themselves as musicians. These tremendous
individuals have been incredible mentors to me as I begin this new phase of my journey.

I want to thank all of the children and adults who participated in this study and
opened themselves to share their personal thoughts and feelings. I am grateful for all that
I learned from you. I hope that you will continue discovering your musical identities and
that music may always be a blessing in your lives.

Special thanks go to my mother, Karen Pauline Derges, and to my father- and
mother-in-law, Dean and Ann Kastner, for their constant encouragement and prayers.
Thank you for always believing in me! Thank you to Dr. Tami Draves and Dr. Bridget
Sweet for their endless advice and for always making me laugh when I needed it. I also
owe immeasurable thanks to my wonderful husband, Derek, for his lead of love that
supported me and spurred me on to continue following my dreams.

Finally, I give thanks to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whose love endures

forever (Psalm 136).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ...................................................................... 5
Deﬁnition of Terms ................................................................................................. 6
Identity ...................................................................................................... 1 1

Musical Identity ........................................................................................ 11

Musical Self-concept ................................................................................ 11

Musical Self-esteem .................................................................................. 12

Musical Self-efﬁcacy ................................................................................ 13

Caveat about Musical Identities ................................................................ 13
Developmental Theories ....................................................................................... 15
Identity Development ................................................................................ 15

Cognitive Development ............................................................................ 21

Social Relationships in Identity Development .......................................... 24

Development of Musical Meaning ........................................................................ 32
Children Make Their Own Music ............................................................. 33

Children Ascribe Meaning to Their Music Making .................................. 34

Children Make Music in the Context of Social Interactions ..................... 35

Children Exert Control and Agency over their Music Making ................. 36

Relationship to Musical Identities ............................................................ 37

Need for Study ...................................................................................................... 38
Purpose ................................................................................................................. 39
Problems ............................................................................................................... 39
CHAPTER 2: RELATED RESEARCH ........................................................................... 40
Children’s Actions ................................................................................................ 41
Children’s Social Systems .................................................................................... 43
Musical Identities .................................................................................................. 45
Research of Music Identity Constructs ..................................................... 46

Research in Musical Identity .................................................................... 53

Summary of Related Research .............................................................................. 57
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .................................................................................... 59
Design ................................................................................................................... 59
Participant Selection ............................................................................................. 61

Data Collection Procedures ................................................................................... 62

Data Analysis and Veriﬁcation ............................................................................. 64
Limitations of Study ............................................................................................. 65
Researcher Lens .................................................................................................... 66
CHAPTER 4: PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING ............................................................ 69

vi

Participants ............................................................................................................ 72

Greenview Elementary School ............................................................................. 77

CHAPTER 5: PARTICIPANTS’ MUSICAL IDENTITIES: IN THEIR OWN

WORDS ............................................................................................................................ 80
Overarching Themes: Family Inﬂuence and Control/Agency .............................. 81

Family Inﬂuence ....................................................................................... 81
Control/Agency ......................................................................................... 93
Summary of Overarching Themes ............................................................ 97
Musical Self-concept ............................................................................................ 98
Being a Musician ...................................................................................... 99
Enjoyment ............................................................................................... 108
Summary of Musical Self-concept .......................................................... 137
Musical Self-esteem ............................................................................................ 1 3 9
Personal Assessment ............................................................................... 140
Awareness of Others ............................................................................... 149
Motivation ............................................................................................... 1 59
Summary of Musical Self-esteem ........................................................... 164
Musical Self-efﬁcacy .......................................................................................... 165
Ensemble Participation ........................................................................... 166
Future Musical Goals .............................................................................. 170
Summary of Musical Self-efﬁcacy ......................................................... 177

CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS FOR MUSIC EDUCATION,

AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ....................................... 179
Summary ............................................................................................................. 1 79
Discussion and Implications for Music Education ............................................. 183
Recommendations for Future Research .............................................................. 195

APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ................................................................. 198

APPENDIX B: JOURNAL PROMPTS FOR STUDENTS ........................................... 203

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 204

vii

 

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development ............................. 30
Figure 2. Model of motivation .......................................................................................... 40
Figure 3. Olivia’s (student) deﬁnition of a musician ...................................................... 100
Figure 4. Olivia’s (student) view of herself as a musician ............................................. 104
Figure 5. Jillian’s (student) favorite instrument .............................................................. 116
Figure 6. Justin’s (student) favorite instrument .............................................................. 121
Figure 7. Ravi’s (student) favorite instrument ................................................................ 123
Figure 8. Olivia’s (student) favorite instrument ............................................................. 125
Figure 9. Olivia (student) making music as an adult ...................................................... 172
Figure 10. Ravi (student) making music as an adult ....................................................... 174
Figure 11. Jillian (student) making music as an adult .................................................... 176

viii

INTRODUCTION

The song had been stuck in Ravi’s head since the night before, much like the Elmer’s
glue stuck on the science project he made earlier in class. As he walked into music class, he
swung his standard-issue recorder case around in the air to the beat of his song. Hi5 rang.
The song that continued to play in his mind. The night before, he had been practicing his
recorder, playing through all the songs he could remember from music class— Hot Crorr
Buns, Claret Kg, Au Claire de Lune, Simple Gifts. “Hp/mm,” he sighed and lay back on his bed

with his knees hanging bent off the edge. Then in the silence, a new song filled his mind:

 

 

 

 

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“Huh, that sounded kinda good,” he thought, playing it a few more times to get the feel for
the mysterious melody that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Then, like an exhale,

the ending slipped through his fingers:

 

 

   
 

 

 

 

 

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“I like thatl,” he thought, and he played it over and over again. His song. “But where did it
come from?”

Back in class, Ravi had trouble tuning out his song as he listened to Ms. Harvey give
her directions to the class. “If you’ve ﬁnished the first draft of your composition,” she said
in her soft, yet firm voice, “your only job is to help someone else practice, or you should
practice your second draft.” Ravi picked up his recorder and his composition as the students
all got up from their pretzel—legged positions to find their own places to work around the

room. Ravi, an average-sized Indian boy wearing a white head wrap and wire-rimmed

glasses, ran over to sit in his usual spot: the “time-out” chair. Although Ms. Harvey usually
sent students who needed a break to the “time—out” chair, Ravi almost always went to work
in this seat, not because he was a trouble-maker, but because it was one of the only chairs in
the room. Sitting in this chair with his left leg loosely propped over his right gave Ravi an
elevation above everyone else. Since he was one of the most liked boys in his class, sitting in
the chair gave Ravi some space to work away from the throng of boys who always crowded
around him. In this space, Ravi could better hear the music inside.

Usually, Ravi got straight to work on his assignment. Today, though, Ravi’s
assignment would have to wait as his new song demanded to be heard. “Listen to my song!
Listen to my song!,” he called excitedly to anyone sitting close. He bent his torso down so
that his Yamaha recorder stuck out just over the knees of his jeans. In this position, Ravi

knew they could really hear him play:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The four boys listened with all the attention that 9-year-olds can muster. In the split second
of silence afterward, Ravi thought, “What will they think?” He then quickly found out.
“You didn’t make that up!”
“Where did you get that song?”
Their comments, although not negative, felt glossed with both envy and disbelief.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Ravi exclaimed, as though he felt as surprised as his
friends by the sounds that emanated from his recorder. “You didn’t make that up!” they
again accused. “I don’t know if I did! I jusr did it at home.” Although the bOys’ banter

came across as playful, Ravi displayed a hint of confusion about the true value of his song.

As more boys collected around the group, Ravi repeated his song several times, and
the boys began to compare it to previous songs they had played on the recorder in music
class. “The beginning sounds a little like Au Claire ole Lune,” said one, and another said, “Part
of it sounded like Sinrp/e Gifts.” Ravi again reiterated, “I don’t know if it’s a re_al song, but...,”
then he was quickly cut off by the chatter of his friends. “...It’r m rang,” he thought,
ﬁnishing the sentence in his head.

Ravi went up to Ms. Harvey’s desk to talk to her about the draft of his composition
for class; one that he could never quite get to flow out of his ﬁngers like the one he wrote at
home. As he stood at the side of her desk, Ms. Harvey told him, “You ran out of steam.”
She explained that, although his piece had some good elements, he needed to add some extra
details. “T/Jir onefr not a: good a: my new rang,” he thought to himself. Ravi then decided to get
the opinion of someone with more musical experience. “Can I play you my song?” referring
to the piece his friends had jusr questioned. “Sure!” Ms. Harvey replied. Ravi again played
his song perfectly with complete confidence in his song.

As soon as the song was over, without missing a beat, Ravi asked with a hint of
uncertainty, “Does it sound like a real song?” “Yes, but it doesn’t sound like any song 13$
ever heard before,” Ms. Harvey replied. “I was in my bedroom practicing recorder, and I
just made it up,” he said. Then Ms. Harvey asked, “Can I record you on my flip camera?”
Ravi said yes, and he again played his composition, but this time, with the slight

awkwardness that one feels when being recorded.

One month later
Ravi sat down with me in an interview. I asked him, “How did it feel to hear Ms.
Harvey play your composition you wrote for class?” He answered, “It felt nice that Ms.

Harvey can play a song that I wrote.” Then, with a hint of pride, he added, “There’s gﬂ

songs that I wrote.” “Oh, really?,” I said, hoping he would tell me more. “The one that I
published. The one that Ms. Harvey played, that was my ofﬁcial, my original one. But then I
thought of a new one when I was at home.”
“I remember that one.”
“And she said she liked that one, so she said she was going to compose it and... she’s
going to write it and see if it’s a real song.”
He said this matter-of-factly. He did not doubt his composition. Rather, he simply did not
see himself as a musician able to compose.
“I was there when she recorded it. How did it make you feel when she recorded your
song?”
“It made me feel proud,” he said, sitting up straighter in his chair, “that some people
want to keep my song.”
“Why did you keep saying, ‘I don’t know if it’s a real song?’”
“It sounded really familiar to some songs, but I don’t know if it’s a real song or not.
So I just keep asking people, ‘Is this a real song?’ I just thought of it when I was at
home. It must be from my memory.”
“When you say, ‘real song’—”

“Like an ofﬁcial song.”

CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The vignette above is based on an actual interaction in the classroom between
Ravi and his teacher and peers, and his reﬂections of the event in an interview. While
Ravi knew that he would feel proud to write a composition, what he called a “real” song,
he did not seem to have the musical self-concept as a composer that would allow him to
recognize his ability to accomplish such a task. His beliefs were supported by his friends,
who also could not believe that he wrote the song, and instead tried to pin it down as a
song that they had already played. Yes, the song had elements of Au Claire de Lune and
Simple Gifts, but Ravi had rearranged some of the melodic and rhythmic patterns to
create something entirely new. Ravi did not have a concrete perception of himself as a
musician, but his understanding of himself as a musician was developing as he began to
achieve more musically and as he interacted with others.

In this study, I explore the developing musical identities of four elementary-aged
children. However, in recognizing that children are inﬂuenced by musical experiences
both in and outside of school, I examine a variety of factors that contribute to how
children begin to see themselves as musicians. Perhaps through further understanding
children’s developing musical identities, music educators will be able to reﬁne their
teaching practices to enrich children’s musical identities and, thus, help their students
develop into life-long musicians. Marcia (1994), a developmental psychologist, wrote
about personal identity: “This sense of identity suggests an individual ’5 continuity with

the past, a personally meaningful present, and a direction for the future” (pp. 70-71).

With an understanding of musical identities, music educators may be able to recognize
past achievements, encourage present successes, and direct their students toward a future
in which they see themselves as musicians.

The notion of musical identity often is difﬁcult for individuals to conceptualize.
As Graafsma (1994) stated, “[T]erms like identity suffer from deﬁnitional ﬁizziness” (p.
23). Unfortunately, throughout research literature, a variety of terms have been used
interchangeably to describe musical identity. Therefore, in order to discuss musical
identity, I will begin by considering the historical development of the concept of identity
and by deﬁning terms that are closely related to this topic, including self-concept, self-

esteem, and self-efﬁcacy.

Deﬁnition of Terms

William James, a psychologist from the nineteenth century, ﬁrst recognized the
concept of the self. In his book, Psychology: The Briefer Course (1892/1961), James
recognized the self as having two parts: the me and the 1. James (1892/1961) considered
the me as “the self as known,” or the “empirical ego” (p. 43), and believed that it is made
up of three components: the spiritual self, the material self, and the social self. Since the
me is inﬂuenced by external forces, it constantly changes (Hargreaves, Miell, &
MacDonald, 2002). The I, however, is “the self as knower,” or the “pure ego” (James,
1892/1961, p. 43), which never changes.

While James was the ﬁrst to conceptualize the dual nature of the self, this idea did

not receive much attention until Sigmund Freud. Freud (1962) also recognized that the

self had two parts, but he labeled them the ego and the id. Freud believed that the ego is
a conscious part of the identity and is tied to the world, similar to James’ concept of the
me. On the other hand, the id is unconscious and focuses more on passions (Freud, 1962,
p. 15). While Freud theorized about the nature of the self, his focus was not about the
concept of the identity as a whole. In his book Identity: Youth and Crisis, Erikson (1968)
wrote that Freud only once referred to identity in a professional way, demonstrating that
the concept of identity was not a prominent focus in Freud’s theories.

Erikson, often considered the father of identity theories, took Freud’s ideas much
further. However, Erikson wrote that he could not deﬁne identity. Rather, he pointed
out, “The more one writes about this subject [identity], the more the word becomes a
term for something as unfathomable as it is all-pervasive. One can only explore it by
establishing its indispensability in various contexts” (1968, p. 9). Erikson recognized that
identity is a complex concept that is difﬁcult to understand, while at the same time, he
acknowledged that identity is an essential part of an individual.

Erikson (1968) created the term identity crisis before he speciﬁcally began
exploring identity in order to describe the sense of confusion and loss that World War II
veterans felt after returning home. In describing the veterans’ identity crises, Erikson
(1968) then created the term, ego identity, saying, “They were impaired in that central
control over themselves for which, in the psychoanalytic scheme, only the ‘inner agency’

3”

of the ego could be held responsible. Therefore, I spoke of a loss of ‘ego identity (p.
17). As he began to study the concept of identity further, Erikson (1968) noted that

identity requires “personal sameness” (p. 17), but at the same time, is always inﬂuenced

by the outside world and is always changing. Kroger (2000) summed up Erikson’s
identity theory, writing, “In different places and in different social situations, one still has
a sense of being the same person” (p. 8).

Kroger (2000), in her book Identity Development: Adolescence Through
Adulthood gave her own deﬁnition of identity: “[T]he study of identity [is] the study of
who I am and of how my biology, psychology, and society interact to produce that

9”

subjective sense of the person who is ‘genuinely me. (p. 7). The words “I am,” with am
being the present tense of the verb be, reinforced Erikson’s idea that identity must have a
sense of sameness over time. Graafsma (1994) wrote that:
Identity in general refers to an awareness or a perception of persistent sameness
between two or more things or states. A sense of identity refers to the subjective
experience of such sameness, both within one’s own body and mind, and within
an average expectable, recognizing and sharing environment where one feels in
place” (p. 23).
Grotevant, Bosma, DeLevita, & Graafsma (1994) also deﬁned identity by giving a
dictionary deﬁnition, then added to it, saying:
[T]he Oxford dictionary also deﬁnes identity as a ‘transformation that leaves an
object unchanged.’ This deﬁnition, together with the deﬁnition of sameness,

character, and being an identiﬁable person, form the main elements of meaning of

the concept of identity in connection to human individuals” (p. 8).

In fact, many agree that stability in a person’s overall perspective of himself is a key
feature of identity (Erikson, 1968; Graafsma, 1994; Grotevant, Bosma, De Levita, &
Graafsma, 1994; Hargreaves, Miell, MacDonald, 2002; Kroger, 2000; Rangell, 1994).

In addition to the concept of sameness in identity, several psychologists have
recognized that there are three factors that, although distinct, are essential in forming
identity. Kroger (2000) identiﬁed these factors in Erikson’s research and labeled them
the “tripartite nature of ego identity” (p. 9). She wrote that the factors include “one ’s
biological characteristics; one’s own unique psychological needs, interests, and defenses;
and the cultural milieu in which one resides” (2000, p. 9). J arnes (1892/1961), as
mentioned earlier, called these three parts the material self, which is similar to Erikson’s
(1968) reference to the bodily self; the spiritual self, which is similar to Erikson’s
description of psychological needs; and the social self, which connects to Erikson’s
concept of the “communal culture.” Rangell (1994) also supported this view, stating that
identity “includes the biological and psychological” and is a result of the
“sociocultural” (pp. 35-36). Since these factors are inseparable in deﬁning identity, they
are an essential part of identity.

Thus far, psychologists have pointed out two major characteristics of identity.
First, identity is an overall stable understanding of oneself. Second, identity has a
“tripartite nature,” (Kroger, 2000). However, a third important piece to consider in
identity is its constant change. Erikson (1968) described the formation of identity as
“always changing and developing” (p. 23). Similarly, Hargraeves, Miell, and MacDonald

(2002) wrote,

The idea of the self as a kind of focus, or relatively unchanging core aspect of
individuals’ personalities, has given way to a much less static and more dynamic
view of the self as something which is constantly being reconstructed and
renegotiated according to the experiences, situations and other people with whom

we interact in everyday life” (p. 2).

Identity does not remain completely constant. Rather, as the tripartite factors affect an
individual, the identity goes through reaﬂirmations and adjustments.

At ﬁrst glance, identity appears to be a contradiction, in that it is a stable
construct, yet constantly changing. How is this contradiction possible? Grotevant,
Bosma, De Levita, and Graafsma (1994) addressed this through the analogy of a tree.
They described a tree through all four seasons, from spring blossoms and full summer
foliage to autumnal colors and, ﬁnally the bare tree of winter. However, despite all of the
changes that a tree undergoes, it is fundamentally still the same tree. Grotevant, Bosma,
De Levita, and Graafsma (1994) argued that despite the countless changes a person
undergoes throughout their lifespan, a person is still the same individual. They wrote
that, “[T]here is a paradox in the sense that something cannot change if it does not, in a
certain respect, remain the same. Otherwise it would be a sequence” (1994, p. 8). I

Thus, considering the three characteristics of identity that have been presented—
the required sense of sameness in order to understand oneself, the tripartite factors, and
the constant renewing and revising of one’s self understanding—a deﬁnition now seems

more tangible. While I agree with Graafsma (1994) that identity is a “fuzzy” term, for

10

the purpose of this study, a working deﬁnition is needed. Thus, the following deﬁnition
will be used:
Identity: the understanding that a person has over time of hirn- or herself as it is
reafﬁrmed in light of biological, cognitive, and social development and
reevaluated in the context of social interactions.
Musical Identity
Musical identity is equally difﬁcult to deﬁne. The book Musical Identities
(MacDonald, Hargreaves, & Miell, 2002), which includes essays pertaining to a variety
of issues related to musical identities, did not give a clear deﬁnition of musical identity.
Mills (2008) wrote that, “The term musical identity refers to the ways in which
individuals deﬁne themselves as musicians” (2008, p. 13). However, by combining
Mills’ deﬁnition of identity with the working deﬁnition of identity given above, a more
descriptive deﬁnition of the term emerges. Thus, the following deﬁnition will be used for
the purpose of this study:
Musical identity: the understanding that a person has over time of him or herself
as a musician, as it is reafﬁrmed in light of biological, cognitive, and social
development and reevaluated in the context of social interactions.
Musical Self-Concept
Mills (2008), in reviewing musical identity literature, observed that researchers
often used the term self-concept instead of identity. For example, Greenberg (1970)
stated that self-concept is how a person “sees himself and feels about himself” (p. 57),

which is similar to the deﬁnition of identity. However, Hargreaves, Miell, and

11

MacDonald (2002) shed some light on the distinctions between self-concept and self-
identity. They described self-concept as “different ways in which we see ourselves,” but
“Self-identity [their italics] is the overall view that we have of ourselves in which
different self-concepts are integrated” (2002, p. 7-8). Graafsma (1994) described self-
concept as “a composition of representations and images that one maintains about one’s
person” (p. 23). Similarly, Trusty and Oliva (1994) recognized that self-concept is
concerned with conscious views of oneself. Thus, musical self-concept is our conscious
identiﬁcations in musical roles, such as “1 am a singer,” “She is a composer,” or “He is a
professional cellist.” A musical identity, though, is an umbrella that covers not only our
musical self-concepts, but also our musical self-esteem and self-efﬁcacy (Mills, 2008).
Musical self—esteem

Self-esteem refers to the evaluations people make about themselves and their
abilities. Coopersmith (1967), in his seminal work concerning self-esteem, deﬁned the
term as “a personal [his italics] judgment of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes
the individual holds toward himself” (p. 5). This judgment occurs over a period of time,
rather than constantly changing as a result of a person’s mood. Also, Coopersmith (1967)
stated that self-esteem can vary according to different ﬁelds, but by combining the
feelings of self-esteem across those ﬁelds, one arrives at a composite self—esteem. Thus,
a separate self-esteem in music is possible.

Musical self-esteem refers to the perceptions a person feels about his or her
musical abilities and accomplishments (Trusty & Oliva, 1994). As Hargreaves, Miell,

and MacDonald (2002) wrote, “Self-esteem [their italics] is the evaluative component of

12

the self, and has both cognitive and emotional aspects: how worthy we think, and feel we
are” (p. 8). This indicates that musical self-esteem is the assessment of musical skills and
abilities. However, while musical identity refers to the comprehensive view of a person’s
understanding of him- or herself in music, musical self-esteem only refers to the
appraisals of a person’s musicianship.
Musical self-efﬁcacy

The theory of self-efﬁcacy is based on the belief that, unless people believe that
their actions will be successﬁrl in what they hope to occur, they will be less inclined to
act (Bandura, 1997). Bandura (1997) wrote that, “Perceived self-efficacy refers to beliefs
in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the course of action required to produce
given attainments” (p. 3). To apply Bandura’s theory to music, musical self-efﬁcacy is
the predictions a person makes about his or her musical skills and abilities. The
difference between musical self-esteem and musical self-efficacy is that, while musical
self-esteem is an appraisal of their worth as musicians or their feelings about themselves
as musicians, self-efﬁcacy is a belief in their capabilities to complete a musical task or
goal. Additionally, musical self-efficacy differs from musical identity because it is only
concerned with predictions in the future, but musical identity is an understanding of
oneself in the present, based on past experiences and future expectations.
Caveat about Musical Identities

Since music functions in different ways in people’s lives, music also has different
effects on people’s identities. Hargreaves, Miell, and MacDonald (2002) labeled ihe

difference with two categories: music in identities and identities in music. Music in

13

identities explained how music is used in overall identity development, rather than only
musical identity development. For example, music often plays a signiﬁcant role in
aspects of identity, such as gender and ethnicity. On the other hand, identities in music
referred to the different roles that a person takes on as a musician. Hargreaves, Miell, and
MacDonald (2002) argued that identities in music can be either generic or specific.
Generic categories include labels like “the composer, the performer, the improviser or the
teacher” (2002, p. 12). They cautioned, however, that these roles should not only be
limited to those as they exist in the Westem art music tradition, but rather, should relate to
all of the types, styles, and means through which one can experience music. Speciﬁc
roles can come from special and unique groups, such as a particular instrument or
musical genre. Although music can affect both an individual ’3 personal identity and
musical identity, the focus of this study is to speciﬁcally explore musical identities, or
how individuals develop identities in music. However, since musical identity is a part of
personal identity, they are both, to a certain extent, linked.
Summary

Identity and musical identities are made up of several key features, including an
understanding of one’s self over time, the inﬂuence of society, biology, and psychology,
and constant reevaluation of one’s self. A musical identity, in particular, is how a person
views him- or herself as a musician (Mills, 2008). Several different aspects of musical
identity include musical self-concept, musical self-esteem, and musical self-efﬁcacy,
which all exist under the larger term, musical identity. In this study, I will explore all of

these constructs as they are exhibited by children.

14

Developmental Theories

“The two words identity and development are a felicitous choice for an

interdisciplinary discussion: identity, how a thing, in this case a person is known;

development, how its course, the events and sequence of life cycle, determine and

affect that identity” (Rangell, 1994, p. 25).

Because identity is a multifaceted construct, exploring a variety of developmental
theories in addition to identity theories helps to provide a more thorough understanding
of how identity progresses throughout childhood. First, I will look at theories of identity
development through Erikson’s (1968) Theory of Ego Identity and Harter’s (1999)
notions concerning The Construction of the Self. In addition to identity theories, I will
discuss theories of cognitive and social development. I explore at Piaget’s (1995a)
Theory of Cognitive Development to gain insight into how children form concepts of
logic. Also, I will examine the nature of social relationships by looking at Byng-Hall’s
concept of family scripts (1995), Tajfel and Turner’s Social Identity Theory (1979), and
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (1979). Since the working deﬁnitions for
this study recognize that musical identities change over time through cognitive and social
inﬂuences, looking at these factors provides essential understanding of the context in
which children’s identities develop.

Identity Development

As described in the deﬁnition of terms, a person’s identity remains stable over

time, but cognitive and social developments act upon a person’s identity, causing it to

modify over time. In this study, I considered identity formation through both Erikson’s

(1968) identity stages, which outline that types of conﬂicts an individual undergoes

15

throughout his or her life, and Harter’s (1999) descriptions about how children construct
their sense of self, which detail speciﬁc characteristics unique to childhood development.

Erikson’s Theory of Ego Identity. As stated earlier, Erikson created his theory
of ego identity after working with World War II veterans. The ideas that stemmed from
this initial work led to a career that focused on the nature of identity. Erikson (1968)
based his theory on the epigenetic principle, which states that all development will
happen within a critical time and builds on previous experiences. As Erikson wrote,
“Personality, therefore, can be said to develop according to steps predetermined in the
human organism’s readiness to be driven toward, to be aware of, and to interact with a
widening radius of signiﬁcant individuals and institutions” (p. 93). Erikson, thus, uses
the epigenetic principle as a rationale in his stage approach to identity. His eight stages
occur sequentially throughout one’s lifetime and are listed as follows:

1. Trust vs. Mistrust

2. Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

3. Initiative vs. Guilt

4. Industry vs. Inferiority

5. Identity vs. Identity Confusion

6. Intimacy vs. Isolation

7. Generativity vs. Stagnation

8. Integrity vs. Despair (Erikson, 1968, p. 94).
Erikson viewed each stage as a conﬂict with two possibilities for resolution, a positive

outcome and a negative outcome.

16

In the initial stage, Trust vs. Mistrust, Erikson (1968) believed that a mother’s
“sensitive care of the baby’s individual needs and a ﬁrm sense of personal trustworthiness
within the trusted framework of their community’s life style” produced a sense of trust (p.
103). In other words, by trusting in the care and provisions of their parents, and
especially their mothers, infants will develop a sense of trust that allows them to trust
others and exhibit trustworthiness.

In the second stage, Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, which occurs in early
childhood, physical growth and language developments that occur during this stage
inﬂuence the child (Erikson, 1968). At this point in their development, children begin to

9, 6‘

make recognitions such as “mine, me,” and “I,” and start exerting their independence
(1968, p. 108). However, the conﬂict occurs when parents still need to provide guidance
for their children, but the children desire autonomy. If parents try too strongly to control,
then children may develop feelings of shame or doubt, instead of retaining their sense of
autonomy.

The third stage, Initiative vs. Guilt, typically happens just before age 4 (Erikson,
1968). In this stage, children “emerge with a sense of initiative as a basis for a realistic
sense of ambition and purpose” (p. 115). Children begin to understand different roles,
which are enhanced by their imaginations. If children cannot realize their initiative or
“sense of purpose,” then they may develop feelings of guilt because of the incongruence
between their fantasies and reality (1968, p. 122).

During the fourth stage, Industry vs. Inferiority, children feel strongly inﬂuenced

by the identiﬁcations of others. Erikson wrote that, at this age, “Children now also attach

l7

themselves to teachers and parents of other children, they want to watch and imitate
people representing occupations which they can grasp—ﬁremen and policemen,
gardeners, plumbers, and garbage men” (1968, p. 122). Yet, at the same time, children
begin to receive praise for “producing things,” they are experiencing a sense of industry
(Erikson, 1968, p. 123). However, if the child does not feel the drive to be a productive
worker, that child may develop a sense of inferiority, which will cause other difﬁculties
as the child tries to reconcile other conﬂicts in Erikson’s later stages.

Erikson (1968) recognized that, during adolescence, the individual struggles to
understand him- or herself, which is why the adolescent stage is labeled “Identity vs.
Identity Confusion.” Perhaps because of this label, much identity research in children
has focused on adolescents. However, the child is not without any sense of identity
before reaching that age. Rangell (1994) argued that identity is somewhat determined
shortly after birth: “Identity, a sense of unique individuality, can be said to start
developmentally in its rudimentary form with separation-individuation: with the
separation and individuation from the psychologically preexisting mother-child unit” (p.
30). Erikson (1968) agreed with this perspective, writing, “The process ‘begins’
somewhere in the ﬁrst true ‘meeting’ of mother and baby as two persons who can touch
and recognize each other, and it does not ‘end’ until a man’s power of mutual afﬁrmation
wanes” (p. 23). Identity formation, thus, is not something that begins with the onset of
adolescence. Rather, a person’s identity builds overtime, even from infancy.

This leads to the question: what occurs during identity development? Erikson

(1968) identiﬁed three steps to explain how the identity grows. First, a child introjects,

l8

or incorporates, another’s identity into their own, which allows him or her to feel safe.
Next, the child begins to create identifications, which are characteristics of “trustworthy
representatives” in his or her life. Finally, identity formation takes place when the
assimilation of identiﬁcations is no longer helpful, and the child begins to accommodate
his/her new self-understandings as a unique individual (Erikson, 1968, p. 159). Since the
children in this study were in fourth grade, around 9- to lO-years-old, they mostly likely
were in stage 4, Industry vs. Inferiority (Erikson, 1968), and indicated identiﬁcations they
made according to musical roles and as products of their industry of music-making.

Harter’s Development of Self-representations. In her book The Construction of
the Self: A Developmental Perspective, Harter (1999) described the self-representations
of children throughout childhood. Harter wanted to understand the self, which refers to
the conscious awareness of one’s body and mind. Harter’s deﬁnition of the self differed
from the working deﬁnition of identity in this study because, while she considered self-
awareness in the present, the working deﬁnition of this study considers identity as it
progresses over time. Although the concept of the self is slightly different than that of
identity, I found her descriptions of children’s developmental periods useful to consider,
because she more speciﬁcally detailed the perspectives that children have of themselves
in relationship to others. Harter (1999) described three periods of childhood:
toddlerhood, early to middle childhood, and middle to late childhood.

Toddlerhood. In toddlers (up to age 4), children describe themselves using
“concrete, observable characteristics” (Harter, 1999, p. 36), for example, “I have brown

eyes,” “I know my ABC’s,” or “I have three brothers.” However, toddlers cannot group

19

their descriptions into corresponding categories of good or bad, making their self-
descriptions seem random. In addition, toddlers are “unrealistically positive,” meaning
that they will assess their abilities as higher than what they can actually achieve.
Toddlers also demonstrate “all-or-nothing thinking,” in which they recognize something
as being always one way or another (p. 38). For example, a toddler may state, “I never
get upset!” In response to others, toddlers can recognize when their behaviors will illicit
praise from important others, including adults (Harter, 1999).

Early to Middle Childhood. During this phase from around 5 to 7 years, children
still tend to overrate their abilities, but they begin to be more speciﬁc in their
characteristics and begin to categorize their abilities into groups (Harter, 1999). Rather
than “all-or-nothing thinking,” children at this age tend to view characteristics in terms of
opposites. Harter (1999) described this phenomenon by saying,

As observed earlier, the child develops a rudimentary concept of the self as good

at a number of skills. Given that good is deﬁned as the opposite of bad, this

cognitive construction typically precludes the young child from being “bad,” at

least at the same time (p. 42).

Unfortunately, the reverse can also occur in which a child only sees him- or herself as
only “bad” because he or she is not always “good” (Harter, 1999). In the social
environment, children at this age start to recognize that others are making judgments
about them, and they use that understanding to guide their behavior into what they

believe is acceptable.

20

Middle to Late Childhood. From the ages of 8 to 11, children begin to categorize
their abilities according to separate domains, which are considered “higher-order
generalizations” (Harter, 1999, p. 49). For example, children might consider themselves
talented at sports, but untalented in music. Children in middle to late childhood also
begin increasing their comparisons with others in determining their self-representations,
and they begin to assign both positive and negative values to those characteristics. Thus,
their self-representations become more accurate. Socially, as children in middle to late
childhood make more comparisons, they begin to internalize others’ perspectives of both
their abilities in speciﬁc areas, but also their general self-worth (Harter, 1999).

Summary. According to Harter (1999), the self-representations that children
create for themselves change over time. The characteristics that children use to describe
themselves move from being only concrete, uncoordinated responses into responses of
both domain and global attributes that social inﬂuences affect. Children’s accuracy in
their self-representations changes from being overly positive to including more precise
positive and negative judgments. The children in this study included 9-year—old children,
which places them in Harter’s middle to late childhood group. Thus, the children in this
group assessed themselves both positively and negatively in their musicianship and also
considered the viewpoints of others in determining their musical self-worth.

Cognitive Development

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development inﬂuenced both psychology and

education by helping describe the ways that children think about the world around them.

As a result, one must discuss Piaget’s theory in a review of literature pertaining to

21

musical identity; how children think will inﬂuence how they think about themselves.
Piaget’s theory (1995a) has four stages: (1) sensorimotor period, (2) preoperational
thought; (3) concrete operations; and (4) formal operations. Before children can move
through each stage, they must ﬁnd a way of cognitively processing the new information
around them. This is accomplished through assimilation and accommodation (Piaget,
I995c). Assimilation occurs when children ﬁt new information into existing
understandings, called schemas. However, when children are unable to ﬁt the
information into an existing schema, they change their existing schema to ﬁt the new
information; this is called accommodation.

The ﬁrst stage of cognitive development, the Sensorimotor Period, occurs from
birth until around 2 years, when children begin acquiring language (Piaget, 1995a).
During this time, children learn about the world by experiencing it through their senses.
This stage includes six substages, in which children develop reﬂexes, habits,
coordination, and insight (Piaget, 1995b). One of the key features of this stage is object
constancy, in which children develop an understanding that objects can exist as separate
entities, even when they are out of the child’s sight (Piaget, 1995a).

Preoperational Thought, Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development, occurs
from around 2 to 7 years. With the onset of language skills, children begin to interpret
their actions as thoughts (Piaget, 1995a). Also, children begin to use “symbolic play,”
along with their increase in motor coordination, to interpret the world around them. This
stage is marked with a lack of conservation. For example, as Piaget’s famous water glass

example illustrates, when a child observes a liquid being poured from a large container

22

into smaller containers, he will perceive that the amount of liquid has changed. Children
are unable to understand that an amount does not change according to the size of the
container that holds it in the face of visual evidence to the contrary (Piaget, 1995a).

From around 7 to 11 years, children enter Concrete Operations. In this third stage
of cognitive development, Piaget stated that children begin to develop logical reasoning
(Piaget, 1995a). In addition to developing conservation, children begin to develop the
abilities to classify objects (classiﬁcation), sort objects (seriation), and recognize that
objects can revert back to an original form (reversibility) (Piaget, 1995a). For example,
through reversibility, a child can understand that 7 - 4 = 3, but that by adding 4 + 3, the 7
is again back in its original state. Also, a child can use these operations in combination in
order to answer a problem. However, children do not yet possess formal logic, because
they cannot generalize problem solving across all areas and in new problems. Instead,
their logic depends upon the task at hand.

The ﬁnal stage of cognitive development is Formal Operations, which occurs
from around ages 11 to 12 until ages 14 to 15 (Piaget, 1995a). In this stage, children can
make hypotheses and think abstractly, which allows them to consider both possible and
necessary factors. As a result of this new type of thinking, children are able to understand
mathematic concepts like proportions, as well as action and reaction (Piaget, 1995a).

To summarize children’s cognitive development according to Piaget (1995a),
children ﬁrst begin exploring the world around them by using their senses, but as they
develop greater language and motor skills, they begin to see that objects can exist outside

of themselves. Finally, as children develop more processes for organizing and classifying

23

information, they can begin to make logical predictions and abstract generalizations about
the world around them (Piaget, 1995a). Since I studied 9-year-olds in this study, the
participants mostly likely fell into the concrete operations stage. Thus, they could begin
making classiﬁcations about music and different kinds of musicing (Elliott, 1995).
Social Relationships in Identity Development

Children do not exist as isolated individuals; their identity forms in part through
their interactions with others. Figures who play more important roles in their lives have a
greater impact on their identity, including parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, and
friends. Also, the social groups and settings in which children interact play a role in
forming their identities. Three of the main theories relating to children’s identity
development include family scripts (Byng-Hall, 1995), social identity theory (Tajfel &
Turner, 1979), and an ecological model of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979),
and all three theories explore how social relationships affect developing identities.

Family Scripts. Throughout a child’s life, but speciﬁcally before age 5,
children’s primary social relationships occur within their families (Lamont, 2002).
Individuals within a family take on certain roles that provide the guidelines for their daily
interactions (Byng-Hall, 1995). The family script theory (Byng-Hall, 1995) attempted to
describe these roles using the metaphor of actors in a play. Just as actors follow a script
of predetermined actions and words, family members also participate in the daily drama
of everyday life by following expected roles, as determined by each family. Byng-Hall
(1995) deﬁned family scripts as “the family’s shared expectations of how family roles are

to be performed within various contexts” (p4). Yet, Byng-Hall (1995) recognized that

24

the script of everyday life is not always predictable, and, thus, he claimed that family
scripts are more like improvisatory theater, in that family members are not bound their
roles but apply them according to the context of each situation.

Family situations can last for varying lengths of time, but all have common
characteristics, including a context, a plot, and an outcome (Byng-Hall, 1995, p. 4). The
context refers to the way in which family members have contact with each other, the plot
describes the motivations of each family member, and the outcome shows the end result
of their interactions. These features outline the dramas that occur within families.
However, Byng-Hall pointed out that the family scripts serve to create a sense of
normalcy, so that the family can direct their attention to things that are out of the
ordinary. “Repetition becomes the background against which change is the foreground;
that which is new becomes the focus of attention” (Byng-Hall, 1995, p. 3).

Since children do not possess knowledge of their role within the family script
from birth, they must develop their roles over time, through the perspective of a player on
the “stage” and in the “audience” (Byng—Hall, 1995, p. 27). On the “stage,” children
learn their roles as they are agents of the action and also as they are acted upon by others.
At the same time, however, children act as “audience members” by observing others,
especially their parents and siblings. They begin to reﬂect on what others think of the
current action, attempting to empathize with others who are in the plot. Children also are
keenly aware of how other family members view the world, and take in others’
perceptions. In this way, “switching from one perspective to another, the child comes to

understand some of the motives behind interaction by seeing it from each person’s point

25

of view” (Byng-Hall, 1995, p. 27). In understanding others’ perspectives and in
developing speciﬁc roles, children begin to understand themselves as individuals, or, in
other words, they begin to develop their identities.

In terms of musical identities, children are greatly affected by the musical values
and beliefs that are passed down through the transgenerational pull of other family
members (Borthwick & Davidson, 2002). Parents and grandparents have both positive
and negative effects not only on children’s choice of instruments, practice habits, and
expectations for achievement (Borthwick & Davidson, 2002), but also on whether they
choose to pursue music professionally as adults (Davidson & Burland, 2006). Because
family scripts play such a strong role in children’s views of themselves and the world
around them, they inevitably inﬂuence their musical identities, as well.

Social Identity Theory. Outside of the family, other individuals within children’s
social spheres continue to inﬂuence their developing identities. Social groups provide
unique opportunities for children to develop aspects of their identity. Social groups, in
this context, may not only refer to an official membership in a group. Rather, they refer
to the psychological sense of belonging that one feels as a part of a group (Turner, 1982).
According to social identity theory, as part of belonging to a group, an individual begins
to assimilate attributes from the group as part of his or her own identity. Thus, through
group participation, a person considers beliefs and ideals, including perceived “value and
emotional significance,” as part of his or her own identity (Tajfel, 1982, p. 2).

While social identity, although not as overarching as an individual’s personal

identity, still constitutes an essential part of personal identity, it exists on a continuum

26

between the individual and the group (Tajfel, 1982). Social identities, or the intergroup
relationship, and personal identities, or the interpersonal, do not exist as absolutes, but
rather, on a spectrum of gradations, according to how a person ﬁts within a group (Taj fel,
1982, p. 4). This accounts for the strength of the bond a person feels among differing
groups. For example, one might feel strongly connected to his or her choir, but might feel
like a bit of an outsider on a soccer team.

Social identity affects both one’s self-concept and one’s self-esteem (Turner,
1982). The effect on self-concept occurs when an individual’s identiﬁcations become
internalized as an enduring aspect of the individual’s self-concept (Turner, 1982). These
identiﬁcations include, but are not limited to, “sex, nationality, political affiliation,
religion and so on” (Turner, 1982, p. 18). Thus, social identity can inﬂuence a variety of
self-concepts. At the same time, social identity also affects a person’s self-esteem. Social
identities are mainly a function of comparisons that individuals make between their group
(called the ingroup) and other groups (called outgroups) (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Not
only does an individual constantly make comparisons and identiﬁcations, but that
individual also tries to deﬁne those comparisons according to positive classiﬁcations
(T ajfel & Turner, 1979). When the self-esteem resulting from social comparisons is
negative, then the individual will try to change his or her social identity. As Tajfel and
Turner (1979) wrote, “When social identity is unsatisfactory, individuals will strive either
to leave their existing group and join some more positively distinct group and/or to make

their existing group more positively distinct” (p. 40). Therefore, an individual constantly

27

endeavors to positively affect his or her self-esteem and self-concept by participating in a
favored group.

In terms of musical identity, much of the research has focused on how
adolescents’ preferences for certain kinds of music support their perceptions of ingroup
values (Tarrant, North, & Hargreaves, 2002). In fact, Tarrant, et. al. (2001) showed that
music can be a more salient factor in determining the social identity of adolescents than
other activities, like watching movies, playing video games, and reading textbooks. For
example, a signiﬁcant number of the participants believed that outgroups, or groups other
than their own, enjoyed listening to country western, classical, and jazz music, which
they considered a negative activity (Tarrant, et. al., 2001). Out of the 24 activities that
were listed, those three musical activities were three of the top four that were viewed
negatively. Three other musical examples were listed, but scored higher. These results
indicate the importance that adolescents place music in their social identities. While the
aforementioned study concerns adolescents, I included the Social Identity Theory in this
review of literature because of the group interactions that occur as children participate as
members in a school music classroom and in music groups outside of school.

Ecological Model of Human Development. While family scripts demonstrate
the relationships within a family and social identity theory recognizes that participation in
groups inﬂuences individuals’ social identities, the ecological model of human
deve10pment attempts to describe individuals’ overall development as it is affected by
direct and indirect interactions with different social systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The

model, as deﬁned by Bronfenbrenner (1979) states that,

28

The ecology of human development involves the scientiﬁc study of the

progressive mutual accommodation between an active, growing human being and

the changing properties of the immediate settings in which the developing person
lives, as this process is affected by relations between these settings, and by the

larger contexts in which the settings are embedded (p. 21).

Bronfenbrenner (1979) also pointed out three reasons why his model is unique. First, he
stated that the individual is not a “tabula rasa,” or a blank slate, waiting to be ﬁlled.
Instead, the person is an active, powerful agent within his or her social sphere. Second,
the relationship between the individual and the environment is reciprocal; they mutually
inﬂuence each other. Finally, the environment includes more than the person’s direct
setting; it is made up of several interconnecting spheres that both directly and indirectly
affect the individual (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

The interconnecting spheres, or settings, as Bronfenbrenner (1979) referred to
them, consist of four levels: microsphere, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. The
microsystem is the direct settings in which a child interacts, such as the home, school, or
neighborhood (Lamont, 2002). It includes three elements, “activities, roles, and
interpersonal relations,” which are the “building blocks” of the microsystem
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 22). The mesosystem is made up of the connections between at
least two of the microsystems, creating a “system of microsystems” (p. 25). For example,
a school and its neighborhood may share the same name and have community leaders
active in both microsystems. The next level is the exosystem, and, although the child

does not directly take part here, the events at this level still affect him or her. An

29

example of an exosystem might be a parent’s place of employment or an older sibling’s
private music lessons. The largest level, the macrosystem, comprises all of the actual or
potential commonalities that exist between all of the lower systems. Lamont (2002, p.
42) created a ﬁgure to demonstrate the interplay between all of these different contexts
(Figure 1). Bronfenbrenner (1979) pointed out that the signiﬁcant difference between

this model and other models is that the microsystems speciﬁcally represent a person’s

    
     
  
 

Macrosystem

Exosystems

       
 

Mesosystems

Microsystem 7
.

Figure 1. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development

 
  

Nei ghbour-
hood

  

perceived ideas about the setting, rather than how the setting objectively occurs. In other
words, the model symbolizes how a person “experiences” the environment.

(Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

30

Musically, Lamont (2002) used this model to indicate how the school
environment plays a role in children’s musical identities. She wrote, “Children’s musical
identities should be based initially on external and observable activities and experiences,
and being a member of a group involved in music will be an important part of a musical
identity” (2002, p. 43). As children participate musically within a variety of settings,
their musical identities will be shaped as they interact reciprocally between and among
these settings.

Summary. The social world around children directly and indirectly affects their
identity development. Within their families, children assume certain roles, as though they
are actors dramatizing a script, as in Byng-Hall’s family script theory (1995). These
roles, created by the expectations of their parents, who were inﬂuenced by their parents,
can have effects on children’s musical identities in several ways, including the type of
instrument they play or their music preferences (Borthwick & Davidson, 2002). Outside
of the family, social groups affect children’s identity development. According to social
identity theory, children begin to take on the values and ideals of the group, accepting
them as part of their own individual identities (Taj fel & Turner, 1979). Music has been
found to be one of the most salient areas in which children begin to make group
judgments and identiﬁcations (Tarrant, et. al., 2001). Finally, children’s identities are
further affected by the way that social groups interact on multiple levels, as in
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development (1979). The perceptions that
a child has of his or her musical experiences as they occur in activities, roles, and

interpersonal relations, are also affected by the indirect relationships between multiple

31

settings and at multiple levels, which may not be apparent to the child (Lamont, 2002).
These three theories explore the child’s world from close, personal relationships through
their place within the larger culture. As children have opportunities to experience music,
they are affected by the direct and indirect effects of the social world. Thus, this social

development plays an integral part of their musical identity development.

Development of Musical Meaning

Although few theories exist to describe children’s musical identities, researchers
have found that music holds an important place in their lives (Blacking, 1967; Campbell,
1998; Davis, 2009; Koops, 2006; Papazahariou, 2008; Randles, 2009). These works,
although not speciﬁcally about identity, provide insight into how children use and value
music. Three of these studies considered the meaning of music held by children in
countries around the world, including South Africa (Blacking, 1967), The Gambia
(Koops, 2006), and Cyprus (Papazahariou, 2008). One of the studies looked at the
meaning children ascribed to composing (Randles, 2009), and another considered the
meaning of music held by middle school general music students (Davis, 2009). Although
these studies encompassed a range of ethnic backgrounds, ages, and types of music
making, they shared cormnon ideas in their results that relate to the development of
musical identity, including (1) children make music their own music (Blacking, 1967;
Campbell, 1998; Koops, 2006); (2) children ascribe meaning to their music making
(Campbell, 1998; Davis, 2009; Koops, 2006; Papazahariou, 2008; Randles, 2009); (3)
children make music in the context of social interactions (Blacking, 1956; Campbell,
1998; Davis, 2009; Koops, 2006); and (4) children exert agency and control over their

32

music making (Blacking, 1967; Davis, 2009; Koops, 2006; Papazahariou, 2008; Randles,

2009)

Children Make Their Own Music

Blacking (1956), who studied children’s music of the Venda people of South
Africa found that the Venda children’s music differed so greatly from the music of adults
that he believed it worthy of its own study. As he wrote, “I was also puzzled by the
apparent lack of relationship between the styles of the children’s songs and other Venda
music” (Blacking, 1967, p. 28). Koops (2006) described how children in The Gambia
participated in making music in a variety of contexts, including “at school, at home, and
in the community” (p. 63), and that children often learned music informally by watching
others and through participating themselves. Randles’ (2009) study focused speciﬁcally
on children whose compositions were selected for an honors composition concert and
described the children’s perceptions of their creativity. In explaining where they liked to
compose, many stated comments like, “[A]nywhere I’m alone without major distraction,”
which demonstrates how these young composers recognized the independence in their
music making (Randles, 2009, p. 47). Campbell (1998) performed ﬁeld observations of
American children’s musical experiences in a variety of contexts, such as the playground,
a school bus, and a toy store. She discovered that children experienced music in a variety
of ways: they sang songs and chant chants, they performed complicated hand-clapping
songs, they moved their bodies rhythmically as they listened to music, they arranged

songs into parodies ﬁlled with humor, and they created their own music that expressed

33

their mood. Children naturally included music in many ways and in many places,
forming a soundtrack of their play. However, Campbell also found that children
recognized that their family members, especially parents, were critical inﬂuences in the
formation of both positive and negative ideas about music. For the children in all of
these studies, they made music either alone or with other children, but the music they
made was uniquely their own.
Children Ascribe Meaning to Their Music Making

Children believe that music is an important part of their lives and caniexpress
their feelings about music. Davis (2009) asserted that middle school general music
students view music class as a “meaningful experience” (p. 75), and she divided their
ascribed meanings into four categories, including, “vocational,” “academic,”
“belongingness,” and “agency” (p. 73). Campbell (1998) found that children could
speciﬁcally describe what music meant to them, “as emotional expression, entertainment
or communication, or for social and religious purposes” (p. 161). Although not
speciﬁcally describing their meaning of music, Koops (2006) found that children greatly
valued the sense of enjoyment that was felt through musical participation. She wrote: “I
observed children’s enjoyment on their faces, in their voices, and through their body
language during musical play” (Koops, 2006, p. 129). Papazahariou (2008), through her
case study of a gifted music in Cyprus, described the perceived meaning that her case,
Leri (pseudonym) felt about his music. As Leri stated in an interview, “I like to
participate in as many music activities as I can; I need my life to be full of music” (p.

94). Leri explained how he found time to compose every day, and his classmates

34

described how he thought about music constantly, providing evidence to the strong
importance of music in his life (Papazahariou, 2008). Similarly, one of the composers in
Randles’ (2009) study stated the importance of music in his or her life: “It’s a meaningful
way of expressing myself. I have always had a strong connection with music and love it
dearly. It is a part of me and I enjoy having the freedom to create of myself something
beautiful” (p. 46). Children value and recognize music as an important part of their lives,
but research needs to explore how musical meaning plays a role in their developing

musical identities.
Children Make Music in the Context of Social Interactions

Children often make music as a part of social interactions. Campbell (1998)
described the music that children made together as they played on the bus and the
playground. Davis (2009) found that, among the 726 middle school students surveyed in
her study, the concept of belongingness ranked as the third highest factor contributing to
students’ perceptions of musical meaning. Davis also found that the students in this age
group prioritized peer relationships in their music making. Blacking (1956) found that
children made music together by teaching each other more challenging songs before the
simpler ones, and he identiﬁed children as a part of their own social group and in a
“social context” (p. 29). Similarly, Koops (2006) found that children were a part of their
own social group and that music helped deﬁne their roles within society:

[M]usic helps children to better understand and afﬁrm their place in their family,

community, and school; to acquire the knowledge necessary for participation in

their culture, from religious traditions to courting rituals; and to join in an

35

enjoyable and prevalent part of cultural expression: music making” (Koops, 2006,

p. 128).

In recognizing that children could “understand and afﬁrm their place,” Koops indicated
that the children have an identity that is created through music.
Children Exert Control and Agency over their Music Making

All ﬁve of the studies found that children wanted to demonstrate control over their
music making. Davis (2009) found that agency was the fourth-ranked factor contributing
to the perceived meaning of middle school students and postulated that musical agency
may help students’ self-esteem. Koops (2006) found that children in the Gambia “exert
agency” (p. 63) or have a direct inﬂuence over the music that they make. The children
exhibited this agency more strongly in activities they controlled, and less strongly in
events led by adults, such as those in the classroom. Blacking (1967) wrote that,
although the Venda children were capable of performing adult music, they only choose to
perform their own music.

In many of these studies, the children’s desire for control could be heard in the
voices of the children themselves. As a child in Campbell’s (1998) study proclaimed,
“Nobody knows my music but me” (p. 211). In Randles’ (2009) study, a child shared, “I
like composing because I like to create my own harmonies and melodies and I love
music” (p. 46). Leri, the boy in Papazahariou’s (2008) case study shared that, in his
music, he tried to “play it with a touch of Leri,” which he explained to mean that he likes
“to put things that I can ﬁnd [into my arrangements] and the original song does not have

them” (Papazahariou, 2008, p. 73). For Leri, although he made music in many different

36

ways, composing and arranging music allowed him to express himself and demonstrate
the most control over his music-making, making it his most satisfying musical
experience.
Relationship to Musical Identities

While the studies described above do not speciﬁcally focus on musical identity,
they have implications for this study. First, all of the studies (Blacking, 1967; Campbell,
1998; Davis, 2009; Koops, 2006; Papazahariou, 2008; Randles, 2009) recognized that
children made their music separate from adults and valued the meaning of music in their
own lives. The children also made music as they interacted with others, and they enjoyed
exerting control over their musical choices. Although children’s musical identities were
not a speciﬁc research focus in these studies, the descriptions and words of the children
indicated that children do have musical identities. Many of the quotes and descriptions
demonstrated examples that relate to the three musical identity constructs: musical self-
concept, musical self-esteem, and musical self-efﬁcacy. For example, quotes like, “They
all know me as the boy who is really good at music” (Papazahariou, 2008, p. 105), and
“The very best things about composing is that I can show people who I am without
talking to them” (Randles, 2009, p. 50), indicate that children have an understanding of
their musical self-concepts. Statements like, “I feel proud of myself” (Randles, 2009, p.
50), and “I believe they admire me, (Papazahariou, 2008, p. 105)” reﬂect positive
reﬂections of children’s musical self-esteem. Finally, statements like, “We all dream
about making a music video” (Campbell, 1998, p. 216), and “I am in the 6th grade and

my dream is to become a successful musician when I group up” (Papazahariou, 2008, p.

37

105), suggest that children can have a sense of musical self-efﬁcacy. However, more
research is needed in focusing speciﬁcally on elementary-aged children’s musical
identities as they develop in different contexts, both in school and at home, and in many

types of musicing.

Need for the Study

Children’s cognitive development and social developments play an important role
in the development of their identities. While research has shown that music has value
and meaning in children’s lives (Blacking, 1967; Campbell, 1998; Davis, 2009; Koops,
2006; Papazahariou, 2008; Randles, 2009), these studies did not describe the way that
music speciﬁcally affected children’s musical identities. Also, although many studies
have investigated aspects of musical identity, including self-concept (Bragg, 1980; Ford,
1982; Lamont, 2002), self-esteem (Bridges, 1996; Greenberg, 1970; Jenlink, 1993; Nolin
& VanderArk, 1977; Zimmerman, 2000), and self-efﬁcacy (Randles, 2006), only two
studies have looked holistically at musical identity (Burland & Davidson, 2002; Mills,
2008). However, the studies exploring musical identity described the musical identities
of adolescents and adults. There seems to be a need to describe children’s musical
identities, including their musical self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efﬁcacy, as they are
inﬂuenced by experiences in different locations, such as school and at home; by different
individuals, such as their parents and music teachers; and through a variety of musical
experiences, such as performing, composing, listening, and improvising. Thus, by better

understanding how these different experiences affect children’s musical identities, music

38

educators can ﬁnd ways to stimulate positive musical identity formation in their
classrooms, as well as to inform ways that parents and families can encourage children’s

musical identities at home.

Purpose

With the goal of improving elementary music education, the purpose of this study
is to describe the nature of four fourth-grade children’s musical identities and the role that

various musical experiences play in the development of their musical identities.

Problems

1. What are the characteristics of four fourth-grade children’s developing musical
identities?

a. How is musical self-concept exhibited in four fourth-grade children?

b. How is musical self-esteem exhibited in four fourth-grade children?

c. How is musical self-efﬁcacy exhibited in four fourth-grade children?
2. How does participation in various musical experiences in an elementary general music
class play a role in four fourth-grade children’s developing musical identities?
3. How do experiences outside of the music classroom play a role in four fourth-grade

children’s developing musical identities?

39

CHAPTER 2: RELATED RESEARCH

Children’s musical identities do not exist independently. Rather, children build
their musical identities on their psychological understanding of themselves as musicians
within the social system in which they develop these ideas. Connell (1990) described this
relationship as a “dialectical view.” He wrote that, “These appraisals of self in relation to
particular activities are understood as the product of a dialectical relation between
individual psychological needs at one pole and patterns of social relationships and
contingencies at the other” (Connell, 1990, p. 62). This concept has been applied to
music education research through a model of the motivated music student (Austin,
Renwick, & McPherson, 2006). Using Connell’s work as a basis, Austin, Renwick, and
McPherson (2006) created a systems proﬁle that demonstrates the relationship between a

person’s self system, and their social system, actions, and outcomes (Figure 2).

 

 

Figure 2. Model of motivation.

40

Austin, Renwick and McPherson (2006) wanted to illuminate how motivation is a
multifaceted construct. Each component serves both to affect and to be affected by the
other components. The same appears to be true in the construction of a musical identity.
Keeping in mind the deﬁnition of musical identity from the review of literature (the
understanding that a person has over time of him or herself as a musician, as it is
reafﬁrmed in light of biological, cognitive, and social development and reevaluated in the
context of social interactions), I will use Austin, Renwick, and McPherson’s (2006)
model of the motivated student to explore research concerning the relationships between
three of the four components. Because the goal of this research is to explore their
musical identities, a discussion of children’s outcomes, which includes their musical
knowledge, performance and test scores (Austin, Renwick, & McPherson, 2006) is not
relevant here. Instead, this review of related research will explore the relationship
between children’s actions, social systems and their musical identities. However, rather
than placing equal focus on each component, extra consideration will be given,

speciﬁcally, to how musical identity is inﬂuenced by the other components of the model.

Children’s Actions

Within an elementary music class, children participate in music through a variety
of musical actions. Elliott (1995) describes this as musicing, or making music. Children
do not make merely make music as a product; rather, children make music an active
experience. In Austin, Renwick, and McPherson’s (2006) model for the motivated '

student, they described actions as “motivated behaviours [sic] including learning

41

investment and regulation” (p. 213). In other words, children’s actions demonstrate their
level of interest. However, since I focused this study on the musical identities of four
children, actions do not only demonstrate motivation: they also demonstrate aspects of
children’s musical identities. Therefore, for the context of this study, I considered the
types of musical activities through which children have opportunities to act.

Many of the studies concerning identity have looked at students in large ensemble
settings, including bands (Austin, 1988; Randles, 2006; Zimmerman, 2000) and
community choirs (Bridges, 1996; Mills, 2008). In large ensembles, students typically
spend the majority of time performing, or, in other words, singing or playing an
instrument. However, in an elementary music class, the music teacher tends to provide a
greater variety of musical experiences, including activities in performing, improvising,
composing, and listening. Only one study appears to have examined elementary students
in all four of these kinds of musicing: Wiggins’ (1993) study of the nature of children’s
learning in an elementary music class.

In her study, Wiggins (1993) explored children’s learning holistically in all four
types of activities in order to give insights into how children demonstrate their cognitive
processes and understandings. Wiggins (1993) determined that, in performing and
listening to music, children processed music as a part of a whole, but in composing,
children processed music as a “pattern that moved from whole to part and back to
whole” (p. 267). By experiencing music through a variety of activities, children begin to
construct an understanding of their musical identities, as Lamont (2002) explained earlier

in describing how children create their musical identities through activities that occur

42

within their social spheres. Thus, an important part of children’s developing musical
identities include active experiences through which they can reﬂect on their own abilities

and enjoyment.

Children’s Social Systems

Children’s social systems include their parents and teachers, as well as other
important ﬁgures in their lives, including siblings and grandparents (Austin, Renwick,
&McPherson, 2006). Researchers in music education have explored children’s musical
identities both as they occur within a family script (Byng-Hall, 1995) and as they are
inﬂuenced by social identity theory (Taj fel & Turner, 1979).

Borthwick and Davidson (2002) examined the musical identity of 27 children
from 12 families through the concept of family scripts (Byng-Hall, 1995). The children
had speciﬁc musical roles that they were expected to fulﬁll within their family’s unique
script, which was comprised of “the family’s attitudes, taboos, expectations, myths,
secrets, legacies and loaded issues” (Borthwick & Davidson, 2002, p. 60). Borthwick
and Davidson independently interviewed the children, aged 6 to 18, as well as their
parents, in order to discover how their musical development and preferences were similar
or different. While all of the families had different musical backgrounds and represented
differing socioeconomic levels, they all participated in traditional classical music
(Borthwick & Davidson, 2002).

Parents’ inﬂuences developed out of their own relationships with their parents and

older family ﬁgures from their youth. Some of the parents wanted to encourage their

43

children as they had once been encouraged, but some parents wanted to provide positive
musical experiences to counterbalance the negative ones they had encountered when they
were younger. Also, in families with two children, the siblings often played different
roles within the family script, with one child being viewed as more musical than the
other. However, this scenario did not have the same outcomes in the participating
families with three children. Rather, in those families, the comparisons parents made
between siblings were not as strong (Borthwick & Davidson, 2002).

In some families, one parent and one child appeared to have “musician
identiﬁcations” (Borthwick & Davidson, 2002, p. 67), in which the musical relationship
was stronger between one of the parents and one of the children. This occurred
especially in families in which one of the parents was an active musician or played the
same instrument as the child. While the strength of their relationship had positive effects
between the two directly involved, it also appeared to have negative effects on the parents
and siblings who were excluded from this relationship (Borthwick & Davidson, 2002).

Finally, in addition to parents’ inﬂuence on the musical identity of their children,
the children often affected their parents’ and siblings’ musical identities. In some cases,
as their child began achieving success on their instrument and began developing an
independent musical identity, the parents felt encouraged to take lessons themselves. In
other cases, the children’s listening tastes affected the parents. The parents began to
adopt a liking for similar musical artists and genres as their children (Borthwick &

Davidson, 2002).

44

While this study is unique in the way it demonstrated the inﬂuence of families in
children’s musical identities, it has two limitations. First, the families were selected
through what Borthwick and Davidson (2002) called a “snowballing technique” (p. 61),
in which families recommended other families to participate in the study. Because all of
the families were connected, they may have had similarities that may have inﬂuenced the
results. Second, all of the families had at least one child who played instrumental,
classical music. Thus, Borthwick and Davidson only considered children’s musical
identities through the perspective of a performing instrumentalist. They did not consider
the children’s musical identities through other activities, like composing or improvising,
or in other genres, like folk or popular music. However, while Borthwick and Davidson
(2002) demonstrated through the family scripts perspective (Byng-Hall, 1995) that
children’s musical identities were strongly inﬂuenced by their families, they did not
attempt to explore the interactions between friends and teachers within a school setting.
The goal of this study is to explore musical identities as they occur within music

classrooms and in outside social settings.

Musical Identities

In the process model of motivation, Austin, Renwick, and McPherson (2006)
described the self system as the “perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, [and] emotions” that a
person feels (p. 213). Since the purpose of this study is to explore identities, rather than
self systems, I explored the interactions between the musical identity and the social.

system, outcomes, and actions of individuals. The notion of identity gives researchers a

45

broader, more holistic perspective through which these interactions can be viewed
(Hargreaves, Miell, & MacDonald, 2002). Hargreaves, Miell, and MacDonald (2002)
wrote that, “The idea of the self as a kind of focus, or relatively unchanging core aspect
of individuals’ personalities has given way to a much less static and more dynamic view
of the self...” (p. 2). Thus, the perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that a person
feels as part of his or her self system will be considered, but only as they inﬂuence an
individual’s musical identity, which includes his or her musical self-concept, self-esteem,
and self-efﬁcacy. More speciﬁcally, musical identity has been studied with many
different focuses and using many different methods. In comparing previous research for
this study, two categories emerged: studies that focused on speciﬁc identity constructs
and studies that focused holistically on musical identity. By looking at these two
categories, I hope to illustrate the need for the design of this current study.
Research of Musical Identity Constructs

As established in Chapter One, identity consists of three main constructs,
including self-concept, or personal identiﬁcations (Hargreaves, Miell, & MacDonald,
2002; Graafsma, 1994; Trusty & Oliva, 1994); self-esteem, or the positive and negative
feelings about oneself (Coopersmith, 1967; Hargreaves, Miell, & MacDonald, 2002;
Trusty & Oliva, 1994); and self-efﬁcacy, or the predictions about one’s abilities
(Bandura, 1997). While studies have been undertaken to show the relationship between
music each of these constructs, the majority of studies have focused on self-concept and

self-esteem.

46

Self-concept. Researchers have explored self-concept to demonstrate how it
affects both personal identity and musical identities. Bragg (1980) studied how students’
participation in creating a musical in their general ﬁfth grade classrooms affected their
self-concept and also self-esteem. However, rather than describing this as a purely
musical activity, Bragg (1980) chose to call the activity of creating a musical “creative
enrichment” (p. 7), because students participated in all aspects of the production,
including developing scripts and constructing sets. In his experiment, two ﬁfth grade
classrooms created a musical, while the other two classrooms did not. After a pre-test
and posttest of the Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale, Bragg found a positive
correlation between participation in the classroom musical and an increase in students’
self-concept. Bragg (1980) found similar correlations between music and self-esteem
using the Coopersmith Self—Esteem Inventory. However, these tests measured students’
personal self-concept and self-esteem, rather than their musical self-concept and self-
esteem.

Within the music classroom, Hall (2007), in her study concerning second graders’
compositional processes, described how children’s interactions with each other were
affected by their gender, a type of self-concept. In particular, she described how two boys
had criticized another boy for sounding “girlish” when using his singing voice (Hall,
2007, p. 171). Although not speciﬁcally studying identity, Hall’s example demonstrates
that children as young as seven are aware of aspects of their self-concept. Also within the
music classroom, researchers have studied the relationship between self-concept, attitude,

and music. Ford (1982) found that self-concept did not provide a statistically signiﬁcant

47

factor in students’ overall music achievement. However, Austin (1988) found that
elementary band students who participated in a music contest experienced an increased
sense of self-concept, as measured by the Self-Concept in Music (SCIM) scale.

More recently, Lamont (2002) studied the self-concept of children from ages 5 to
16. While Lamont described her study as examining the musical identities of children,
because the participants only describe their identiﬁcations in music, I am including it in
this section about the construct of self-concept. Originally, Lamont (2002) intended to
explore the sensitivity of listeners, and asked primary and secondary students in the
United Kingdom two questions to ﬁnd out about their previous musical experiences: “1.)
Do you have music lessons?,” and “2.) Do you play a musical instrument” (p.47).
Although Lamont intended her questions to ﬁnd out facts about her participants, she soon
discovered that the children were not providing facts, but instead, their self—perceptions.

Lamont (2002) discovered three types of responses from the participants. First,
30 percent of the children were labeled as “trained musicians,” because they declared that
they both played a musical instrument and took music lessons, indicating a stronger sense
of musical identity. Second, 22 percent of the children studied stated that they played an
instrument but did not take lessons. Lamont labeled this group as “playing musicians,”
and conjectured that children in this group may have felt a stronger sense of self-concept
as a result of participating in music class than those labeled “non-musicians.” Finally,
representing the largest group from the study, 48 percent of the participants were labeled
as “non-musicians,” because they stated that they did not play an instrument and did not

have lessons. However, Lamont found this to be in contrast to the kinds of musical

48

activities these children actually did, because all of these children participated in school
music, in which playing an instrument and receiving instruction on that instrument was a
common activity (Lamont, 2002).

Lamont (2002) divided the results according to age, into the results of younger
children (5 to 11 years) and older children (11 to 16 years). She found that, while the
younger children showed a greater percentage who described themselves as “non-
musicians” than the older students, they also yielded a higher percentage of “playing
musicians.” Lamont (2002) summarized the ﬁndings, stating, “In broad terms, this shows
how children’s musical identities change over time: although they have less formal
musical experience, more of the younger children seem to have more positive musical
identities than the older children” (p. 48). More of the younger children readily
recognized that, even though they did not have the skills as other trained musicians, they
were still musicians. While Lamont (2002) conceded that this might be due to children’s
propensity to overestimate their skills, she argued that it is more likely that the older
children may have been judging their musical identities more strongly through
comparisons with others. The younger children, on the other hand, may have been less
aware of the abilities of others, and thus, they did not make as many comparisons with
other children, a ﬁnding that corresponds with Harter’s (1999) theories concerning
children’s development of the self. However, Lamont’s study only considered children’s
self-concepts as a result of questions about identiﬁcations in playing instruments. The
current study focused on children’s musical identities, not just their self-concepts, as a

result of participating in a variety of musical activities.

49

Self-esteem. The majority of research pertaining to self-esteem in music
education relates to individuals’ personal identities, rather than their musical identities.
Zimmerman (2000) did not ﬁnd a statistically signiﬁcant correlation between
participation in elementary school band and the self-esteem of at-risk students. She
attributed this to several factors, some of which included the lack of creative activities in
beginning band activities, the lack of cultural relevance the participants felt about the
song selections, and a lack of parental involvement. Similarly, Nolin and VanderArk
(1977) suggested that parental involvement may have played a factor in music students
who received higher scores on Coopersmith’s Self-Esteem Inventory (SE1) than other
students. Thus, comparing Zirnmerrnan’s results to Nolin and VanderArk’s suggests that
parental involvement may play a role in children’s self-esteem.

Two qualitative studies have also explored self-esteem in music. First, Bridges
(1996) performed a case study of the Alabama Boychoir, looking speciﬁcally at the
participants’ self-esteem as fostered by participating in a choir with high expectations.
Bridges (1996) found that, as a result of participating in the Alabama Boychoir, the
participants had an increase in their “feelings of competence and self-worth” (p. 188).
The participants attributed their achievement to their hard work, as a group and
individually. Bridges described the participants’ increase in self-esteem as being a result
of the environment established by the choir director (1996).

Jenlink (1993) described the characteristics of the learning environment
established by a school in its attempts to raise students’ self-esteem, the effects of music

integration into classroom subjects, and the effects of participating in a music group on

50

students’ self-esteem. Jenlink found that music had the potential to not only improve
students’ self-esteem, but also to serve as a link between the community and the school.
Further, Jenlink (1993) concluded that “administrators, teachers, and counselors need
better training for self-esteem enhancement for children” (p. 96).

Greenberg’s (1970) study “Music Achievement and the Self-Concept” deﬁned
self-concept as “the ways in which an individual characteristically sees himself and feels
about himself” (p. 57). However, as Mills (2008) identiﬁed, this more closely resembles
the deﬁnition of self-esteem. Thus, I am considering it as an example of research relating
to that identity construct. Greenberg, in performing multiple case studies of ten out—of-
tune elementary singers, found that these singers did not have positive feelings about
themselves, and he conjectured that their poor musical self-esteem was an important
factor in their untuned singing.

Of the studies relating to music and self-esteem, the researchers focused on how
music affected students’ personal identities, suggesting that self-esteem might be a
justiﬁcation for including music in the curriculum. However, only Greenberg (1970)
explored how participation in music affects students’ musical self-esteem, which is one of
the research problems of this study. Greenberg’s study only considered children’s
musical self-esteem as a result of singing, and did not consider other types of musical
activities, which is one of the goals of this study.

Self-efﬁcacy. Only one study has explored self-efficacy in music education:
Randles’ (2006) study concerning the relationship between music self-efﬁcacy and high

school instrumentalists’ compositional experiences. Although the study focused on self-

51

efﬁcacy, Randles used the SEMA (Self Esteem of Music Ability) test to determine his
results. In SEMA, subjects responded to statements about “self-perception of musical
ability, support or recognition from others, and their personal interest or desire” rating
how strongly they agreed or disagreed with a given statement (Randles, 2006, p. 21).
The students answered a questionnaire developed by Randles to determine their level of
musical involvement, composition experience, listening preference, and feelings of
satisfaction about participating in band. Randles administered SEMA and the
questionnaire before and after treatment. The treatment consisted of composition
experiences provided in school for twelve weeks. Randles’ (2006) ﬁndings included,
“positive relationships between music self-efﬁcacy and composition experiences,
satisfaction with school music environment, [and] feelings of personal contribution to
learning within the school music environment...” (p. 39). Randles also found that music
self-efficacy occurred as a stable construct throughout the duration of the study. Randles’
study did not investigate how musical self-efﬁcacy played a role in students’ overall
musical identity. In addition, no studies have considered musical self-efficacy in
elementary-aged students, which is the focus of this study.

Summary. Researchers focusing on the constructs of musical identity have
concentrated primarily on the areas of musical self-concept (Austin, 1988; Bragg, 1980;
Ford, 1982; Hall, 2007; Lamont, 2002) and musical self-esteem (Bridges, 1996;
Greenberg, 1970; Jenlink, 1993; Nolin & VanderArk, 1977; Zimmerman, 2000). Fewer
studies have explored the concept of musical self-efﬁcacy (Randles, 2006). In'musical

self-concept, Lamont (2002) found that younger children identiﬁed themselves more

52

often as “playing musicians” than older children, but the children only made these
identiﬁcations according to whether they played instruments and did not ask about any
other types of musical activities, such as singing, composing, or improvising. Similarly,
Greenberg (1970) found a connection between children’s musical self-esteem and their
singing achievement, but did not consider how children’s musical self-esteem was
impacted by other types of musical activities. Finally, Randles (2006) explored how high
school instrumentalists’ compositional experiences affected their musical self-efficacy.
However, Randles did not consider how musical self-efficacy might change through other
types of musical activities. These studies demonstrate that different constructs of musical
identity are exhibited by children in elementary school through high school, but previous
research focused on only one type of musical activity at a time. The goal of this study is
to describe these three musical identity constructs as they occur in the multiple ways that
children experience music: in listening, performing, composing, and improvising.
Additionally, the goal of this study is not to study these constructs individually, but to see
how each of them plays a role in elementary students’ developing musical identities.
Research in Musical Identity

While many studies have investigated the different constructs of identity, only two
studies have looked at explored musical identities holistically: Burland and Davidson’s
(2002) study of adult musicians and Mills’ (2008) study of adolescents in a community
children’s choir. Although these studies included participants that were at different ages

and developmental stages than the children in this study, I chose to include them in this

53

review of related research because they provide a more complete description of musical
identity, and, thus, will serve as models for the current study.

Burland and Davidson (2002) interviewed 20 participants from an earlier study of
music identity. This study was then used as the basis for a chapter about musical
identities written by Davidson and Burland (2006). As children, the participants had
achieved high musical success. As adults, ten of these individuals had gone on to pursue
music as professional performers, and ten had chosen to follow other career goals.
Burland and Davidson (2002) wanted to gain insight into the changes that had occurred
throughout the participants’ adolescence that had inﬂuenced their decision whether to
follow music.

Analysis showed that three factors determined a person’s future desire to become
professional musicians. These three factors, which are outlined in a tripartite model of
professional music performer success, include “(1) [sic] methods for coping with stresses
related to music and performing, (2) positive experiences with others and within
institutions, and (3) music as a determinant of self-concept” (Davidson & Burland, 2006,
p. 480). If an individual did not possess one of these three factors in their self-
perceptions, then he or she did not often succeed in becoming a professional musician.
Additionally, Davidson and Burland referenced a concept posited by Hall (1969)
concerning “an idol in touching distance” (Davidson & Burland, 2006, p. 477). Hall’s
idea is that a child needs a model from peers to provide reasonable goals for achievement,
rather than looking to highly trained adults. While Davidson and Burland performed this

study with adults, the participants based their reﬂections on experiences they had

54

undergone as both children and adolescents. Thus, Davidson and Burland demonstrated
that children’s musical experiences contributed to the development of their musical
identities. However, more research is needed to describe musical identities of children as
they are developing, rather than as adult recollections of their childhood.

The other study to consider musical identity holistically is Mills’ (2008) study
concerning the effects of participation in a children’s community choir on their identities.
In this study, Mills explored the ways in which self-concept, self-esteem, and self-
efficacy affected adolescents’ personal identities and musical identities. She also
explored the ways in which the participants’ interactions with other choir members and
the choir director affected their personal and musical identities. Mills used ethnographic
methods to describe the “lived experience” of the participants (p. 124). This allowed her
to consider their musical identities as a dynamic entity and to consider the phenomenon
of identity both holistically and naturalistically in the lives of her participants. Mills
collected data by taking descriptive ﬁeldnotes, interviewing participants individually and
in focus groups, having participants ﬁll out a written questionnaire, and keeping a journal
of events.

The results revealed that the adolescents’ participation in a community children’s
choir had affected both their personal identities and their musical identities. In their
personal identities, the adolescents showed changes in all three identity constructs. In
their sense of self-concept, the adolescents had an increase in self-discipline, conﬁdence,
and commitment. Their self-esteem was supported through group mentoring that made

them feel as though choir was a “safe place” (Mills, 2008, p. 287). Their self-efﬁcacy

55

increased as they became more proﬁcient at learning difficult choir repertoire. At the
same time, their musical identities showed similar developments. In terms of their
musical self-concept, the adolescents recognized that the high expectations set by the
director helped them to understand and develop more advanced musical skills and singing
techniques. Additionally, the participants’ sense of musical self-esteem grew by
participating in such a high-quality, successful ensemble. Mills (2008) did not
differentiate their musical self-efficacy as a separate factor of their musical identities,
instead choosing to view self-efﬁcacy as a construct only found in personal identity.
However, Mills also found that, while the adolescents recognized their role as
musicians, they could not understand how choir inﬂuenced their musicianship. She wrote
that,
The choristers in this study have some understanding of what it means to be a
musician, and they routinely demonstrate many different musical skills in choir.
From their discussion, it is obvious that much of their musical ability comes
directly from their involvement in choir. Yet, when asked how choir affects their
musicianship, they struggle to ﬁnd a response, ultimately reverting to a discussion
of how they do not learn much about music in choir because they learned it
(referring to music notation) in band or in private lessons (Mills, 2008, p.
304-305).
The participants recognized their abilities and their knowledge of musical skills, but they
could not translate this into an understanding of their musicianship. Mills (2008)

conjectured that this might be a nuanced concept that challenges young individuals.

56

Unlike other studies of identity, Mills’ (2008) study explored both personal
identity and musical identity, making her study unique. Also, Mills’ study employed
ethnographic methods, providing naturalistic descriptions. In the current study, I
implemented ethnographic methods. However, I focused on elementary-age students in
an elementary general music class and in settings outside of school, rather than on
adolescents in a community children’s choir. Additionally, the current study looks
primarily at the musical identity of four children. Because younger children may not be
able to verbalize their thoughts as precisely as adolescents, using a large number of
participants might have proved to be less meaningful. Instead, looking deeply at only

four individuals gave me in-depth accounts of both their thoughts and their actions

Summary of Related Research

Austin, Renwick, and McPherson’s (2006) model can be applied to musical
identities to show the relationships between identity and a person’s social systems,
actions, and outcomes. Actions for an elementary-aged child involve many different
ways of musicing (Elliott, 1995), including performing, composing, improvising and
listening (Wiggins, 1993). A child’s social system inﬂuences him or her to follow roles
and expectations, similar to the way an actor follows a script (Byng-Hall, 1995).
Speciﬁcally in music, children may be inﬂuenced by their parents and grandparents
through musical expectations established by generations before them (Borthwick &

Davidson, 2002).

57

Musical identities have been explored both through identity constructs, including
self-concept (Austin, 1988; Bragg, 1980; Ford, 1982; Lamont, 2002; Hall, 2007), self-
esteem (Bridges, 1996; Greenberg, 1970; Jenlink, 1993; Nolin & VanderArk, 1977;
Zimmerman, 2000), and self-efficacy (Randles, 2006). Musical identities have also been
studied holistically (Burland & Davidson, 2002; Mills, 2008), but these studies did not
include elementary-aged children. Therefore, there seems to be a need to describe
elementary-aged children’s overall musical identities holistically as they occur in various
social situations and as children make music in a variety of ways. Thus, the goal of this
study is to use ethnographic methods in order to paint a picture of the musical identities
of three elementary-aged children as they participate in different kinds of musicings, both
in school and outside of school, and as they are inﬂuenced by their parents, teachers, and

peers.

58

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Design

A case study describes a speciﬁc phenomenon when it is inseparable from the
context in which it occurs (Yin, 1993). The context of the phenomenon, also known as a
case, is its setting, which can be physical, social, historical, or economical (Creswell,
1998). Researchers should not perform research using experimental variables when the
case exists exclusively within its context, because the context creates too many variables
that cannot be controlled (Creswell, 1998). Additionally, the variables within the context
may serve to explain aspects of the phenomenon (Yin, 1993). Types of case studies
include biographical, ethnographic, holistic, naturalistic, and phenomenological (Stake,
1995). In this case study, I will be employing ethnographic methods.

Typically, in creating an ethnography, a researcher hopes to describe a particular
cultural or social group while serving as participant observer within the studied group
(Creswell, 1998). Creswell (1998) wrote, “It [an ethnography] consists of looking for
what people do (behaviors), what they say (language), and some tension between what
they really do and what they ought to do as well as what they make and use
(artifacts)” [his italics] (p. 59). Ethnographers gather data, usually through extended
ﬁeldwork, by making observations, gathering documents and artifacts, and performing
interviews (Creswell, 1998). Ethnographers then expound upon the data through detailed
descriptions, analysis of patterned regularities, and interpretations by the researcher

(Creswell, 1998).

59

Researchers collect similar types of data in ethnographic and case study research.
However, rather than studying a culture or social group, a case study looks at a bounded
system, which includes a person, a group of people, a program, or even an event (Stake,
1995). Researchers present their data using thick descriptions, or detailed accounts
(Creswell, 1998). Then they analyze the data to ﬁnd emerging themes. By using these
methods, the case study creates a vivid “portrait” of the person or group that is studied
(Creswell, 1998).

This study is an ethnographic case study, speciﬁcally, a multiple case study of
four fourth grade children. By studying multiple cases, I attempted to produce
replication logic (Yin, 1993), in which the results repeated across cases, thus,
strengthening the results. The forms of data I collected include observations, ﬁeldnotes,
interviews, and written documents. The observations occurred in the children’s
elementary music class and in social music gatherings outside of school, including a
piano recital and a studio dance rehearsal. During these observations, I took rich
ﬁeldnotes to fully describe the setting and the actions of the children. Additionally, I
conducted interviews with the children individually. I also interviewed the children’s
parents and their elementary music teacher in order to gain their perspectives about the
children’s musical identities. I recorded all of the interviews using a digital audio
recorder and later transcribed and coded the recordings. Finally, I asked the children to

write about themselves and their musicianship in a journal.

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Participant Selection

After receiving human-subjects approval from Michigan State University, I
purposefully selected the elementary music teacher for participation in the study because
of her national and state reputation as an outstanding teacher. For this study, I wanted to
observe children in an elementary music program that provided an outstanding example
of teaching and learning in order to observe their musical identities as they develop in the
context of meaningful, well-designed school music experiences. A preliminary interview
with the music teacher took place in November 2008 to gather the music teacher’s
perceptions about musical identity and how she saw musical identity manifested in her
students.

Rather than selecting children of only high musical aptitude and achievement, I
sought primary participants who demonstrated an ability to reﬂect on themselves and
their musicianship. The music teacher recommended ﬁve students in the same
elementary classroom. After an initial observation in November, I selected four of the
recommended students based on their speaking ability and the likeliness that their
guardians would give consent. One child was removed from consideration due to a
difﬁcult family situation for that child at the time. Because this study sought to explore
personal insights into children’s musicianship, which might relate to family experiences, I
felt that it might be difﬁcult for this child to talk about his experiences during this time of
emotional strife. After identifying the four potential students, I then contacted their

parents to gain consent for their and their children’s participation in the study.

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Data Collection Procedures

After the initial interview with the elementary general music teacher in November
2008, I began collecting data in February 2009. I observed the children in their
elementary music class twice a week from February until May. I had hoped to observe
the children as they participated in each of the following four musical experiences:
listening, performing, composing, and improvising. While I did see the children in all
four experiences in music class, the majority of activities during my period of observation
focused on performing and composing music. During these observations, I took
descriptive ﬁeldnotes. I conducted interviews with the children and the music teacher
during the school day. The interviews with the children took place individually in the
school library, and the interviews with the music teacher took place in her music room. I
had intended to interview each of the primary participants twice, in order to discuss
different aspects of musical identity in each interview, as well as discuss their entries in
their music journal. However, two of the participants had forgotten their journals at home
on the day of their second scheduled interview, so they answered some questions for me
that day, and I returned to conduct a third interview with those two participants so that we
could discuss their journals.

Interviews with the children’s parents occurred after we agreed to meet at a
location of their choosing in which they felt comfortable. I met with one set of parents
and one mother at a coffee shop three blocks from the participants’ elementary school. I

met with one mother at the local library, located approximately one mile from the school.

62

I met with one set of parents separately, with the mother in their home and with the father
in the office of his law ﬁrm.

I recorded all of the interviews using an Olympus WS-210 digital audio recorder.
The interviews were semi-structured with open-ended questions for the interviewees to
answer (Appendix A) (Creswell, 1998). The questions functioned as a guide for leading
the interviews, but I also asked follow-up questions not included on the list. The follow-
up questions were based on the interviewees’ responses, and I used them to gain further
clarity and insight into their thoughts.

In addition to collecting data by observing and interviewing, I asked the children
to keep a written journal about their perceptions of themselves as musicians. I provided a
small 3.5 inch by 5 inch journal that had their choice of a blue or green cover. The inside
of the journal included a small manila pocket, so that the children could include drawings
that they made. Additionally, I provided mechanical pencils in their choice of color,
including pink, orange, yellow, blue, green, or purple. I asked the children to write and
draw in their journals. They could choose to answer my journal prompts (Appendix B) or
write about any musical topic of their choice. While the children only chose to answer
the provided journal prompts, they also added unsolicited drawings in addition to their
written answers. The journals helped the children to reﬂect on their musicianship in times
outside of the scheduled interviews and also gave us topics to discuss within the
interviews.

Since the goal of this study was to explore children’s musical identities as they

developed both inside and outside of school, I also observed two events outside of the

63

school setting. The participants informed me of these activities and gave me permission
to attend. As a result, I observed a piano recital in an auditorium in the city library and a
dance rehearsal in a small dance studio located in the historic main business sector. I
observed the dance rehearsal at the end of May and the piano recital in the middle of
June. These additional observations helped to provide ﬁirther insight into the musical

experiences of those two participants.

Data Analysis and Veriﬁcation

After collecting all of the data and transcribing the interviews, I reﬂected upon
and organized the data. Next, I reviewed and coded all of the ﬁeldnotes, interview
transcriptions, and journal entries, and studied these codes in order to look for emerging
themes (Creswell, 1998). Once I identiﬁed the emerging themes, I triangulated the data.
In triangulation, the researcher veriﬁes themes by ﬁnding patterns in multiple types of
sources (Yin, 1993). By interviewing the children, their parents, and their music teacher,
I compared the children’s statements about themselves with the perceptions of their
parents and their music teacher. Member-checks of the music teacher’s interviews and
the parental interview allowed these individuals to review the transcripts of their
interviews and make any changes. I also compared the children’s verbal statements in the
interviews with their written words. Two music educators trained in research methods
reviewed the data and codes to ensure trustworthiness. By looking for the themes in

multiple sources of data and checking the trustworthiness of the data, I corroborated my

64

ﬁndings through triangulation, thus adding to the trustworthiness of my results (Creswell,
1998)
Limitations of the Study

As this study employed qualitative methods, it is not meant to be generalizable to
other settings. Greenwood and Levin (2000) argued that generalizability should be
considered as a “process of reﬂection” instead of a “structure of rule-based
interpretations” (p. 98). Thus, results of this study can only be considered according to
the speciﬁc situation of these participants at during the study’s time frame. However, this
study may interest elementary music teachers, who may ﬁnd some results relevant in
their own teaching contexts as they reﬂect on the development of musical identities in
their own students. Speciﬁcally, they may ﬁnd the perspectives and attitude of the
elementary music teacher useful as they reﬂect on their own practice.

However, two factors may have inﬂuenced the results of this study. First, I did
not interview all of the children’s parents. All four of the children in this study came
from intact homes in which their parents were married and present in the home setting.
However, due to scheduling difficulties, I did not interview all eight parents. While I
interviewed all four mothers, I only interviewed two of the fathers. In particular, I
interviewed one of the two fathers at the end of my data collection because, after initially
reviewing the data, I realized the importance of his inﬂuence in his daughter’s musical
identity. I met a third father at one of the children’s piano recitals and included some of
his comments in my ﬁeldnotes, but I did not interview him. I recognize that the two

fathers I did not interview may have provided unique insights into the children’s musical

65

identities, and, thus, their input might have inﬂuenced the results of this study in
unknown ways.

Second, my role as an outsider in this community may have affected the
children’s willingness to be completely open with me. Although I had a relationship with
the elementary music teacher through various meetings at professional organizations, I
did not have any previous relationship with the children. So initially, I was an outsider to
the children. In order to address this, I attended the music classes as both a participant
and observer, so as to establish relationships with the students in their classroom culture.
I participated in the classroom for several weeks before conducting any individual
interviews with the children, so that they would know who I was and be more
comfortable speaking to me. Also, because this study relies on the participants’ self-
observations, the results may not always be precise. However, because the goal of this
study is to describe the participants’ understandings of their musical identities through
their lived experiences, the results may not represent factual evidence, but personal

perceptions.

Researcher Lens

From an early age, I have held a strong musical identity, which I may have
acquired as a result of my small-town upbringing. Since I graduated from high school
with a class of only 26 students, everyone had their label—mine was the “music girl.” I
knew even then that I wanted to be an elementary general music teacher. After

graduating from college, I taught general music for four years in a public school in

66

Virginia. Some of my most cherished memories from teaching there occurred when my
students recognized their own abilities and discovered that they, too, were musicians.

However, the concept of musical identity did not become a research focus for me
until coming to Michigan State University. At Michigan State, I taught Music 463:
Elementary Music Methods and Materials 1, in which general education majors make up
the majority of students. The course seeks to help future teachers develop basic musical
skills (like singing and chanting), understand how children learn music, and integrate
musical concepts with their general classroom subjects. Because this course has no
prerequisites, the undergraduates come with a wide variety of musical experiences and
backgrounds. A few of the students have had extensive training and have even performed
in some of the university’s ensembles. Others have played instruments or sung in middle
school and high school, but did not continue. Some have not had any formal musical
experiences since elementary school. Few show other musical interests outside of the
traditional ensemble setting, like composition or arranging. A common characteristic for
all of them, though, is that they did not choose to pursue music professionally.

During my ﬁrst semester teaching the course, I felt a disconnect between my
teaching and my students. Although I presented the information and the students
performed with some success, they exhibited no enthusiasm from their accomplishments.
I doubted that they would ever use music in their classrooms. After a discussion relating
to musical identity in my philosophy of music class with Dr. Sandra Snow, I realized that
these students did not identify themselves as musicians, and, thus, they would never have

the conﬁdence to use music with their future students in the classroom.

67

The next week, I asked the students, “What is a musician?” They gave me
answers such as, “Someone who plays an instrument,” “A person who writes music,” and
“Someone who makes a living through music.” Next, I asked them how they were
musicians. The room became silent. They seemed confused. Their own sense of
musicianship did not ﬁt in any of the descriptions they had given me; thus, they did not
believe they were musicians.

Then, based on an idea from Dr. Snow, 1 presented the students with the idea that,
in math, language arts, science, and social studies, they were Experts, with a capital, “E,”
to their future students, meaning that their students would view them as knowing a great
deal in those subjects. However, compared to a professional scientist, they might only
view themselves as an expert, with a lower case, “e,” because they are aware that there
are others in the world who know more about science than they do. After more
discussion, the students realized that they, too, could be musicians with a lower case “m.”
They began to recognize that, even though they were not Experts in music, they could
still participate in musical activities and appreciate their own unique musical identity.
From that point until the end of the semester, the students had a new level of conﬁdence
in themselves as musicians, which was reﬂected both in the creativity of their
assignments, as well as in the quality of their work with others in class.

I was proud of the accomplishments of my students, but I was left wondering: did
we as music teachers fail our students? At what point did these individuals fail to identify
themselves as musicians? When does musical identity begin? These questions served as

the impetus for this study.

68

CHAPTER 4: PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

Ms. Lewis’ class enters the music room quickly and quietly on a Tuesday morning in
February. Most of them carry recorders, many of which lie carefully contained in fabric
cases in colors like cornflower blue, shiny magenta, or even purple with light pink ﬂowers.
Some of the children hold their recorders by their sides, while others swing them loosely in
front of them. One or two students are already holding their recorders up to their mouths
in playing position, pretending to play as their fingers move over the recorder holes.

The students ﬁnd their assigned spots in rows facing the interactive white board at
the front of the music room. While they are coming in, Ms. Harvey stands at the front of
the room and takes attendance, making note of the few students who have forgotten their
recorders on her clipboard. Then with everyone seated, Ms. Harvey greets the students and
begins her daily pattern instruction. The rhythm pattern is displayed on the interactive white
board, so that the students can all easily see it and work on their music reading.

“Audiate this pattern,” Ms. Harvey says to the class. She gives a verbal cue, and then
the class begins to silently think the pattern in their minds. Although the classroom is
completely silent for a few brief seconds, a feeling of energy emanates throughout the room
from the children’s thoughts. Ms. Harvey asks the class to read the pattern together. They
start off in perfect unison, but their responses become jumbled as they struggle through the
end. The students’ voices drop in volume and clarity as their confusion becomes clear.
Rather than immediately pointing out and correcting their mistake, Ms. Harvey -simply says,
“Try it again,” but again the students mumble through the ending. “Surely,” I thought to

myself, “she will correct them this time,” but instead, she asks them to try it again. During

69

this ﬁnal attempt, a girl’s light but conﬁdent voice rises from her seat in the front row above
the rest of the quiet mumbles. She had ﬁgured it out. The voice belonged to jillian, the
most conﬁdent musician in the class.

Without a moment’s pause, Ms. Harvey tells the students to get into their “circle
spots,” which are their assigned seats around the inlaid carpet circle. At the same time, Ms.
Harvey rolls her black desk chair out from behind her desk up to the edge of the circle and
sits down. From this position, she is clearly seen by everyone in the circle. The students
chatter quietly as they move to their spots, and some of the students begin swinging their
recorders again. The motion of bodies and recorders continues subtly as Ms. Harvey begins
speaking. She reminds them that “the recorder is a responsibility” meant to prepare them
for the responsibility of taking care of an instrument and practicing an instrument in ﬁfth
grade. Since this is only the students’ second day with the recorder, Ms. Harvey is still trying
to instill a sense of personal responsibility in their recorder playing.

She reviews the’ﬁngering for h on the recorder, gently reminding students to put
their left hands on top, and she asks the students to echo short rhythm patterns on that note.
During a pause in the patterns, a petite brown-haired girl, sitting perfectly straight, quickly
raises her hand. Upon being acknowledged, she pointed to me, saying, “She is m with
her ggllt hand on tgp,” which sounded like a serious offense. I smiled, and Ms. Harvey
asked her to check again (my left hand was, indeed, on top) and said, “She’s been in college a
long time, and I’m sure she knows how to play the recorder.”

Playing with the left hand on top is'an important recorder skill for these fourth
graders to learn. Ms. Harvey gives soft reminders throughout the class to individuals who

have forgotten. In fact, Ms. Harvey also has rubber bracelets, similar to the popular “Live

70

Strong” ones, but Ms. Harvey’s are orange and blue and printed with the reminder, “left
hand on top.” Although having a bracelet is optional, I see many students who wear them or
hold them in their right hand, and these students all remember to follow the bracelet’s
instructions.

After echoing patterns with various combinations of the pitches b, a, and g, Ms.
Harvey asks the students to create their own pattern. She wants them to come up with a
pattern using those pitches that would “trick her.” She gives them about thirty seconds to
create their pattern, and suddenly the room is ﬁlled with these three pitches, along with the
squeaks that new players often make. Going around the circle, Ms. Harvey gives each
student an opportunity to play his or her pattern for her. She cleverly turns this activity into
a game in which the class can earn points for playing a pattern and extra points if Ms.
Harvey gets tricked.

The students feel excited by the opportunity to play this game and trick Ms. Harvey.
In their enthusiasm, several of the students sit up onto their knees and smile while waiting
for their turns. Throughout each person’s turn, the remaining students are quiet and
respectful. Although some students play when Ms. Harvey is speaking or during a pause in
the class, no Qt; plays when a fellow classmate has his or her turn. The students have a
palpable respect for each other’s performances, which is an attitude that Ms. Harvey clearly
encourages through her directions and her praise.

In the last activity of the class, Ms. Harvey gives students an opportunity to practice
three songs independently or in small groups. The three songs, “Hot Cross Buns,” “Mary
Had a Little Lamb,” and “Closet Key,” are all songs that the students have known from

previous grade levels, and are used to ease them in to playing the recorder. They will soon

71

begin playing for Ms. Harvey in “Recorder Karate,” in which students earn different colored
ribbons, or “karate belts,” for proficiently playing songs of increasing difficulty.

After listening to several individuals play alone while the class listens, Ms. Harvey
asks the class to line up. The small girl, who had earlier tried to correct my recorder hand
position, sees me standing at the back of the classroom. Rather than joining the line, she
steps over to me, looks me over as though she is deciding if she should talk to me. Then,
referring to Recorder Karate, says with her head tilted to the side as she swings her recorder
around in circles, “I can already play the white belt, orange belt, yellow belt, AND green belt,
you know.” “Oh, gm you?” I answer, smiling. “I’ve been practicing,” she replies, and then
turns to half-skip and half-walk towards the door to catch up with the line. With that, Ms.
Lewis’ music class is finished for the day, and Ms. Harvey turns her thoughts to the next

music class.

Participants

The participants in this study included four fourth graders—Jillian, Ravi, Olivia,
and Justin, their parents, and their elementary school music teacher, Ms. Harvey. All four
students attended Greenview Elementary School in Ms. Lewis’ fourth-grade classroom. I
have selected pseudonyms for the names of all individuals and places.
Jillian

Jillian stood taller than most of the other students in Ms. Lewis’ class. Her sandy
blonde hair reached to her lower back, and she had unique glasses that were cobalt blue
on the outside, but had the surprise of being yellow on the inside. Like her glasses, Jillian

was also full of surprises. Compared to other students in the class, Jillian was reserved

72

and came across as shy. Upon my ﬁrst visit, I asked Jillian if she could play any songs
for me on her recorder. “Yes,” she answered conﬁdently, and then she stepped in closer,
as though she really wanted me to hear what she played. Her eyes showed a quiet
concentration that seemed to indicate that, although this was not a difﬁcult task, she was
intent on playing all the notes correctly. I was impressed not only with her technical
skills, but also with the amount of conﬁdence that she exuded. J illian’s singing voice was
mature for her age and already had a slight natural vibrato. Although Jillian felt some
reservations about being “different,” she still relished every opportunity to participate
musically. She was a member of the fourth- and fifth-grade choir, and sought out
opportunities to sing solos at school festivals and concerts.

Jillian came from a family of musicians. Her mother was a former middle school
band director who now taught brass lessons out of her home. J illian’s father played the
French horn, and the two performed occasionally in a brass quintet. Following in her
parents’ footsteps, Jillian also wanted to play a brass instrument, and she selected the
baritone to play the following year in the ﬁfth grade band.

Ravi

Ravi was born in India, and, after living in New Delhi and Malaysia for a few
years, he and his family immigrated to the United States 4 years ago so that his parents
could pursue their medical careers. Ravi and his family were members of the Sikh
religion, and he wore his hair above his head in a bun covered by a white headscarf. The
headscarf covered the tops of his ears, hiding the ends of thin-framed eyeglasses.

Although Ravi was very friendly and well-liked by his peers, he oﬁen seemed self-

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conscious about his musicianship, especially around other students. Additionally, Ravi
chose not to participate in the fourth- and ﬁfth-grade choir. Ravi was usually quiet and
good-mannered, but sometimes he became so excited when Ms. Harvey asked a question,
that he could not help calling out before raising his hand. He usually caught himself after
the fact, though, and either covered his mouth or tried to hide his face. Most of Ravi’s
formal music education took place in elementary school, although he had received a
handful of trumpet lessons as a small child in India, and he was looking forward to
continuing on the trumpet next year in band.
Olivia

Olivia was a quiet, thin girl with long brown hair and spindly legs. She had large,
expressive eyes that often communicated more about her feelings than her words or
bodily expressions. In music class, Olivia was always focused on making music, and I
often observed her sitting quietly practicing the ﬁngering on her recorder. In learning the
recorder, Olivia’s competitive side began to emerge. She would race from practicing
each song to wait in line to play for Ms. Harvey and earn her next Recorder Karate belt.

Outside of school, Olivia’s passion was dance. She took dance classes three
nights a week with her older sister at a local dance studio, studying many different styles,
including ballet and jazz to hip hop and a modern class called, “Precision.” Olivia’s
mother, a professor, was a former dancer, and also taught a class for young children at the
dance studio. Olivia’s father was a self-taught bass guitarist and drummer, and both of
Olivia’s parents had performed in a band together in college. Although her parents

supported her in both dance and music, the family recently decided to end Olivia’s and

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her sister’s piano lessons in order to make more time for dance. In the past, Olivia, along
with her older sister and a neighbor, started a band called “The Green Emeralds,” in
which Olivia played the drum set. The band composed several songs, which they
recorded at home with the help of Olivia’s father.
Justin

Justin had thick, chestnut brown hair that curled slightly, so that some of the curls
stuck out haphazardly around his head and into his eyes. Justin was less focused than
many of the other students in his class, and he often forgot to bring recorder or his
recorder book to class, although he never seemed to be bothered by this. However, even
though Justin did not always pay close attention, music came fairly easily to him. As Ms.
Harvey stated, “ Oh, he knows his stuff. He M his stuﬂ” (Interview, Ms. Harvey,
May 22, 2009). The ﬁrst time I observed Justin’s class, I approached him and asked him
if he could play a piece on his recorder for me. I anticipated that he would need help,
because, earlier in the class, Ms. Harvey had to remind him repeatedly to put his left hand
on the top holes of his recorder, not his right hand. However, Justin surprised me with his
effortless musicality. Even though he possessed musical potential, Justin did not feel
motivated to push himself in music class, and he did not earn as many Recorder Karate
belts as the other participants.

Part of Justin’s proficiency in music class resulted from the music classes and
piano lessons he had taken for 2 years. As a young child, Justin attended music and
movement classes. Later, Justin’s parents enrolled him in piano, just as they had done for

their older son a few years earlier. However, Justin’s family also placed great importance

75

on baseball. Justin’s older brother had just been placed as pitcher of his high school
team, and Justin played second base on a recreational team coached by his father.
Ms. Harvey

Ms. Harvey had taught elementary general music for 14 years, including 10 years
in her current school district. This was only her second year at Greenview Elementary
School, where she had been transferred by the school district. Ms. Harvey earned her
bachelor degree in instrumental performance, but by the end of her undergraduate degree,
she realized her that her true calling was to be a teacher. She then earned her master’s
degree in music education and entered the classroom. In addition to teaching elementary
music, she also founded her own early childhood music program for families in the
community. Ms. Harvey worked hard to reﬁne her craft and enjoyed sharing her
knowledge at state and national conferences and by opening her door to undergraduate
students to observe. On one of my ﬁeld visits, Ms. Harvey had welcomed a group of
undergraduate music education majors and their professor from a university located three
states away.

With her quiet presence and honey blonde waves, Ms. Harvey had a quiet air of
gentleness that made her seem approachable to both her students and me. However, in
our conversations, I discovered an underlying passion for her students that came through
in the constant reﬂections of her teaching and the compassionate and sensitive
understanding of her students. Ms. Harvey spoke softly—like a child—and her smiles,
which she saved to share at just the right moment, revealed a youthfulness that matched

her voice. Ms. Harvey’s commitment to her students was apparent not only in her

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thorough preparations to teach each class, but also, beyond the classroom, in her
attendance at many concerts, recitals, and performances by her former and current

students.

Greenview Elementary School

Greenview Elementary School was located in a suburban school district outside of
a large midwestern city. The school building was set at the end of a quiet street in an
established, well-kept neighborhood with a large playground and soccer ﬁeld. Driving up
to the school, one was struck by the newness of the building with its large open windows.
However, upon entering the building, the interior revealed that the large windows were a
part of an addition to the school, which included the gymnasium and the music room.

The music room had a large amount of space with two straight walls and one wave-
shaped wall, which coincidentally, outlined the shape of a grand piano. Along the walls
were many tall storage cabinets and six computer stations.

Students at Greenview received music twice a week for 40 minutes through the
fourth grade. Fourth- and ﬁfth-grade students could elect to participate in a choir
directed by Ms. Harvey that met for 45 minutes weekly. In ﬁfth grade, students had to
choose between general music, band, and strings, and most of the children, excited at the
idea of playing wind and string instruments, elected to participate in ensembles rather
than general music. The choir had around 100 students that barely ﬁt into Ms. Harvey’s
large music room. MsQ Harvey did not have risers in her classroom, so the students either

stood or sat on the ﬂoor in long rows stretching the length of her room.

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During my observations at Greenview Elementary School, Ms. Harvey began her
fourth-grade unit on the recorder. For recorder instruction, Ms. Harvey based the unit on
the popular “Recorder Karate” books, in which students must complete a song to
complete a level, earning them “karate belts,” or a colored piece of thread to tie around
their recorders. Each level had a corresponding color, ending with a black belt for the
highest level. However, Ms. Harvey selected her own pieces for each level. Students
learned one piece, which was previously sung in classroom activities, by ear, and learned
the second piece, which was new, through reading.

After completing the recorder karate unit, the students worked on composing
individual recorder pieces. Ms. Harvey designed the unit so that the students worked on
sequential steps in creating their compositions. First, the students selected their key
signature (G or D), modality (major or minor), and meter (duple or triple). Second, they
composed a basic melody that outlined a progression of pre-determined tonic and
dominant chords. Next, the students elaborated the rhythms of their melody. Finally,
students added non-chord tones, like passing tones and neighbor tones, to complete their
melodies. Once the class had ﬁnished, Ms. Harvey compiled their compositions into a
songbook including all of the compositions from students in the class.

The recorder unit, including learning the ﬁngerings and pieces and also writing
their compositions, comprised the majority of my observations at Greenview. This was a
unique time to observe the participants, because both playing the recorder and composing
allowed the students many opportunities to express their musicianship independently.

Toward the end of the data collection, I observed the students in more traditional types of

78

musical activities, including singing songs and performing folk dances. Observing the
participants in both individual and group musicing gave me further insights into their
musical identities, especially as they reﬂected on these experiences in their interviews

and journals.

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CHAPTER 5: PARTICIPANTS’ MUSICAL IDENTITIES:

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

This study sought to explore musical identity through three identity constructs,
including musical self-concept, musical self-esteem, and musical self—efﬁcacy, in order to
gain insight into the characteristics of four fourth grade children’s developing musical
identities. The results uncovered themes related to all three of the musical identity
constructs. For musical self-concept, the themes included being a musician and
enjoyment. In musical self-esteem, the themes of personal assessment, awareness of
others, and motivation emerged. For musical self-efﬁcacy, the themes included ensemble
participation and future musical goals. Two themes also emerged that seemed to relate
more strongly to the participants’ overall sense of musical identity: family inﬂuence and
control/agency. These two themes are presented ﬁrst in order that the reader might gain
insight into factors inﬂuencing participants’ musical identity as a whole, rather than just
through the speciﬁc musical identity constructs.

Although this study explored the musical identity of four fourth-grade students,
many of the themes will be introduced with the insights of their music teacher, Ms.
Harvey. Ms. Harvey’s thoughtfulness about her students and musical identity revealed
sensitive perspectives concerning the four participants. In describing what “musical
identity” meant to her, Ms. Harvey explained, “Well for me, I guess, it’s my self-
perception of who I am as a musician, and how I make music, both as a musician and as a

human being” (Interview, Ms. Harvey, November 3, 2008). During the time frame of this

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study, I observed the participants deeply consider their own perceptions of themselves as

musicians. Their self-perceptions constitute the majority of the results below.

Overarching Themes: Family Inﬂuence and Control/Agency

Family inﬂuence and control/agency emerged as two themes that cut across all of
the musical identity constructs to reveal insights into the participants’ sense of musical
identity as a whole. While they may have been inﬂuential in one or more of the
constructs, these two themes appeared as more salient themes worthy of their own
separate discussion. In the theme of family inﬂuence, the participants’ families provided
access to musical instruments and songs, provided exposure to types of musical roles
through modeling, and had an impact on their instrument selections. In the theme of
control/agency, the participants expressed a desire to make music on their own terms,
without the inﬂuence or input of other peers and adults.
Family Inﬂuence

As the participants developed their musical identities, they were often inﬂuenced
by their family members, especially their parents and siblings. Within this theme, three
sub-themes emerged as the participants reﬂected on their musicianship, including musical
access, musical role models, and instrument selection. These sub-themes help illuminate
the variety of ways in which families inﬂuenced the participants’ musical identity

development.

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Musical access. The participants’ families provided access to music classes,
instruments, private lessons, and recordings. Additionally, the parents expressed both
speciﬁc and general goals for their children’s involvement in and enjoyment of music.
Many of the families provided musical experiences to the children when they were in
early childhood. Justin’s mother described taking him to early childhood classes: “We
did Gymboree with the kids [both of her sons], and there’s singing and movement with
that” (Interview, Justin’s mother, March 14, 2009).

Olivia had access to a variety of musical instruments and recordings through her
family. As her mother explained:

We have the drums downstairs. We have multiple amps, guitars, and [Olivia’s

father’s] old bass, and microphones and a keyboard. So a lot of times, when their

friends come over, that’s the ﬁrst thing everybody wants to do... go down there

and start pounding on the drums (Interview, Olivia’s mother, March 13, 2009).
Olivia’s parents not only encouraged her music making by providing instruments, but
also through recordings, saying that whenever Olivia wants a new song, “[W]e try to get
it on iTunes and download it right away, and [we] encourage that as much as we
can” (Interview, Olivia’s mother, March 13, 2009). She then summed up her attitude
toward her daughters’ musicing, saying, “[T]hey have 100% access to music whenever
they want” (Interview, Olivia’s mother, March 13, 2009).

Ravi’s listening choices were inﬂuenced by his family, but through his older
sisters, not his parents: “My sisters tell me, like, ‘This is a good song. You should try it.

You should listen to it.’ So I go onto my sister’s iPod and listen to it” (Interview, Ravi,

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April 21, 2009). Ravi’s parents also encouraged him to play an instrument and provided
him with trumpet lessons, but would scold him when he played his recorder too loudly:

Ravi: [M]y mom and dad think it’s good [that] I know how to play the recorder,

but (lowers his voice and sounding timid) sometimes when I make too much

noise..., they tell me to, like, play less (gestures with left hand out with his palm
facing down, as to show that he should lower the volume). They tell me to, like,

don’t make so much noise, or play less a little bit (Interview, Ravi, April 21,

2009)

This contradiction between the words and actions of Ravi ’3 parents was probably difﬁcult
for Ravi to comprehend. Later in the chapter, I describe how Ravi felt as though he were
only “kind of” a musician, which may have been related to the mixed messages he
received at home.

Additionally, all of the parents expressed the musical goals they had for the
participants. These expectations provide insight into the reasons behind the access to the
unique musical experiences within each family. Ravi ’3 parents both desired that he learn
to play an instrument. His mother explained, “I should hope that he would be able to
play one instrument well, and, if he likes, be a good, uh, social singer, or
whatever” (Interview, Ravi’s parents, April 4, 2009). Ravi’s father echoed that statement:
“I would like them [all his children] to be proﬁcient in at least o_ne instrument, and play it
well, and enjoy it” (Interview, Ravi’s parents, April 4, 2009). Ravi ’3 parents wanted their
son to play an instrument, and they backed up that belief by enrolling him in trumpet

lessons.

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Justin’s mother shared that she wanted her son, whom she had enrolled in piano
lessons, to continue playing an instrument, but she gave a length of time that she hoped
he would continue: “I’d love it if he would continue to play an instrument, at least up
through middle school, and just enjoy it... and to succeed at it” (Interview, Justin’s
mother, March 14, 2009). While she gave a time frame for him to formally participate in
music through middle school, Justin’s mother ended her statement by focusing on her
desire for her son to enjoy music: “But honestly, [I’d like him] just to enjoy music and the
different varieties of music” (Interview, Justin’s mother, March 14, 2009). In the end,
Justin’s mother wanted her son to have a positive experience with music.

While Ravi’s and Justin’s parents gave more speciﬁc goals for their children’s
futures in music, Jillian’s and Olivia’s parents gave broader answers. As Olivia’s father
shared:

It’s really going to be totally up to M. It would be gLeat if she really got into it,

but if she doesn’t, I wouldn’t want it to be something that’s, like, a dr_ag. You

know, [when others are] thinking back to piano lessons, [like] “I used to M

that.” There’s so many people that [say], “I used to play the clarinet,” or “I used

to play the trumpet.” Well, you don’t do it any more. You don’t play it at all!...

So the way that we’re doing it is that we’re just, it’s just something we d_o,

whenever you do it. You always have the opportunity, if you Lam to continue

doing it (Interview, Olivia’s father, July 30, 2009).

Olivia’s father’s musicianship, exempliﬁed by his playing the guitar and drums primarily

through informal practice, developed out of his own enjoyment of music, and he wanted

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the same for his family. Thus, Olivia was welcomed to pursue music for as long as she
desired. Jillian’s mother shared a similar wish for her daughter:
Oh, she could play whatever she wanted... or smg or do. Anything... What I want
her to do is be able to continue on with it and enjoy it, ‘cause it’s an integral part

of our life. So however she chooses to do that, whether it’s singing in a choir

 

later, or whatever. Whatever makes her happy with it. Yeah, I don’t have any

gm goals, I just want to be able to enable whatever she needs to do to keep

goin’ on (Interview, Jillian’s mother, March 31, 2009).

Although Jillian’s mother acknowledged that her family values music, Jillian is permitted
to participate in music however she chooses. Further, both Jillian’s mother and Olivia’s
father, who are both musicians themselves, described a desire to facilitate their daughters’
musicianship by providing an “opportunity,” or by “enabling” their daughters. While all
of the parents I interviewed wanted their children to participate in music, J illian’s and
Olivia’s parents demonstrated a desire for their children to pursue music in a way that
made them happy, which can be seen in the access to many different instruments and
recording equipment they provided.

Musical role models. In addition to providing access to music, the parents
provided a model of musicianship through their own music making. J illian’s mother
described her daughter’s exposure to her trumpet playing at an early age: “She used to sit
on my knee while we were rehearsing for [brass] quintet sometimes, you know. When
she’d get fussy, I’d have her on one knee and my trunipet in the other hand” (Interview,

Jillian’s mother, March 31, 2009). Jillian’s mother also described how Jillian had wanted

85

to take piano lessons because she had seen the model of her sisters’ playing piano and
taking lessons.
Olivia’s father improvised and composed songs at home with a friend and
recorded them for his family to hear:
We’d get together, and he [his friend] plays the rain stick and he plays the
didgeridoo. We just stick them all together and record multiple tracks. We did
that stuff for the girﬁ [his wife and daughters], so that they would go out. We’d
have our night at home, the two of us... They would come home, and it was all
rated-G stuff, because they wanted to hear it. So when they got back, they’d
listen to the stuff called, you know, a punk rock song called, “Bunny Rabbit,” or
“The Be-bc Dance,” which was the name of [older daughter’s] blanket. It was her
“be-be” (Interview, Olivia’s father, June 30, 2009).

Olivia’s father enjoyed making music as a hobby, which, as he explained, he did while
his wife took his daughters “out shopping.” Although he does not specify the age of his
daughters when he created these songs, the fact that one of the songs referenced his older
daughter’s attachment to a blanket indicated that his daughters were probably young.
Also, his conscious choice to make his music appropriate for his daughters shows
Olivia’s father’s commitment to sharing his musicality with them. Through her father,
Olivia was exposed not only to performance, but also composing and recording music.
This exposure clearly inﬂuenced Olivia in the creation of her own band, The Green

Emeralds, which is described in more detail later in this chapter. Olivia chose to perform,

86

compose, and record music in which, through her play, she practiced the roles and rules
of being in a band, which she saw modeled by her father.

J illian’s mother also provided a model as a music teacher and conductor. Jillian
described hearing the music from her mother’s brass students in her bedroom during their
lessons. Afterward, Jillian would ﬁnd herself remembering the songs: “Sometimes I
would ﬁnd myself a w_ee_k 1m humming that song, not knowing that I was humming it...
My mom was like, ‘Honey, you’re humming a song from so-and-so’s lesson that we were
working on last week’” (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009). The music Jillian heard from
her mother’s teaching inﬂuenced her not only by adding to her repertoire of songs, but
also sparked conversations about music between Jillian and her mother.

As a conductor, J illian’s mother inﬂuenced her daughter by showing her a position
in music other than a performer. Jillian never described seeing her mother conduct.
However, she could explain her mother’s background as a conductor of a middle school
band and a community band. Jillian also described how her mother gave her one of her
conducting batons and taught her some conducting gestures:

She showed me how to—when I heard music, I would go higher (raises hands)

when I heard high music and lower if I heard low music (lowers hands). And to

point at a[n instrument] section, or something (points to the left right and center,

as though cuing imaginary instruments) (Interview, Jillian, May 21, 2009).

Jillian shared with me that she wanted to become a band conductor when she grows up,
which is probably due to the inﬂuence of her mother, who modeled and explained

conducting with her daughter.

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Instrument selection. In the fourth grade at Greenview Elementary, children
have the opportunity to select an instrument to play in the ﬁfth grade band or orchestra.
Shortly before my data collection began, the participants had the opportunity to see and
try playing the instruments to help them with their decisions at an instrument fair during
school. Because of the newness of their selections, the participants often referred to them
in our interviews. As they discussed their selections, they often included statements
about the discussions that arose with their families in choosing their instruments and
about the instruments played by their parents and siblings.

Ravi had chosen to play the trumpet in ﬁfth grade. Although he never directly
explained why he chose that instrument, he explained that one of his favorite musical
memories was playing the trumpet in a recital: “When I was in India, playing the trumpet,
we had a concert. So that was my favorite because we had a big applause” (Interview,
Ravi, May 26, 2009). Also, Ravi drew a picture of a trumpet as his favorite instrument,
which is later described in this chapter. Unfortunately, Ravi ’5 parents never brought up
the trumpet lessons in the interview, and, since Ravi did not mention them until our ﬁnal
interview, I did not have the opportunity to ask Ravi’s parents to talk about his trumpet
lessons from their perspectives. However, since Ravi wanted to play this instrument in
the future—the self-proclaimed favorite instrument that had been selected by his parents
when he was young—this might serve as evidence that Ravi’s family affected his choice
of instrument.

In Jillian’s family, everyone, including both parents and her two sisters, played

brass instruments. As a result, Jillian followed in her family’s footsteps and chose to play

88

the baritone in ﬁfth grade. Jillian wanted to complete the brass quintet that her family
had coincidentally formed. Her mother and sister both played the trumpet, her father
played the French horn, and her other sister, the trombone. Jillian would start on the
baritone in preparation for learning the tuba. J illian’s mother said that the family had
“always joked around about having our own brass quintet” (Interview, Jillian ’5 mother,
March 31, 2009). Jillian wanted her family to have a quintet, because she felt, in her own
words, “that would be ggo_l if I have a quintet like that” (Interview, Jillian, April 21,
2009). Her mother explained that Jillian had dreamt of playing the baritone since she was
a young child:
So then, that left _tu_bg for Jillian. So she decided that she wanted to start playing
the [baritone]. It’s been since she’s been really small that she wanted to do that——
playing baritone so that she could play tuba later. We keep telling her
(persuasively), “You can play whatever you want! It doesn’t matter!”... I think
it’s just something she’s always wanted to do, for whatever reason that might be
(Interview, J illian’s mother, March 31, 2009).
Jillian seemed to recognize her freedom of choice and considered both the baritone and
the alto sax on the day she selected her instrument at school:
We had to think about the instrument we wanted and choose out of two choices.
One of mine was m, and the other was the alto &. Alto sax is a reed
instrument. So I tried it, and I ended up getting just an (swirls hand in the air)

airy sound (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009).

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Jillian had a greater familiarity with brass instruments. Although her family all played
brass instruments, Jillian wanted to try something different. However, she still decided to
stick with her original plan to play the baritone. Thus, Jillian’s family had a direct
inﬂuence on her instrument selection.

Ravi’s and Jillian’s parents directly inﬂuenced their children’s instrument
selections. Justin’s and Olivia’s parents did not have as strong of an inﬂuence. Justin
chose the clarinet for it’s sound: “When the people came to show us the instruments and
stuff, like what we could play next year, the clarinet had that kinda jazzy thing, and I like
it” (Interview, Justin, April 21, 2009). His mother wanted him to play the comet, though,
because the family already owned one: “We were trying to push him into the comet, but
because, like we said, we h_ad_ it, and for ﬁnancial reasons” (Interview, Justin’s mother,
March 14, 2009). However, she let Justin make his own choice so that he would want to
practice without any reminders: “Justin really wants to play the clarinet, and I’d rather
him play something that he’s going to enjoy and practice, than play something that we’re
forcing him to play” (Interview, Justin’s mother, March 14, 2009).

Similarly, Olivia’s family, particularly her sister, encouraged her to play a
woodwind instrument, because her sister played the ﬂute. As Olivia shared:

I was going to do the M at ﬁrst, before we even went to the place [to pick an

instrument], because my sister played the ﬂute, and she said the oboe was kinda

 

like the recorder or the clarinet, and so I was deciding to do one of those

(Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).

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Olivia’s mother wanted her to choose an instrument that would be “small enough” to
transport to and from school (Interview, Olivia’s mother, March 13, 2009), but Olivia
instead chose one of the largest instruments: string bass. She described the process of
making her decision:
I saw the string bass, and I thought, “Well that might be good if I don’t like the
oboe,” so I c_h_ar_1ged it so I would try the string bass, and I li_ke_d it when I played it
by myself. So I decided to do that instead, because it kinda worked out for me.
When I would sit down in the gym and watch people play for their concert, I
would always look at the person with the big, h_ug§ string bass (stretching her
arms wide), and I was like, “You know, that would be cool to play that
someday” (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).
Olivia also described a practical reason for choosing the string bass, which was that she
could leave the instrument at school: “I don’t have to bring it a_t a_ll, and I grit forget it,
and I thought, ‘Well, I better go with that, because I can’t forget my
instrument’” (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009). While Olivia’s mother felt surprised at
her daughter’s choice, she still supported her daughter’s decision: “She came out of
school, and I had never seen her so happy. (Mimicking her daughter is voice) ‘I can ’t
believe it! I got picked for the string bass! ’ She was about to explode, she was so
excited” (Interview, Olivia’s mother, March 13, 2009). Olivia’s mother wanted her
daughter to be happy with her choice, and said she was interested to see what happens to

Olivia and her personal choice of instrument.

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As the participants selected their instruments to play in the ﬁfth grade, they
considered the opinions of their parents and siblings. Both Ravi’s and Jillian’s parents
appeared to inﬂuence their choices. While Justin and Olivia considered their families’
opinions, they did not follow them in making their choices. However, for all of the
participants, they viewed choosing an instrument as an important decision, and thus, their
families played a direct role in providing input that contributed to their decisions.

In summary, the families of the participants inﬂuenced them by providing access
to musical instruments and music listening, examples of musical role models, and input
into their instrument selections. The participants received mostly positive inﬂuences on
their musicianship from their families. However, Ravi received mixed messages from his
parents, who encouraged him to play the trumpet , but discouraged his recorder practicing
when they felt it was too loud. Olivia and Jillian also were inﬂuenced by their parents as
they participated in their own music making, including performing, composing, and
conducting. These musical models clearly inﬂuenced these girls, as seen in Olivia’s
choice to imitate her father’s playing in a rock band and in Jillian’s choice to become a
band conductor like her mother. Finally, the participants considered their parents’ and
siblings’ opinions and instrument preferences as they made their own instrument choices.
In the working deﬁnition of musical identity, a person’s musical identity is shaped in the
context of their social interactions with others. For the participants in this study, they
were most inﬂuenced by the observations and experiences provided by their family

members, particularly their parents, but also their siblings.

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Control/Agency
As the participants were learning to become musicians, the theme of control/
agency emerged as they sought ownership of their music making. Ravi described the
sense of control he felt as he played his recorder: “Even when you play with two
instruments, you play with y_qu_rself. You, you, YOU control what you’re
doing“ (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009). When asked whether they liked making music
alone or with others, all four participants replied that they preferred making music alone.
Jillian and Ravi described how making music by themselves allowed them to avoid
conﬂict with others:
Jillian: I like making music alone most of the time, because then I don’t have
arguments about what the song should be about, or how the song should go
(Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009), and
Ravi: [W]henever I’m with others, they want to have th_eir; music. And
sometimes, you can’t put two people, two composers together. So I like playing
alone, so I can make my m music, and it’s easier for me to play (Interview,
Ravi, May 26, 2009).
Olivia presented a more diplomatic answer, ﬁnding value in both performing with others~
and alone:
[S]ometimes making music with others is fun, because you can hear ‘em and what
they do... If you make a mistake, it’s okay, because other people are playing. But
I would rather do it alone, really, because other people, when th_ev make a ’

mistake, then you have to stop and start over (Interview, Olivia, May 26, 2009).

93

At ﬁrst, Olivia appreciated how playing with others could hide her own mistakes, but she
then acknowledged feeling frustrated when others made mistakes. Performing alone
allowed the participants to have control over when they could start and stop playing a
piece and also avoid dealing with mistakes and making compromises with others in their
music making.

The participants’ desire for control extended beyond the idea of making music
alone; they also exerted agency through their musical choices. For example, in
explaining why he did not join the school chorus, Ravi explained, “My parents said, ‘It
was your choice,’ and I didn’t want to be in it [chorus], so I didn’t turn in my slip” (Ravi,
May 22, 2009). Olivia enjoyed having control over her music listening:

Because some songs, I turn on my iPod and go play that song and it’s like, “I

3,
!

wanna listen to this! This is cool So I just leave on that. And others, I just skip

a song I don’t wanna listen to, because I don’t wanna take the time to listen to it,

because it just doesn’t sound good to me (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).
Because she cared deeply about listening to music, Olivia only wanted to listen to the
songs that she preferred, and exercised her right to control the song selections on her
iPod.

In creating his school composition, Justin described his conscious choice to make
his piece different than what his teacher expected: “I’m not really trying to do what Ms.
Harvey says. I’m trying to do, like a different kind [of song]” (Interview, April 21, 2009).

Justin also exhibited his need for control and agency through playing the piano. Justin

resisted practicing when he was required, as his mother explained:

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It’s funny, though, when he doesn’t feel like he has to practice, he will sit down at
the piano and he will my... And at the end of the year, when he has the recital, he
practices his piece, because, you know, “I don’t want to get up and not know what

I’m playing.” So, we do do that. But our weekly type things, I do try and, at least

once a week, I’ll say, “You know, Justin, you M9 to sit down and practice.” The

rest of the time, it’s kind of a hit or miss type thing” (Interview, Justin’s mother,

March 14, 2009).

In performing at his recital, Justin again exhibited personal agency. During his
piece, Justin played with good posture and with total focus on the keys. When his song
was over, Justin gave a slight smile out of the comer of his mouth. Then, as he got up,
Justin put the back of his hand over his mouth, as though to hide his face from the
audience’s gaze. He stepped down from the stage, keeping his eyes to the ground to
avoid seeing anyone. However, after the recital, as parents and children were socializing,
Justin and another boy went up to the piano and began to improvise a duet. They took
turns passing the melody back and forth to each other. While in the recital, he seemed
rather stiff and forced, he now was totally relaxed without the pressure of everyone
noticing him, and the smile on his face revealed his pleasure in the experience. Despite
all of the people in the room, it seemed like Justin was only aware of himself, his friend,
and their music (F ieldnotes, June 12, 2009). In this instance, Justin showed personal
agency in that, after his performance in which he was required to play a piece composed

by someone else, he then chose to play the piano in the way that he desired.

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While the others described their want of control and agency through different
types of musicing, Jillian believed that she was only a musician when she had the choice
to make music on her own terms, which she described by saying that it should be “by
want” (Interview, April 21, 2009). This belief carried through her future goals of
becoming a band conductor. In explaining why she wanted to become a conductor,
Jillian explained, “Because it would be kinda cool to, like, control the song and keep up
the time” (Interview, Jillian, May 21, 2009). Jillian then demonstrated how to “keep
time” by conducting the steady beat, which she did with a sweeping up and down motion.
J illian’s desire for control in her music went beyond making simple musical decisions.
Instead, it was rooted in the core of her musicianship and affected her future musical
plans.

The children in this study expressed a need for control/agency as they participated
in and made choices concerning their musicing. They liked making music alone, rather
than with others, because they did not like having to share in the decisions-making
process or start a piece over if someone made a mistake. While this may change as the
participants enter adolescence and begin to view music making as a social activity, the
ﬁnding that they all wanted to make music alone showed that the participants wanted
independence as they developed their individual musical identities.

The participants also described various instances in which they individually
enjoyed having control, as in playing recorder or piano, choosing songs for listening, or
deciding whether to participate in choir. Finally, Jillian felt that having control over her

musicing was a central part of her musicianship, but she did not always have the

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opportunity to exert agency over her musicing. When the participants had opportunities
to exert control/agency in their musical decisions, they had the opportunity to recognize
their emerging roles as independent musicians. According to the working deﬁnition of a
musician used in this study, musical identity is an understanding a person has of his or
her musicianship. Thus, as the participants saw themselves as independent musicians,
they were simultaneously developing their musical identities. Justin’s mother summed up
this idea in describing her son, “He loves music, but on his own terms” (Interview,
Justin’s mother, March 14, 2009). When Justin begins to recognize that his “terms” for
musicing reﬂect who he is as a musician, he will begin to comprehend his musical
identity.
Summary of Overarching Themes

Two of the most salient factors in the development of the participants’ musical
identities were family inﬂuence and control/agency. These factors did not relate
exclusively to one of the musical identity constructs, but rather to the participants’
holistic sense of their musical identities by inﬂuencing their understanding of themselves
as musicians. In the theme of family inﬂuence, the participants’ parents exposed them to
different musical instruments and to music listening experiences. The most direct
examples of family inﬂuence came as a result of the musical models provided by parents.
Olivia’s father modeled performing, composing, and recording in a rock band, which
Olivia later attempted in her own rock band. Jillian’s mother modeled conducting by
giving her daughter a baton, teaching her conducting gestures, and showing how -

conductors can change an ensemble’s sound.

97

In the theme of control/agency the participants gave examples of how control
over their musical decisions, such as their participation in an ensemble, in their choice of
listening, and in practicing their instruments. The participants’ opportunities to exert
control and agency in their music making helped them begin to recognize themselves as
independent musicians. In particular, Jillian’s need for control in her musicianship
extended beyond a need to make decisions, but became a self-defmed part of how she
viewed herself as a musician. Perhaps the participants’ development of musical identity
depended on both of these factors. First, the participants needed access to music and
exposure to possible musical roles. Then, as the participants began engaging in these
musical roles, they needed to exert control and agency to help them form their own

unique and independent musical identities.

Musical Self-concept

I want them to see themselves as being the musician, and for them to be the person who’s
responsible and capable of doing that [music making] on an everyday basis. (Interview, Ms.

Harvey, November 11, 2008).

In the area of music self-concept, or the identiﬁcations the participants made of
themselves as musicians, two themes emerged: being a musician and enjoyment. In
being a musician, the participants created their own deﬁnitions of a musician and also
identiﬁed how their own musicianship ﬁt into that deﬁnition. In enjoyment, the
participants described not only how they valued music, but their favorite ways of making

music.

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Being a Musician

Understanding how children deﬁne the term “musician” adds to a discussion of
musical identity because it provides a window into how children see the world, and thus,
how they see themselves as a part of that world. The participants answered the question,
“What is a musician?,” in their journals, and I then discussed their answers with them in
the interviews. Both Ravi’s and Olivia’s answers focused on playing instruments. As
Ravi wrote, “A musician is a person who plays a musical instrument” (Journal entry,
Ravi), and Olivia wrote, “A musician could be a music conductor, or a person whom
plays a instrument. (Written underneath) for example: I hope my friend reaches and
becomes a musician” (Journal entry, Olivia) (Figure 3).

Ravi and Olivia appeared to believe that playing instruments is a more salient
component of musicianship than other musical activities, like singing, composing, or
improvising. Olivia also believed that a conductor is a musician. At the bottom of the
page, Olivia even drew a ﬁgure of a girl holding a baton with music notes and ﬂowers, as
though the girl is conducting. When I ﬁrst spoke to Olivia about her journal answers, she
did not have those pictures on the page. However, when I collected the journals for data
analysis, I discovered that she had added pictures under many of her statements. Olivia
could have been adding an artistic touch to her journals, or she could also have been
reﬂecting on her answers after the fact.

In explaining his deﬁnition, Ravi struggled to ﬁnd an answer: “Like, plays an
instrument, in a band. Like, plays an instrument, does something with musicians. Like,

yeah. Does something with people who play with music” (Interview, Ravi, April 21 ,

99

 

 

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Figure 3. Olivia’s (student) deﬁnition of a musician

2009). Olivia, explained her answer by providing her sister as an example: “Weeelll, a
musician can be someone who M an instrument, and so if you played the ﬂute, then
you could be a musician, and my sister does” (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009). While
Ravi struggled to deﬁne musicianship, Olivia answered more easily. However, Olivia’s
answer again looked to others around her— in this case, her sister— as examples of
musicians, rather than relating the deﬁnition to herself.

Justin and Jillian both included composers as part of their deﬁnition of a
musician. Justin’s and Jillian’s answers may have resulted from their beginning
experiences with composition in Ms. Harvey’s music class, which began at around the
same time as their ﬁrst interviews. Justin deﬁned a musician as “a person who makes or
composes music” (Journal entry, Justin), but when asked to explain his answer, he
replied, “Someone who makes music, I guess” (Interview, April, 21, 2009). Justin’s
broad reply suggests that he perhaps felt unsure how to make his answer more clear.

In her journal, Jillian wrote, “A musician is someone who creates music for
intertainment perposes [sic]. Some one not forced to create compositions” (Journal entry,
Jillian). In explaining her answer, Jillian then gave a more personal response:

A musician, to me, is someone who creates music for their own purpose and is not

@3231 to create a composition. So, say if you were in music class, and you were

told you had to make a composition, that’s not My a musician, unless they

really wanted to do that and begged their teacher or asked them, or whatever

 

(Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009).

101

Rather than playing instruments, Jillian stated her belief that composing comprised a
more salient part of being a musician. Jillian’s example of a person in a music class
“forced” to compose reﬂected the activities in which she was participating during music
class at the time of this interview. The parallels between Jillian’s deﬁnition of a musician
and her current participation in composing suggests that she had an awareness of her own
musicianship when creating her deﬁnition. I found J illian’s focus on composition
intriguing, so I asked her if desire was a requirement of being a musician only when a
person composed music:

1 ﬁnd that also if you play a composition or if you sing a composition, it is a

musician... Sometimes when you’re playing an instrument or you’re being vocal,

you don’t have to have the desire to do it as much, I think, [as] when you’re
playing a composition. Writing music, in my opinion, you just sorta have to want

it (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009).

While Jillian acknowledged that a musician can participate in other forms of musicing—
singing and playing, she still valued composition and a musician’s ability to have control
over composing. In other words, for Jillian, agency is a primary condition for being a
musician.

After asking the participants to provide their deﬁnition of a musician, I asked
them, “Are you a musician?,” to explore their sense of musical self-concept, based upon
their own deﬁnitions. All four of the participants provided answers concerning their own
musicianship that related directly to the parameters of the deﬁnition of a musician they

had just given. Ravi felt that he was a musician, but his answer lacked conﬁdence:

102

“Kinda. I play recorder. I play recorder in music classes, and I’m kinda good at it. I can
play a few songs” (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009). His journal answer supported this
statement, saying, “Yes, because I play a recorder. (Written underneath) P.S. But not a
good one” (Journal entry, Ravi). However, Ravi does not explain whether “a good one”
refers to the quality of his instrument or his playing. Regardless, through his answers,
Ravi showed that his sense of musicianship is viewed through the lens of his deﬁnition of
a musician as someone who plays an instrument.

Olivia, who also deﬁned a musician as one who plays an instrument, provided a
similar answer, but put her answer in terms of her past, present and future. In her journal,
she wrote, “Am I a musician? Mabey, I guess I might or will be. because right now in
our music class we are doing recorder. And in 5th grade I’ll play the string bass” [sic]
(Journal entry, Olivia). Underneath this answer, Olivia added more ﬂowers and a picture
of a girl playing the recorder surrounded by music notes (Figure 4).

Olivia’s answer in her interview also supported what she wrote:

JK: Are you a musician?

Olivia: I used to do piano. I did it for, like, four years. Then I did drums, because

my dad said I was really good at ‘em (chuckles). But I just kinda stopped doing it

one day. I was M to g9, and I forggt, and I never went again. But I do the

recorder m, and I’m gonna do the string bass (Interview, Olivia, April 21,

2009)

Olivia shared the instruments she played in the chronological order in which she

learned them. However, she only referred to her recorder in the present tense. She spoke

103

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4. Olivia’s (student) view of herself as musician

104

 

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of the piano and drums, two instruments she studied privately, but she only referred to
them in the past. She had stopped taking lessons on those instruments. Her statement
that she forgot to go to her lessons indicates a lack of interest in drums; yet, she still
looked forward to playing the string bass, referring to it in the future tense. Although
Olivia’s list reinforced her deﬁnition of a musician, the fact that Olivia had played a
variety of instruments before age 10, but had not yet determined which she would
continue playing, suggests that her musical self-concept may still be developing.

Justin and Jillian’s answers also supported their self-created deﬁnition of a
musician, with a focus on composition. In answer to his journal question, “Are you a
musician? Why or why not?” Justin wrote, “Not really. I play music but I don’t make
music” (Journal entry, Justin). When I asked him to clarify what he meant by “make
music,” Justin said, “I don’t compose it” (Interview, Justin, May 26, 2009). In his entry,
Justin showed his recognition that playing instruments is a part of being a musician, but
he believed that true musicians must also compose music. Because Justin had just
completed his composition in music class, his answer that he did not compose seems
contradictory to his experience. It is possible that Justin’s felt a disconnect between his
experiences in school music and his perceptions of what music should be, which may
relate to Justin’s seemingly weak sense of his musical self-concept. In the section of
musical self-esteem later in this chapter, Justin described his negative feelings about his
school composition, which may have contributed to his self-perceptions in that construct.

In answering the same question, Jillian stressed the importance of having control

over her compositions. Although this concept was introduced in the theme of control/

105

agency, a discussion of J illian’s need for control is also relevant here as it relates to her
deﬁnition of a musician.

Jillian: (Reading from her journal) Are you a musician? Why or why not? Yes,

gn_d_ m. I love making music, but not all music I make is by m, so, technically,

sometimes I a_m a musician and sometimes I’m not, at the same time (Interview,

Jillian, May 21, 2009).

In her journal entry, Jillian emphasized the word “love” by writing it in capital letters and
underlining it to emphasize her passion, so that it looked like this: TABLE, However, in
reading her answer, Jillian chose to emphasize the words, “M m” and “gm.” The
difference in her written and verbal answers showed that, at times, her desire for
controlling music may be equal to, or even trump, her passion for music.

Unlike the other three participants, Jillian’s sense of being a musician did not stem
from a sense of having or lacking ability. Rather, Jillian’s answer depended on whether
she had independence to create music herself, and that, when she composed out of her
own desires, she truly felt like a musician. Further, Jillian did not have an absolute,
concrete perception of herself as a musician, which she indicated by wavering between,
“yes” and “no.” Her mother felt that Jillian had this perception, not as a lack of
conﬁdence in her abilities, but as a part of her individuality:

I don’t know if she sees herself as M as a musician. I think she just kind of

i_s, so it’s just m. Yeah. I’m not sure that she really differentiates between, “I

am a musician and you are ngt a musician.” It’s just that [it is an] “Isn’t-

everybody-like-this?” kind of thing. You just have it. I’m not sure that she gets

106

that there’s different giggies of d_oi§g and where she falls in it. (Interview, Jillian’s

mother, March 31, 2009).

According to her mother, Jillian did not see herself as a musician because she believed
that everyone made music. Thus, Jillian did not see herself as unique. Jillian shared a
similar statement, saying that, “I don’t believe I know a single person who hasn’t played
an instrument of some sort or learned to play an instrument of some sort” (Interview,
Jillian, May 21, 2009). Jillian’s belief that everyone is a musician shed further light on
her answer to the question, “Are you a musician?” Because Jillian believed that everyone
simply “does” music, her answer, “Not all of the music I do is by m,” shows the value
she placed on being able to control her own music. Jillian’s sense of musicianship
depended, to a large extent, on her agency as a musician.

In summary, the participants created deﬁnitions of a musician, and then they
reﬂected on how their self-perceptions compared to that deﬁnition. Ravi and Olivia both
felt that a musician is a person who plays instruments, while Jillian and Justin felt that a
musician is someone who composes. While Olivia felt she was a musician because of all
of the instruments she had played or planned to play, Ravi felt less sure about his musical
self-concept as an instrumentalist. Also, while Jillian felt that she was a musician when
she chose to compose, Justin did not feel he was a musician because he did not believe he
composed music, contrary to his experiences in music class. None of the participants
described their sense of musical self-concept as a result of having achieved certain
accomplishments or developed speciﬁc skills. For example, none of them said, “I am a

musician because I play the recorder well,” or “I am a musician because I write really

107

good songs.” Rather, they related their musical self-concepts to the doing of a musical
activity, as though learning to perform the musicing role was more important than the
quality of performing the role. Perhaps leaming to understand how to participate in
musical roles, like performing and composing, serves as a precursor to the more reﬁned
ability of understanding how the quality of a performance adds to one’s sense of musical
self-concept.

Enjoyment

Erikson (1968), in his Theory of Ego Development, theorized that children from
ages six to twelve, undergo a conﬂict called, “Industry vs. Inferiority,” in which they ﬁnd
satisfaction in industry, or creating products. Children feel satisfaction when they believe
that their work is recognized and appreciated (Erikson, 1968). In this study, the primary
participants demonstrated their sense of industry through a variety of musical
experiences, including singing, playing instruments, and composing. As a result of these
industrious experiences, the participants expressed their enjoyment, and sometimes their
lack of enjoyment, in these musical pursuits. Speciﬁcally, the participants described their
enjoyment in two main areas, including their value of music and their favorite types of
music.

Value of Music. I asked each of the participants the question, “How important is
music to you?” Justin, in one of his typically short responses, replied that music was
“kind of important” (Interview, April 21, 2009), while Jillian gave a much stronger
answer: “I don’t know about everyone else,'but to me, it’s very important” (Interview,

Jillian, April 21, 2009). Ravi agreed with Justin that music was somewhat important in

108

his life, and he then described how he used music: “Music means, like, it’s not a big thing
in my life, but I like to use it to cairn me down sometimes. It’s like my ﬁiend. When I
play music, when I do something with music, I feel relaxed” (Interview, Ravi, April 21,
2009). Ravi valued music because of its ability to help him relax, so much so that he
personiﬁed music as “his friend.” Ravi especially felt enjoyment when he played his
recorder: “If I’m, like, in a bad mood, I like playing my recorder to get me up, like put
me in a good mood” (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009). Music helped Ravi change his
mood; it made him happy.

Like Ravi, Olivia answered the question by saying how she used music, but she
never directly stated how much she valued music:

M, I don’t 131% music a lgt, but I listen to music a lot because of m,

and I have to remember all my steps, so it helps me to just listen to music. It’s

kinda weird, but sometimes in the car ride, if I feel sick, sometimes I listen to

music and then I don’t feel sick anymore (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).
Olivia ranked listening to music as more important than playing instruments in terms of
its value in her life. However, she seemed to value listening as a tool to help her in dance
and also to take her mind off of her carsickness. Thus, Olivia appreciated the intrinsic
value of music as secondary to things like dance and making her feel better.

Favorite types of musicing. The participants had clear opinions about their
favorite ways to make music in school and outside of school. They described four
different types of musicing: listening, singing, playing instruments, and composing.

Justin and Jillian mentioned listening as a casual activity. Justin said that music “relaxes”

109

him, and his mother supported this claim in her interview, describing both Justin and his
brother: “I would say, maybe it relaxes the kids, especially if we’re driving to a game,
and they’re listening to it. It gives them something to do, and just kind of puts them into
more of their own zone” (Interview, Justin’s mother, March 14, 2009).

Jillian described her listening preferences more speciﬁcally: “Sometimes I like to
listen to newer stuff, and sometimes I like to listen to the orchestra—— brass blow-
out” (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009). While Jillian never explained what “brass blow-
out” meant, she had previous exposure to brass music through attendance at live concerts
of her parents’ playing. I imagine the music Jillian referred to had a heightened volume
level. However, Jillian distinguished the more current music from the presumably older
“brass blow-out.” Her mother supported J illian’s broad listening interests, saying, “I
don’t know that there’s much she _d_oe_s_n_’t like... There’s m classical music, but it’s not
like we have it on all the time. More just stuff from the radio. General
music” (Interview, Jillian’s mother, March 31, 2009). Jillian described her favorite things
to do in music, saying, “[T]wo favorites would probably be singing and listening to
music. I just like to listen to music so I can hear what the music is supposed to be
sounding like when I sing” (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009). For Jillian, listening
serves multiple purposes, including her personal enjoyment and to help her improve her
singing.

Unlike the other three participants, Olivia felt a strong connection to music
listening, which she expressed several times throughout her interviews with the same

phrase: “‘Cause I loooove listening to music!” Olivia’s mother described the ready

 

110

availability to music in their house. Olivia’s parents installed a modern stereo system
throughout their house so that each room had speakers in the ceiling that could be
individually turned on or off or combined to sound throughout the whole house. In my
interview with her, I had not even noticed the speakers until she pointed them out. They
looked like small, white domes punctuating two or three places in the kitchen where we
sat during the interview. Olivia’s mother explained that Olivia and her sister “pretty
much have free rein to music, twenty-four, seven” (Interview, Olivia’s mother, March 13,
2009). Further, she said that Olivia enjoyed listening more than her other family
members: “She, above everyone else in the family, is the ﬁrst to turn it on.”

Olivia described listening to music at home as one of her favorite past times:

I loooove listening to music. It’s one of my favorite things to do. When I’m

 

bored, most of my friends would go outside and play, but I just don’t feel like it....

What should I do? Should I turn on music? I can listen to that for, like, three

hours straight without getting bored. I just me; to the music and it makes me

feel happy because I dream that I’m a professional dancer (throws her arms out

and tilts her head back in a dramatic gesture) (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).
Olivia stated that she listened to music for “three hours straight,” which is a long time for
a 9-year-old child to engage in an activity. However, as she mentioned earlier when she
described the importance of music, Olivia valued music for its contributions to her
dancing. In this case, music became a tool for her to play with dance and pretend she was
a dancer. Again, Olivia placed music in a secondary position to dance. Compared to

singing and playing instruments, Olivia preferred listening. While Justin, Jillian, and

111

Ravi shared some enjoyment of listening to music, their enjoyment paled in comparison
to Olivia’s self-professed love for listening to music.

Singing. The concept of singing enjoyment emerged from the four participants,
with some of them expressing a like and others a dislike of singing. Ms. Harvey felt that,
as a group, the students in Ms. Lewis’ class did not enjoy singing, which she perceived as
resulting from a lack of interest:

And I just don’t see that l_ey__e] of engagement with this particular group. So

maybe that’s why I identify them as being leg, or maybe, melt; identifying

themselves less as singers, because they’re not as engaged in this class as in other
' groups (Interview, Ms. Harvey, May 22, 2009).
Ms. Harvey described how students in this class did not engage themselves in singing as
much as students in other music classes. Thus, because students in Ms. Lewis’ class did
not seem as though they enjoyed or felt interested in singing, Ms. Harvey concluded that
perhaps students 'in this class did not identify themselves as singers.

Although all four of the participants had proﬁcient singing voices, Justin, Ravi,
and Olivia did not enjoy singing. Twice during the interviews, Justin stated, “I don’t
really like singing,” which conﬂicted with a statement from his mother, who said, “I think
he enjoys the singing and the verbalness of it [music]” [sic] (Interview, Justin’s mother,
March 14, 2009). Although Justin and his mother disagreed about whether he enjoyed
singing, I believe that Justin understood his likes and dislike more than his mother, and he
shared them on multiple occasions by telling me that he did not like singing. Perhaps

Justin’s mother wanted to believe that he enjoyed singing. In music class, I never

112

observed Justin singing alone or with his friends, but he appeared to sing when it was a
required part of a class activity, or it could be that Justin enjoyed singing at home, out of
the view of other peOple. When I asked Justin about why he did not like singing, he
clammed up and answered the question saying, “I don’t know” (Interview, Justin, April
21, 2009). Although I tried to ask him as gently as possible, Justin’s discomfort in
discussing his singing was evident. In later interviews, I again asked him about singing,
but he gave similar responses. Though it is possible that Justin’s negative feelings may
have been due to peer pressures, I never observed anything in my observations nor heard
Justin state that he received any pressure from classmates. As a result, I could not
determine why Justin felt negatively about singing.

Similarly, Ravi also shared his dislike for singing, saying, “I don’t liﬁ singing so
much, and I’m not good at it, and I don’t 11$ singing a lot, so I’m not kinda good at
it” (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009). Justin and Ravi elected not to join the fourth- and
ﬁfth-grade choir at Greenview, and I believe that their dislike of singing led them to this
decision. I asked Ms. Harvey why she thought Justin and Ravi did not join choir. While
she said that she believed Justin’s decision resulted from social issues, for Ravi, she
postulated a different reason:

Ravi, I don’t think he perceives himself a_t a_l_l as a singer, which is unfortunate,

because he has a nice singing voice... H_e’s_ never verbalized that to me, and he’s

n_ot shy. He doesn’t n_ot sing in class, he dLes participate in singing and do

everything we do in class, I just don’t think he perceives it as being his thing

(Interview, Ms. Harvey, May 22, 2009).

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Ravi, himself, expressed why he not enjoy singing: “I feel nervous when I sing, and I
don’t feel comfortable with it. It kinda feels, like, weird” (Interview, Ravi, April 21,
2009). However, Ms. Harvey believed that Ravi ’5 relationship with singing went beyond
like or dislike. Rather, Ms. Harvey suggested that Ravi lacked a musical self-concept as
a singer by saying that singing wasn’t “his thing,” which implied that he did not perceive
himself as a singer. When I had asked Ravi ’5 parents about his singing, his father told me
that, “He has not taken any formal singing classes” (Interview, Ravi’s father, April 4,
2009). His family did not mention that Ravi did any singing at home, but the fact that
they emphasized his lack of formal singing instruction shows the value they place on
formal training, a belief that may have inﬂuenced Ravi and his self-perception as a non-
singer.

Olivia also stated that she did not like singing, but used the past tense: “Okay,
well, at ﬁrst, I didn’t like singing at all, and no one in my family, well, they didn’t n_ot
like it, but no one was really [like], “I want to be a singer when I grow up” (Interview,
Olivia, April 21, 2009). Olivia’s use of the phrase, “at fist,” suggests that she may have
previously disliked singing, but liked it at the time of this interview. She chose to
participate in choir, unlike Justin and Ravi, which may indicate that she had some interest
in singing. However, she made it clear that no one in her family, including herself, would
pursue singing as a career. When describing the types of songs she sang at home, Olivia
gave examples of songs from her dance lessons, labeling them according to each dance
class: “Maybe lyrical [ballet] is a good thing to sing, and I. was ﬂy with that, and I like

jazz” (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009). This is another example of Olivia’s strong

114

relationship with dance affecting her musicianship; Olivia preferred singing songs she
learned as a result of her dance lessons.

Contrary to Olivia’s, Justin’s and Ravi’s dislike of singing, Jillian felt passionately
about singing. As mentioned earlier, Jillian listed her favorite ways to make music as
singing and listening, although listening partly helped her singing. In the participants’ a
journals, I asked them to draw a picture of their favorite instrument. Rather than drawing
a traditional instrument, Jillian drew a proﬁle of a large head with penciled-in hair and
eyelashes (Figure 5). The head had no body, but out the large open mouth poured a two-
lincd staff with music notes and the words, “blah, blah,” for lyrics written underneath the
music notes. To the side, Jillian wrote, “(Singing) [her parentheses]” to label her
drawing. Below the head, Jillian wrote, “-or—” and drew a simple line-drawing of a
Sousaphone. The Sousaphone had fewer details and looked rather simple, compared to
the singer. When Jillian showed me this drawing, she offered a simple explanation:
“Some people say that singing is not an instrument, so I wrote two. One is of singing and
one is of a sousaphone” (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009). Jillian’s favorite instrument
is the voice, as evidenced by her drawing. Jillian put a great deal of effort into her
singing, which she claimed to practice at home. Jillian also described her voice in more
detail than the other participants:

Jillian: I ﬁnd that sometimes I have, like, two different singing voices, like an

operatical— I think that’s the right word—

JK: Operatic? ’ ’

Jillian: Operatic voice and a sort of semi-singing, semi-talking [voice].

115

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5. Jillian’s (student) favorite instrument

116

JK: Which is your favorite voice to use?

Jillian: Probably the one somewhere in between (Interview, Jillian, April 21,

2009)

Jillian could manipulate her voice and differentiate between types of voices. Although
she stated that she has two different voice types, “operatic” and “semi-singing, semi-
talking,” she also recognized a third type of voice in between those two categories.

Jillian not only loved singing, but exhibited a maturity in her voice beyond her 9
years. Jillian’s mother stated that Jillian had an ability to match pitch at an early age:

The thing that got me, always, was that she could always repeat any pitch that I

gave to her. I would sing a song to her and she would sing it back and it’d be m

piic_h. I don’t know that she has anything sort of like a pe_rfeg_t_ pitch, or anything,

but she had a very good pitch memory. So maybe we did a little more of that than
with the other kids. They enjoyed music, too, but sh_e could sing back anything

(Interview, Jillian’s mother, March 31, 2009).

Jillian’s exposure to singing and singing games at home as a young child, greater than
even her sisters’, may have enhanced her enjoyment of singing.

As she grew older, though, Jillian’s voice developed a natural ability to project,
which her mother explained, saying, “She’s just picked it up” (Interview, J illian’s mother,
March 31, 2009). In music class, Jillian’s voice projected over the voices of the other
students, and she often responded ﬁrst with the correct answer in singing patterns in
class. Because of Jillian’s natural abilities, she had to learn to adjust her voice type, as

described by both her mother and Ms. Harvey:

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J illian’s mother: She’s always been a loud ta_ll_<e_r, a loud singer, loud M. So
she’s had to develop. If she goes in singing with a group of people, she’s always
the one that’s singing the Meg, or singing and being able to do the lug p_it_ch,
you kind of end up doing that. So she’s had to l_e_arg to pull back. Which is not...
a thing...(pausing as though she is choosing her words carefully) I want her to
have to le_ar;n__ right now, but in order to play or sing with a group, you have to
blend. So it’s something she has to learn (Interview, Jillian’s mother, March 31,
2009)
As Ms. Harvey said,
She’s got a big voice, and that’s been an issue in classes before, where she’s sung
in full voice, and we’ve had to have the conversation about when do you pull back
a little and when do you sing full (Interview, Ms. Harvey, May 22, 2009).
Jillian had not only the ability to match pitch and project, but also the conﬁdence to sing
out in front of others, leading her mother and her music teacher to talk to her about voice
blending. Some children might have been turned off to singing or embarrassed by their
voices in ﬁnding out their voice was different. Jillian, on the other hand, adapted her
voice, and thus, created her “operatic” and “semi-singing, semi—talking” voices so that
she could continue participating in an activity that she found enjoyable, demonstrating a
musical self-concept strong enough to withstand any discomfort she may have felt from
having a different voice than her peers. Ultimately, though, beyond her abilities to

project or create different types of voices, Jillian loved singing because of how it made

118

her feel: “Singing sort of makes me feel happy, or sad, or whatever the mood is.
Sometimes it makes me feel a little better” (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009).

Playing instruments. All four of the participants played instruments regularly,

both at school and at home. In school, they had all begun to play the recorder. Ms.
Harvey explained that, because they had recently spent much of their class time playing
the recorder, the students would “probably identify themselves more as an instrumentalist
than a singer at this point” (Interview, Ms. Harvey, May 22, 2009). However, Ms.
Harvey did not provide any insight into their enjoyment of playing the recorder. At
home, the students also played a variety of instruments. Justin, Jillian, and Olivia had
taken piano lessons, but both Jillian and Olivia had decided to quit taking lessons. Olivia
had also taken private drum lessons and had access to her father’s drum set and dumbek
(an Arabic goblet drum). Also, although he was not taking lessons at the time of this
study, Ravi had taken trumpet lessons as a young child. All of these experiences playing
instruments shaped their perceptions of music and gave the participants opportunities to
make choices about their likes and dislikes.

Both Ravi and Justin stated that playing instruments was their favorite way to
make music. Justin stated, “I like playing ‘em” (Interview, April 21, 2009), while Ravi
said, “I like playing instruments 3 lot. They’re ﬁn and, like, challenging” (Interview,
Ravi, April 21, 2009). When I asked Ravi to explain what made playing instruments
challenging, he described the process of practicing: “When you, like, learn to play a new
song or a new note in a song, you have to practice a lot to get the hang of it.” However,

since Ravi included the word, “fun,” along with the word, “challenging,” I believe that he

119

found both playing instruments and the challenge of learning them as an. enjoyable
experience.

Ravi and Justin also explained why playing instruments was their favorite way of
making music. Justin enjoyed hearing the timbre of different instruments: “1 like playing
different kinds of instruments because they have a different sound to all of
them” (Interview, Justin, April 21, 2009). Throughout our interviews, he expressed his
interest in playing several different instruments beyond the piano and recorder, which he
already played, including guitar and drums. In his journal, Justin drew a picture of his
favorite instrument: the saxophone (Figure 6). Justin said he liked the saxophone because
it sounded “clear” and “smooth” (Interview, Justin, May 26, 2009).

Ravi’s answer focused not on the sound of the instruments, but on his feeling as a
performer. In explaining why he enjoyed playing instruments, Ravi said, “I like doing
stuﬂ‘ by myself” (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009). Ravi liked playing instruments alone
because he had control over his musicianship, as described in the control/agency theme.
Further, Ravi found playing instruments easier than singing:

If you’re singing together, if you’re singing alone, if you get low, if you mess up a

little bit, the song kinda gets messed up. But if you mess up a little bit on playing

recorder, then playing an instrument, it’s okay. You can get back on track, for me

(Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009).

Because Ravi had more trouble singing accurately than playing recorder, he preferred
playing an instrument. Ravi enjoyed the playing the recorder because he liked getting the

notes right.

120

ii} 113% 1..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6. Justin’s (student) favorite instrument

121

In his journal, Ravi drew a trumpet as his favorite instrument, and, in explaining
this, he said that he liked the sound of the trumpet and that, “It’s easy to play because it
only has three notes” (Interview, Ravi, May 26, 2009), while he wiggled his ﬁngers in
front of his mouth like holding the trumpet (Figure 7). Ravi and I discussed his favorite
instrument toward the end of our ﬁnal interview. As described in the family inﬂuence
theme, he then revealed that he had taken trumpet lessons when he was ﬁve-years-old. I
remember feeling shocked that this had never come up in either of our two previous
interviews or in the interview with Ravi’s parents. Although neither Ravi’s parents nor
his music teacher could corroborate Ravi’s story, Ravi’s numerous statements about
playing the trumpet reveal that he had strong feelings for playing the instrument.

Ravi told me that he had only taken a few lessons and had played in a recital. He
explained that his parents had decided that he should take trumpet lessons against his
will: “My parents t_o_l_d me about it, and I didn’t want to, but I tried it, so I told them,
‘Don’t take me out of it.’ So those were my lessons. I know how to play some
notes” (Interview, Ravi, May 26, 2009). Although Ravi did not initially like the idea of
playing the trumpet, he quickly grew to enjoy it. Unfortunately, when his family moved
to America, Ravi explained that he had to stop his lessons, and he never had an
opportunity to continue them. However, Ravi planned to play the trumpet in ﬁfth grade
band, which suggests that he continued to harbor positive memories from his previous
experiences.

Jillian and Olivia did not list playing instruments as their favorite way to make

music. As discussed earlier, Jillian chose to draw a person singing and a Sousaphone as

122

 

 

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Figure 7. Ravi’s (student) favorite instrument

123

her favorite instruments. Olivia drew a picture of a recorder and a string bass (Figure 8),
which matched her answer to the earlier question, “Are you a musician?” Olivia had
drawn the recorder toward the top of the page and in a larger scale than the string bass,
which lead me to wonder if she liked the recorder more than the string bass, the
instrument she would play in ﬁfth grade. However, in explaining her drawing, Olivia
shared that her opinions had changed since the time she had made the picture:

Well, I ESSA to play [recorder] all the time, all the time. Just trying to tell you that

it’s not my favorite thing, anymore. It would probably be the string bass now, but

I M to like to play the recorder because we were learning it in class. So I was

like, “Well, I better practice,” and I was trying to get the black belt. So I just liked

playing (Interview, Olivia, May 26, 2009).

When Olivia had been playing the recorder in music class, it was her favorite instrument,
especially when she was competing to earn her black belt. However, once the unit had
ended, her favor for the instrument waned. Instead, Olivia looked forward with
excitement to playing the string bass.

Although Olivia expressed that she no longer enjoyed playing the recorder,
throughout the recorder unit, the primary participants and their parents described their
enjoyment of the experience. Jillian said she felt “happy” to earn her black belt in
Recorder Karate, and her mother agreed with her, saying, “Ms. Harvey told her she’d
have a black belt by Thursday... She was all excited about that” (Interview, Jillian’s
mother, March 31, 2009). Jillian’s enjoyment came from the thrill of earning more

recorder belts. In fact, all of the parents described how the participants would practice at

124

 

 

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Figure 8. Olivia’s (student) favorite instrument

125

home:
Ravi’s father: I think he’s quite well. The last few days at home, having to listen
to all his, (chuckles) you know, practice at home. And he’s doing a good job of it
(Interview, Ravi’s parents, April 4, 2009),
Olivia’s mother: She llloooves it. She played it this morning at breakfast
(Interview, Olivia’s mother, March 13, 2009), and
Justin’s mother: He likes playing his recorder for me. A l_ot.... He’s been gory
excited and gave me a personal serenade in the car the other day (Interview,
Justin’s mother, March 14, 2009).
Olivia’s father, with his musical background, chose to improvise on the drums with his
daughter’s recorder playing:
So she was going around playing this song over and over on the recorder, and I
thought, “Oh, well I’ll play the dumbek to it.” It’s so easy to record, you might as
well get out the computer and take an extra three minutes to record it (Interview,
Olivia’s father, July 30, 2009).
Olivia, in an interview after the recorder unit had ended, said, “I used to play the recorder
a lot, like, just around my house, and he was like, ‘Play that again,’ and he started playing
the dumbek with it, so I was like, ‘Okay.’” (Interview, Olivia, May 26, 2009), and then
she began to smile and laugh at the memory. Although Olivia does not speciﬁcally state
her feelings about playing instruments with her father, her laughter implied that she

enjoyed the situation.

126

 

While all four of the participants played the recorder in school, at home the
participants had opportunities to play other instruments, including trumpet, drums, and
piano. As described above, Ravi played the trumpet. Olivia not only heard her father
play the drums, but she also played the drums:

Well, my dad, he’s really good at the drums... He plays on it a lot, and he’s really

good at it. One time he played for the class [at school], so I like playing it

[dmms], too (Grins and chuckles). He taught me how to play it (Interview,

Olivia, May 26, 2009).

Olivia enjoys playing the drums, and her parents encouraged her from a young age:

[S]he was quite young when she picked up the drums, and we realized, because

[names father] had drums, we realized that she could really keep a beat. I know a

lot of people, you sit them in front of drums and it’s a lot to just have the two

sticks going at a time, but she just immediately could do one hand one way and
one hand the other without even thinking about it (Interview, Olivia’s mother,

March 13, 2009). ’

Olivia took private drum lessons for a short period of time, but her mother explained that
they did not work out, saying, “I think they kinda just need to let it go, and she kinda got
bored with the (imitates hitting a drum) tap, tap, tap, over and over.” Olivia explained
that one day they “forgot to go” to lessons and never went again. Although she did not
take lessons formally, she still enjoyed playing the drums: “I’m so happy, ‘cause I’m s9

’ 3 good at drums. I ME doing ‘em (Interview, May 21, .2009). Olivia also shared that she

almost drew the drums as one of her favorite instruments: “1 was gonna put the drums,

127

 

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but I didn’t want to put three things on there... I didn’t want to take time to draw the
drums, too!” (Interview, Olivia, May 26, 2009). Olivia ranked drums near the recorder
and the string bass as one of her favorite instruments, but she did not feel strongly enough
about the dmms to draw them in her journal.

Finally, Olivia, Justin, and Jillian had all taken piano lessons. However, unlike
the other instruments described above, none of them described enjoying playing the ‘1"
piano. Justin’s mother explained why she chose to enroll Justin in piano: “Justin didn’t
really want to take piano lessons, but I wanted it for him. I think it’s just good exposure.
You know, the whole studies with math and math skills, and I think it’s just a good
exposure” (Interview, Justin’s mother, March 14, 2009). Justin started piano against his
will, but Jillian’s mother stated that it was Jillian’s own choice to take piano lessons. She
said that Jillian desired to take lessons partly because her older sisters took lessons, and
partly because, “They do a couple recitals and she wanted to be a part of that” (Interview,
J illian’s mother, March 31, 2009). Olivia’s parents did not offer a reason why they chose
to enroll her in piano.

Jillian enjoyed piano at the beginning, but those feelings soon tapered away: “I
took up piano for a little bit, but recently I kinda quit, because I wasn’t practicing it, and I
guess I didn’t really like it any more” (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009). Jillian’s mother
gave a similar explanation:

She was like, “I don’t wanna waste your money, Mom,” and I don’t wanna make

[names piano teacher] sit there and hear something I haven’t practiced.” So I

128

don’t know what it was that a couple months ago stopped so much (Interview,
Jillian’s mother, March 31, 2009).
Jillian recognized that she was not interested in the piano anymore and was sensitive to
the cost of piano lessons to her family, which made her want to give up the lessons.
Olivia never shared that she disliked playing the piano, but instead described how
quitting piano was not her choice. Instead, it was a choice that her family had made
together:
Yeah, it was a hard decision, because I didn’t M like it—-—it was fun—but when
you were... It’s hard because my music place was right across the street, so it was
nice, but then if you forgot something or if you didn’t do something g’gﬁ, you felt
all scared and then you didn’t wanna go. So, one time, we just went, and she
wasn’t they; and the lights were off, and we had a discussion we decided not to go
anymore (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).
Olivia described the negative feelings she had felt during her lessons and that a family
discussion led to ending the lessons abruptly. Olivia could even describe the memory of
going to the piano teacher’s house and seeing the darkened windows, as though that
provided an excuse to not visit that teacher again.
Olivia’s parents provided explanations of the decision that focused more on the
struggle to ﬁnd time to dedicate to lessons for her and her older sister:
Olivia’s mother: [I]t just got to the point where we couldn’t keep up on it. We just

could n_o_t do it. We were running ourselves ragged trying to do it, and we

 

thought, “You know, they don’t have time to practice.” You can’t really be

129

successful in piano unless you practice. So it was a tough decision (Interview,
Olivia’s mother, March 13, 2009), and

Olivia’s father: Well, we all kind of made it as a family decision. But they didn’t
like the time commitment. That’s really what it came down to. It was hggd 3%,
too, so I think they could kind of be a little l_a_z_y about it. Basically, they didn’t

have enough time to practice, or they weren’t practicing. They didn’t want to

 

practice, and we didn’t want to sit around and f_o_r_ce them to practice (Interview,

Olivia’s father, June 30, 2009).
Olivia’s family made the decision to end her piano lessons because they lacked the time.
However, Olivia’s mother also described being at the dance studio as a family “every
day.” Thus, although they did not speciﬁcally claim that dance interfered with piano
lessons, the amount of time they dedicated to dance indicated that they felt that dance was
more of a priority than piano lessons. Perhaps if Olivia had shown a greater interest in
practicing her piano lessons, her family would have considered continuing with lessons.

Out of the three who played piano, only Justin had continued taking lessons. At
ﬁrst, Justin shared that his favorite musical memory was when he ﬁrst started playing
piano. Justin’s mother also believed her son liked playing the piano, but shared that he
was shy about performing: “He e_njgy§ it, but he’s very, I think, a little shy to do it in front
of others” (Interview, Justin’s mother, March 31, 2009). However, by his last interview,
Justin had decided that he no longer liked playing piano:

Justin: I really liked it when I ﬁrst started, but I don’t anymore.

JK: What is different?

130

Justin: Well, I think the ﬁrst time, it was just fun to play an instrument, but now
it’s kinda (lowering his pitch) bor-i_ng (Interview, Justin, May 26, 2009).
Ms. Harvey had attended Justin’s past piano recitals and had encouraged him to play
piano in music class, but Justin declined. Ms. Harvey shared this about Justin’s piano
playing:
He’s always been one to— you know he’s been studying piano for a couple years,
but he never wants to play or perform or shy that. So I don’t know if it’s one of

those things that— is it one of those things that he doesn’t identify himself as

 

being musical, or that it’s a very personal thing that he doesn’t want to share with
others? I mean, it could be any of those things (Interview, Ms. Harvey, May 22,
2009)
Although Ravi did not choose to take trumpet lessons, he enjoyed the trumpet and wanted
to continue. Unfortunately, Justin did not have the same experience with piano. Even
though Justin enjoyed playing the piano initially, he gradually decided that it was boring,
like Jillian. Also, Justin did not enjoy performing for others because of his shyness.
Overall, the participants described instruments they enjoyed playing, both in
school and outside of school. In school, the participants enjoyed playing the recorder.
Outside of school the participants played a variety of instruments that were selected by
their parents or because of an older sibling who played the piano. Jillian, Olivia, and
Justin had taken piano lessons, but they described little fun or satisfaction from the
experience, which Olivia attributed to negative feelings about her piano teacher. As the

participants started to determine what instruments they did and did not like to play, they

131

began to consider their self-perceptions as musicians. Playing instruments was an
especially important characteristic of Ravi’s and Olivia’s musicianship; they deﬁned
playing instruments as an essential part of being a musician.

None of the four had yet formed a strong affinity for playing a particular
instrument, although this may change in ﬁfth grade when they begin playing their
selected band and orchestral instruments. Since the children did not have much choice in
the instruments they had previously played, they may not have been committed to those
instruments. Olivia’s mother reﬂected on this idea, saying, “It will be interesting to see
how Olivia reacts to playing the string bass,” because it is an instrument Olivia picked, as
compared to the piano, which she didn’t pick (Interview, Olivia’s mother, March 13,
2009). Olivia’s mother then said that she wondered whether playing the string bass
would become a “true passion” for Olivia, because she had chosen it herself (Interview,
Olivia’s mother, March 13, 2009). Although the comments by Olivia’s mother are
speciﬁc only for her daughter, perhaps having a choice in their instrument will help all of
the participants to enjoy playing their instruments more than if the instruments had been
selected for them. As described earlier, all of the participants described a desire for
control and agency in their music making, so perhaps the enjoyment of playing
instruments may be related to the agency that children have in selecting their instruments.

Composing. During the time I collected data at Greenview Elementary, Ms.
Harvey had her students work for several weeks on composing individual compositions

for recorder. Many of the students, including the four participants in this study, had few

132

experiences in composing, if any at all, prior to this experience. Ms. Harvey also
reﬂected on how students in her class responded to the experience:

JK: Do you think they see themselves as composers?

Ms. Harvey: I think _s_o_m_e_ of them do, in the ways that they really embraced it and

composed things outside of class, or just the complexity of their compositions.

Then I think [for] others, it was just an exercise, or an assignment that they had to

do, and they did it. And they have li_ttl§ connection to it (Interview, Ms. Harvey,

May 22, 2009).

Ms. Harvey found that, while some students only completed the assignment because it
was required, other students “embraced” the concept of creating something new and
began to compose additional compositions outside of class. In “embracing” the idea of
composing, the students felt engaged in the process and took ownership of the
experience. While all four of the primary participants commented on their compositions
and appeared to enjoy composing in music class, none of them had directly expressed
enjoyment from composing. However, Jillian did describe musical details she enjoyed in
her compositions.

As discussed earlier, Jillian deﬁned a musician as someone who composes music,
especially when composing out of a personal desire to do so, and she declared that she
was not always a musician because she did not compose music “by want,” but was
required as a part of her music class. While Jillian never explicitly stated whether she
enjoyed composing, many of her answers focused on describing details she liked in her

own compositions, especially in comparison to others: “I ﬁnd music very interesting in

133

the way people combine the notes and get it to ﬂow (moves her hand in a ﬂowing
gesture) and sound certain moods and things like that (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009).
Also, Jillian liked how composing gave her an opportunity to make her own decisions
about the music:
Jillian: Sometimes I have a certain idﬁ for a song, and I like to just kind of 1.1%
with the music. Some people like a kind of chOppy sort of (moving her hand in
conjunction with each word) up... down... up, down, middle, up , down... up,
down, down...
JK: You mean like it...
Jillian: I like it to kind of ﬂow instead of going like a little medical machine. (She
starts air drawing the shape of the line viewed on a heart viewed on a heart
monitor).
JK: Do you mean like a heart monitor?
Jillian: Yes, the heart monitor. I like it to go My (moves hand in a wavy
motion), instead of (makes a choppy, exaggerated motion like the heart monitor;
but this time adds sound effects) phew, phew, phew, phew... phew... (Interview,
Jillian, April 21, 2009).
On another occasion, Jillian told me about a chant she had created while riding her bike.
As Jillian described this song, she laughed, and her demeanor exhibited a child-like joy
and innocence:
I made up this song about bananas foster. it was something like that, or... (starts

to speak rhythmically) Yummy yummy, in my tummy, banana foster is so yummy,

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gooey bananas, cinnamon toast, I can’t get enough of this... (appears to search for

a rhyming word) boast... I, I, I don’t remember it all (Interview, Jillian, April 21,

2009)

Jillian enjoyed composing, as she demonstrated in her smiles and laughter while
performing her self-composed piece. In the above examples, Jillian demonstrates that,
when she has the freedom to compose “by want,” she enjoys composing, and she can also
think deeply about her speciﬁc details in her compositions.

Outside of school, Olivia enjoyed composing and performing at home with her
self-made band, “The Green Emeralds.” The Green Emeralds, a trio with Olivia’s sister
and a ﬁiend, not only performed pieces but also composed their own pieces for the band.
Olivia’s father explained how the girls had composed enough pieces to create a full
album, which he then recorded. “They probably had eight or nine [songs], but they had
six that we decided were probably good enough to put on the CD” (Interview, Olivia’s
father, July 30, 2009). Olivia’s mother also described the Green Emeralds, saying:

[S]o their claim to fame is their song called, ‘Brace Face.’ And they did it

completely on their own. Completely and totally on their own. [Olivia’s father]

just went down [to the basement] and recorded it for them and mixed it down

(Interview, Olivia’s mother, March 13, 2009).

Both of Olivia’s parents emphasized that the Green Emeralds created and performed their
music independently, without the help of any adults.

Although Olivia’s parents recognized that she had composed music through the

Green Emeralds, Olivia did not identify herself as a composer. Rather, Olivia did not

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even think that she had any experiences in composing. In reﬂecting on composing, she
said, “Considering I don’t Q i_t a lot, I don’t m m_us_i_c a lot. It’s not really my least
favorite, because how can I know if I haven’t tried it? But, so far, I haven’t done
that” (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009). While Olivia made this comment before
beginning the recorder compositions in music class, she had already composed, as her
father stated, at least eight or nine songs with the Green Emeralds.
In describing the Green Emeralds, Olivia did not view herself as having a strong
role in composing their pieces:
JK: What about the Green Emeralds, though?
Olivia: We were pretty young then, and so I started the drums, and I was still
doing drum lessons, so we were making music thr, but it was mostly my friend,
[names friend], who was making up the music, because she was the singer. So
she would really make up the music because she was the singer, and I would just
play along. And they’d be like, “Just make up a beat,” and I’m like, “This isn’t as
easy as it looks!” (She says this on a high pitch as though recalling the ﬁ-ustration
she felt) (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).
Olivia differentiated between “making music,” which refers to perfomring, and “making
up music,” which refers to composing. Olivia sees her friend as being the primary
composer, because she believed that the singer should have that role. Olivia believed
that, as the drummer, her role should be to play a part that ﬁts with the singer’s
compositions. Although Olivia created drum parts for the songs, she did not see herself

as a composer. Further, she felt ﬁ'ustrated by the process of making up her part. Despite

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those negative feelings, Olivia still described liking one of the songs they created: “It’s
like, every time we have a new CD, it’s going to have that song on it, because it’s a really
awesome song!” (Interview, Olivia, May 21, 2009).

Out of all four types of musical activities the primary participants described, they
made the fewest comments regarding their enjoyment of composing. While Jillian
explained aspects of her compositions that she enjoyed, Olivia did not express enjoyment
about composing with the Green Emeralds. Instead, Olivia did not see herself as a part of
the composing process. Overall, the lack of comments may have been due to the fact
that, out of all of the types of musicing, the participants had engaged in composing the
least. Also, they would have had few opportunities, if any, to see the composition process
modeled at school and at home. Olivia is the one exception to this, because she had seen
her father compose, as described earlier. Because the experience was newer and less
familiar, the participants may have lacked an ability to reﬂect about their enjoyment of
composing.

Summary of Musical Self-concept. In the construct of musical self-concept, two
main themes emerged in the data: being a musician and enjoyment. In being a musician,
the participants created their own deﬁnitions of a musician and then reﬂected on those
deﬁnitions to determine whether they perceived of themselves as musicians. Justin and
Jillian both deﬁned a musician as someone who composed music, while Ravi and Olivia
deﬁned one as a person who played instruments. In deﬁning themselves as musicians,
Ravi and Olivia both named all of the instruments they played to show that they could

indeed play instruments and were, therefore, musicians. Justin felt that he was “not

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really” a musician because he did not compose music. On the other hand, Jillian
acknowledged that she composed music, but felt that she was only a musician when she
had the freedom to compose music of her own choice. All four of the participants created
an understanding of their musical-self—concepts based upon the act of doing a musical
activity, rather than describing the quality or achievement of the activity.

Under the theme of enjoyment, the participants described how much they valued
music, and they also described their favorite ways of participating in music through their
spoken and written words and their drawings. Olivia liked listening to music the best, in
part because it facilitated her dancing. Ravi and Justin both enjoyed playing instruments,
because they liked the different tirnbres and because they found it “fun” and
“challenging” (Ravi, Interview, April 21, 2009). Finally, Jillian described singing as her
favorite musical activity, and could even detail different ways in which she could
manipulate her voice.

In addition to describing their favorite types of musicing, the participants also
described their feelings for playing instruments outside of school and for composing.
Outside of school, the participants had all had opportunities to play other instruments,
including the piano, drums, and trumpet. However, the instruments they played were
selected by their parents, rather than themselves, which may have inﬂuenced the amount
of their enjoyment. Concerning composing, Jillian could provide precise details
describing exactly what she liked in a composition. Olivia composed as a part of the
Green Emeralds, a rock band she formed with her sister and a friend. However, she did

not feel as though she had a central part in the composing process as a drummer.

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Overall, the participants’ sense of their musical self-concept was not a stable
construct. Although they participated in a variety of musical activities in and outside of
school, they did not always recognize themselves as having that role. For example, both
Justin and Olivia did not see themselves as composers, even though they had both created
compositions. Also, Ravi did not fully see himself as a musician, but instead, that he was
“kind of” one. Out of the four, Jillian seemed to have the strongest sense of musical self-
concept in that she felt that her deﬁnition of a musician matched her self-perception as a
composer, as long as she had control over the music she created. Also, Jillian not only
articulated the features of the activities she enjoyed, but she valued having independence
over her musical decisions. By participating in a variety of musical experiences,
including listening, singing, playing instruments and composing, the children began to
reﬂect on what activities they did and did not enjoy. As they continue to reﬂect on their
musicing, Justin, Olivia, Ravi, and Jillian may begin to pursue musical experiences that
have meaning for them and that they enjoy. Also, they may need to develop a sense of
ownership and independence in their musicianship in order to fully realize their musical

self—concepts.

Musical Self-esteem

1K: In music class do you ever see the students making comparisons among each other?
Ms. Harvey: I do. And sometimes it’s in a very positive way, and sometimes it can be in a
very negative way. Again, I have some very strong singers, and sometimes the kids will look
at that child who’s singing strongly or maybe, it’s that child who uses vibrato in their voice.

And you get those looks like, “What are they doing?” (As she says this, the turns her head to the

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side and gives a quizgira/ expression, very much like what a child ”right do. We hoth laugh.) And then
you see it on the opposite spectrum, of a child who does not have command of their singing
voice, yet, or does not have command of the rhythmic movement or beat competency. So
then, you see comparisons being made to—(as though she were quoting a child) “Oh, look it.

That child is not doing what we’re doing,”— so it happens on both ends of the spectrum

(Interview, Ms. Harvey, November 11, 2009).

Musical self-esteem concerns the evaluations that an individual makes of his or
her musicianship (Hargreaves, Miell, and MacDonald, 2002). In the quote above, Ms.
Harvey recognized that her fourth grade students made both positive and negative
comparisons with each other, which she referred to as a “spectrum” of students’ attitudes.
In this study, the themes of personal assessment, awareness of others, and motivation
emerged as factors concerning the primary participants’ musical self-esteem. However,
for all four of the participants, their musical self-esteem was divided according to
different skills and areas of making music, including singing, playing instruments, and
composing.

Personal Assessment

All four participants assessed their abilities in different areas of their
musicianship, including performing, playing the recorder and composing, which are the
activities in which the students engaged most during the time frame of this study. Their
assessments contained both positive and negative sentiments, which fell intotwo broad

categories: individual assessments and comparisons between themselves and others.

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Individual Assessment. Sometimes the children’s individual assessments
included simple evaluations in performing on an instrument or voice: “I think I’m pretty
good at singing and a little bit at playing piano” (Interview, Jillian, May 21, 2009), “I
play recorder in music classes, and I’m kinda good at it. I can play a few
songs” (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009), or “I’m good at playing fast” (Interview, Justin,
April 21, 2009). Fewer examples were negative: “I M to be good at playing the
piano” (Interview, Olivia, May 21, 2009), and “I’m not all that great at writing
music” (Interview, Justin, April 21, 2009). Ravi showed an ability to differentiate
between areas of his musicianship he felt both positively and negatively about: “I’m good
at playing instruments. I’m not so good at singing” (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009).

Jillian, Ravi, and Olivia all made positive personal assessments about their
achievements in Recorder Karate. As they passed through the Recorder Karate levels, the
recorder belts they earned provided a tangible assessment of their success, which made
them feel good about their accomplishments. While Olivia stated that earning her black
belt made her feel “happy” and “excited” (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009), Jillian used
her black belt achievement to explain her skills at the recorder: “Recorder I’m pretty
good at. I’m a black belt” (Interview, Jillian, May 21, 2009). Ravi explained how the
levels grew increasingly harder over time: “It was pretty easy, like in the white belt. It
was kinda easy, but then when I went on to the purples and the greens, it got kinda harder
for me” (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009). He also used to the recorder to show how he

had improved at playing instruments:

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Ravi: I’ve gotten a M better since I’ve been taking recorder, since I’ve been
taking Recorder Karate.
JK: Why do you say that?

Ravi: Because before I only knew how to play, like easy son s— Hot Cross Buns

 

and Mary Had a Little Lamb. Now I learned a Lot of new notes and a lot of new

styles of how to play (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009).

While Ravi passed the ﬁrst levels fairly easily, he began to struggle completing some of
the harder levels in the middle. For his purple belt, Ravi had to play “Old MacDonald
Had a Farm,” and “The Canoe Song,” and he found the ﬁrst of those two songs especially
difﬁcult. When he went to test with Ms. Harvey, Ravi made several mistakes, but rather
than making him retest, Ms. Harvey told him, “I’ll make you a deal” (F ieldnotes, March
24, 2009). She said that she would let Ravi have his purple belt, but he had to keep
practicing that song. Ravi agreed, and, after accepting the purple ribbon, he immediately
found a quiet spot in the room and started practicing the song. After that experience,
Ravi did not test for Ms. Harvey for several class periods, which Ms. Harvey
hypothesized was due to the fact that Ravi liked to have a song perfectly prepared before
performing it (Fieldnotes, March 31, 2009).

Ravi, who struggled more than Olivia and Jillian to complete certain levels in
Recorder Karate, made individual assessments of his recorder abilities based on the levels
he achieved. He also evaluated his skills at playing instrument by the number of notes
and styles he could play successfully. Ravi provided more detailed comments about his

personal assessments in Recorder Karate than Jillian or Olivia. Perhaps this may have

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been due to the struggles he faced in achieving his belts and the sense of accomplishment
he felt at reaching each level. Nonetheless, for all three, their positive personal
assessments about their success at recorder through Recorder Karate shows that the
program had an impact on their musical self-esteem.

The participants also assessed themselves individually on the compositions they
had created, both at home and for their school assignment. Both Olivia and Justin tried to
write compositions for the piano at home. At ﬁrst, Olivia described her attempt as a
failure: “[I]t didn’t turn out so well, because everything just didn’t sound right because I
just couldn’t (frustratedly) mg Q Light m. So I kinda gave up on that after a while,”
but later, she gave herself more credit: “I didn’t get very far, but I t_rie_d” (Interview,
Olivia, April 21, 2009). On the other hand, Justin criticized his piece, saying that, “It
wasn’t much, though... It was really sloppy. It just used three notes” (Interview, Justin,
April 21, 2009). For Justin, part of the quality of his composition depended on the
variety of pitches he used. Olivia and Justin had both tried to compose at home, without
any adult guidance or formal structure, but they quickly became frustrated at the attempt
and gave up. These feelings of failure caused Olivia and Justin to develop negative
feelings about their compositions. Perhaps if they would have had more structure or
models in how to perform this new musical role, Olivia and Justin may have had support
to help them feel more successful in their composing.

Justin and Jillian also made assessments about the compositions they made in
school. Justin felt rather dismissive about the assignment: “I just put it down on paper. It

turns out I liked it” (Interview, Justin, May 26, 2009), but ultimately, he felt positive

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about his ﬁnal product. Jillian, on the other hand, not only commented on the success
during the compositional process, but on speciﬁc aspects of her piece:
I feel like my composition is coming pretty well. I’ve ﬁnished my ﬁrst and my
second draft, and I h_op;e that mine is one of the mtg ones. I particularly like
some of the ways that it ends in the song, like on the last note in the ﬁrst line (she
points to the table as though she is imagining her paper is there to show the
measures that she is talking about), is the resting tone, and then I can go back and
go to the note about that. I particularly like that. Music that M like that
(Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009).
Jillian’s sophisticated attention to detail in describing what she likes about her piece
demonstrates her positive musical self-esteem conceming her composition.
Comparisons to others. In making assessments of their musicianship, Ravi,
Justin, and Olivia made comparisons between themselves and others. Ravi compared his
musicianship to his teacher and unnamed others: “[I’m] not as good as Ms. Harvey and
everybody, because I’m just a beginner” (Interview, Ravi, April 21 , 2009), but made
comparisons to his peers to show an area in which he feels he excels—the recorder:

Some of my friends are looow (shows hand stretched down with his palm to the

 

ground). I’m far aheaaad, like at red belt, and so I know how to play those songs
that are behind in the back of the book, and they’re just practicing that. So they
come up to me and I help them, because I already know how to play the song and

they don’t, so they ask me to help them (Interview, Ravi, April 22, 2009).

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Just as the recorder belts allowed the students to assess their abilities with tangible proof
of their success, as described earlier, they also provided them with a visual way to
compare their progress to the progress of others.

When playing the recorder, students in Ms. Harvey’s music class practiced on
their own or in small groups, depending on their Recorder Karate level. Ms. Harvey
often asked students who were further ahead, including Ravi, Jillian, and Olivia, to help
other students who were not as far along. Ravi enjoyed helping others, because it made
him feel good about his abilities on the recorder:

JK: How does it make you feel to help people?

Ravi: It makes me feel, conﬁdent, like [I] have we (gestures with open

palms) that I can help people with stuff, instead of just staying there and n_ot

helping anybody.

JK: How does it make you feel that they ask m and not some of the others?

 

Ravi: I feel unique. They come to me, instead of going to other people. I m
o_ut for them, and they come to me, instead of going to my other friends that are
kind of good, too (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009).
Ravi understood that, when his peers ask him for help, they recognized his ability on the
recorder.
Once during class, I observed Ravi as he helped Justin practice the song, “Closet
Key.” Ravi sat in his chair, with his torso bent over his knees, looking at his music on the
ﬂoor. Justin approached him and asked for help on the song “Closet Key.” Ravi sat up

and listened as Justin played through the piece. “It’s easy! Lookl,” Ravi exclaimed, and

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he began to play. After playing through the song once, Ravi showed Justin his error.
“You’re playing this...,” and he played Justin’s incorrect version of the piece. Then he
showed him the correct way to play the song, and Justin joined in with him, playing a
split second behind. The whole time, Justin kept his eyes glued to Ravi’s ﬁngers, trying
to get the song right.

Jillian, however, did not enjoy helping her peers much. When asked to help one
of her classmates in music class, Jillian quietly got up and went to the hall to work with
that person. Her facial expressions did not change, and she went about helping her
classmate with an air of efﬁciency. When I asked Jillian how she felt about helping
others in music class, she said, “[S]ometimes, I’m just sorta like, ‘Could you please back
off? I’m doing duh, da duh, da duh’ (circles her hand in the air) (Interview, Jillian, April
21, 2009). Although she did not explain what her nonsense syllables meant, her tone
implied that anﬂhing she would be doing at the time was more important than having to
help others. Jillian viewed the expectation to help others as something that took her away
from working on her own music. Instead of gathering her musical self-esteem from her
ability to help others, Jillian instead preferred to work independently.

Justin, Olivia, and Ravi also compared their compositions to the compositions of
others, but they did not make comparisons to their direct peers. In Recorder Karate, they
could use the belts to make comparisons, but they did not have any similar markers to
evaluate others’ compositions. Thus, the children made comparisons of their
compositions to unnamed “others.” ’When asking Olivia if she thought her composition

was good, she replied with an uncommitted answer:

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Olivia: Well, I don’t really know, because sometimes it’s hard for me to judge
what I already do, because I don’t want to be like, “I think it’s gLat!” And
another person’s like (shows a disappointed scowl). And I don’t want to say, “Oh,

I think it’s bad,” and another person’s like, (cheerﬁtlly) “It’s so awesome!” I don’t

really know! (Laughs.) It might be good, it might be bad.

JK: Are you happy with what you made?

Olivia: Weeell, yeah. I guess I am, because sometimes I’ll do something, and I’ll

think, “Oh, this is so sweet, but I k_ngvy I’m missing something.” I’ll go to

someone, and I’m like, “That’s an awesome idea!” I’ll start making what they’re

making, because I’m like, “Can I copy you?” (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).
Olivia declined to give her own personal assessment of her composition and instead
chose to base her assessment on the assessments of others. Further, when pressed on the
issue, she described taking aspects of others’ compositions that she liked. Although she
did not describe her ﬁnal product as better or worse than others, her lack of a personal
assessment of her piece suggests that she did not have a strong sense of self-esteem
concerning her composition.

Ravi also compared his composition to unnamed “others,” but instead of
considering others’ ideas as better than his own, like Olivia, Ravi was proud of his ability
to compose.

JK: How do you feel about the way you make music?

Ravi: I feel conﬁdent. I feel conﬁdent that— I feel happy that I can gig something,

that I can make something. That I can do something that other people can’t. That

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some people m1 do that. I’m glad that I can, that I can be able to do it. Some
people have a lot of trouble, but I can make music wily. Not easily, but, like, I
don’t have a lot of frustration doing it (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009).
Because Ravi perceived that composing came more easily to him than to others, it
contributed to his musical self-esteem. Ravi “can” compose, while others “can’t.” While
he recognized that composing is not a simple task for him, he did not feel that it caused
him “frustration,” and this knowledge gave him conﬁdence.
Unlike Olivia and Ravi, who compared their pieces to an unnamed “other,” Justin
compared his compositions to the work of professionals:
Justin: I’m not all that great at writing music.
JK: Why do you think that?
Justin: Because, I don’t know. It’s sometimes a challenge. Because I think, how
can those, you know, musicians write that good of music? The other kinds of
music, you know, like (sighs), like the stuff I play on the piano. Sometimes it’s
challenging to get a good tune that you like very good (Interview, Justin, April 21,
2009).
Rather than comparing his composition to his peers, who, like himself, had never
composed before, Justin compared his composition to the pieces he played on the piano,
which are longer and have multiple parts occurring at the same time. Justin’s negative
perception of his composition resulted from this comparison to others at a more advanced
level of musicianship and compositional skill. Justin did not recognize the value of his

composition based on his own level of musical development. Hall (1969) wrote of the

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need for individuals to have an “idol within touching distance,” meaning a peer who has
achieved slightly more success. By seeing a successful peer, rather than someone with
highly advanced skills, individuals can see themselves achieving the same goals as their
peer. Unfortunately, because Justin did not compare his composition to an “idol within
touching distance,” he may have developed unrealistic expectations for himself that hurt
his musical self-esteem.

Jillian, Justin, Olivia, and Ravi made personal assessments of their musicianship,
both positive and negative, that are evidence of their musical self-esteem. They made
many of these assessments as a part of their Recorder Karate program in their music class
because the predetermined levels and the ribbon recorder belts provided a measuring tool
to evaluate their own success and compare it to others. Jillian made personal assessments
of her own musicianship, but she never compared herself to others. Jillian also had many
more positive comments to say about her musicianship than the other three. Justin, on
the other hand, had more negative comments, indicating a more negative musical self-
esteem. Also, his comparison to professionals instead of an “idol within touching
distance” (Hall, 1999) may have been a contributing factor to this negative musical self-
perception.

Awareness of others

In school settings, social interactions are an inevitable part of students’ musical
experiences. Ms. Harvey often asks her students to perform and create individually in
order to differentiate instruction and assess students individually. All four of the

participants formally and informally mentioned their awareness of others around them,

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and that this had an effect on how they performed. From the participants’ perspectives,
they described their awareness of others while singing and sharing their personal
compositions. This awareness of others caused them to feel nervous and to perceive
positive and negative judgments about their musicianship by peers and adults. Also, the
participants sometimes projected those perceived judgments into imagined statements of
others, as though putting words into the mouths of the people who saw them perform.
Both Olivia and Ravi described feeling uncomfortable singing in front of others.
While Ravi explained that his nervousness about singing kept him from joining choir: “I
don’t feel comfortable singing in front of people” (Interview, Ravi, May 22, 2009), Olivia
made predictions about what would happen if she ever sang a solo in choir: “I would,
like, frik _o_u_t and start running off the stage and, like, everyone is gonna say, ‘You did
galjy ba_d_!’ (Interview, Olivia, May 21, 2009). However, Olivia recognized that she felt
comfortable as a member in the choir but not conﬁdent enough to sing a solo, and she
could rationalize the distinction between the two:
Weeeelll, it’s different, because it’s not just m voice, because not everyone’s
looking at you, like, “What the heck is she doing?” And if you make a mistake,
it’s okay, because you can’t really tell who’s making the mistake. It might be
someone from (gestures to her right) over there or someone from way over here
(crosses her arm across her body, gesturing to the left) (Interview, Olivia, May
21,2009)
In choir, Olivia felt comfortable singing because her voice could blend in with the other

voices, making her voice anonymous. But if she were to sing alone, Olivia felt aware

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that others would notice her singing and would then make judgments about it. She then
projected those judgments into thoughts that the audience members would say, including
that her singing and her performance were bad.

Jillian also responded to the attention she perceived from others, including her
peers and adults. From peers, she sensed that her classmates noticed her when she sang:
“I like singing in class sometimes, but sometimes people turn around and m (spoken as
though this were a nuisance), like ‘W_ha_t are you doing?’” (Interview, Jillian, April 21 ,
2009). Jillian became so aware of others, that it altered her behavior in the classroom:

Well, sometimes, I don’t sing as much or hum as much in music class, unless I’m

sitting in a quiet comer while everyone else is loud. You can’t hear me. Yeah, I

remember at the beginning of the year, I had complaints from my classmates

because I was humming too much (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009).

Ms. Harvey expressed her concern about the judgments that Jillian experienced from
others: “I worry that her self-esteem is being damaged, that it’s already intact, and that
because kids will look and say things to her, that it is affecting her in a negative

way” (Interview, Ms. Harvey, November 11, 2008).

In describing the response she received from adults after singing at a Fine Arts
Night at school in which Jillian signed up to sing a duet with her friend, Jillian said that,
“I’ve heard it [said] that, um, they think my singing voice is o_dg. I’ve heard it said that
people think my singing voice is m [and] very nice, but I’m not sure of the
reason” (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009). In this case, Jillian not only felt aware of the

others’ observing her, but she also heard opposing comments about her voice as both

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“odd” and “pretty.” These judgments from others, whether actual or perceived,
inﬂuenced Jillian’s perceptions of her singing.

While I observed at Greenview Elementary, Jillian chose to audition for a vocal
solo in one of the choir’s concert pieces. Although the auditions were open to both
fourth- and ﬁfth-grade students, Ms. Harvey typically gave the majority of the solos to
ﬁfth-grade students because they had more experience in choir. Ms. Harvey described
the reaction of the ﬁfth grade students to Jillian’s arrival at the audition, saying:

[T]he other ﬁfth grade girls kind of looked down at her, kind of like, ‘Why are

M auditioning?’ She, being the only fourth grade student, made it kind of an

awkward moment when some of the girls questioned why she was there

(Interview, Ms. Harvey, May 22, 2009).

Jillian’s awareness of the age difference between herself and the other girls auditioning
caused her to doubt whether she was good enough to be awarded the solo:

[T]here was about three or four, a handful of ﬁfth-grade girls who wanted that at

the auditions... I was like, ‘I’m never gonna get this,’ and so, afterwards, when

she announces this [result], I’m like, ‘Yea! Woohoo! ’ (she pumps her ﬁst halﬁvay

in the air in memory of her celebrating) (Interview, Jillian, May 21, 2009).
Jillian also stated that she was “happy” and “excited” that she had auditioned, because of
the positive feelings she had as a result of being selected.

On the night of the concert, Jillian put her resolve further to the test as she stood
in front of an auditorium full of people. Before the concert began, Ms. Harvey described

Jillian’s demeanor as she waited to perform: “She had mentioned, when she came in that

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she was nervous, but she was so excited. I think it was that nervous excitement of getting
to perform, not like, ‘I can’t do this’” (Interview, Ms. Harvey, May 22, 2009). In front of
her sat the parents, grandparents, and siblings of all of the choir members, and behind her
stood all one hundred of her peers in choir. As soon as Jillian’s piece was announced, she
sprang up in excitement and weaved her way around numerous choristers to the front of
the stage. The piano began to play, but as Jillian sang her ﬁrst pitches into the
microphone, a brief look of panic ﬂew across her face. Although her lips were moving,
her voice sounded faint, and Jillian circled her hand in front of her, gesturing that
something was wrong. Unfortunately, a previous performer had turned off the
microphone, but no one had realized until Jillian started singing. Jillian described this
moment later in an interview: “It [the microphone] all of a sudden didn’t work, and I was
afraid people would be like, (in a whiny voice) ‘Eh, her singing stinks!’ (Interview,
Jillian, May 21, 2009). Here, Jillian projects what she thinks the audience members
might say about her, without actually hearing any negative comments from them.

Despite the mistake, Jillian had the conﬁdence to continue singing, and Ms.
Harvey corrected the problem by stepping away from the podium and ﬂipping on the
microphone. Suddenly, Jillian’s sweet, full voice ﬁlled the auditorium, and she ﬁnished
her solo with grace. At the end of the song, Jillian accepted the applause, giving a small,
unprompted bow, and then with a serious face, returned to her place with the rest of the
choir. Immediately following the concert, Jillian described her awareness of the crowd
and how it contributed to her nerves:

JK: How did it feel to sing your solo?

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Jillian: I felt like I would _b_r_rr_st into giggles!
J K: Why did you feel that way?
Jillian: Everyone was looking at me and smiling at me.
JK: Who did you notice?
Jillian: My family was smiling at me. My teacher was smiling at me. by were
smiling at me. Other people were smiling at me. (Quick pause.) I tend to giggle
when I’m nervous (Fieldnotes, May 12, 2009).
J illian’s initial response to the experience of singing a solo in front of a large audience
was to give her impressions of familiar individuals watching her. Later, Jillian recalled
her awareness of an unfamiliar audience member who watched her intently:
I remember in the audience, there was one lady in the ﬁrst row, and she was
staring at me and just smiling (pulls her hands up under her chin and gives a
goofy, doe-eyed grin). I was about to burst out with laughter because I found it so
ﬁinny! Because I didn’t know that person. I didn’t know who they were, and
instead of focusing on their own child, they were focusing on meg; (Interview,
Jillian, May 21, 2009).
Singing her solo in front of a large audience caused Jillian to feel keenly aware that
everyone was watching her, and this awareness led her to feel nervous. However, Jillian
persevered through her nerves to perform the solo. Afterward, Jillian’s excited smiles
and laughter showed that the successful experience of singing a solo made her feel good.
Another area in which the participants felt aware of others occurred in the sharing

of their individual compositions. At the end of their recorder unit, Ms. Harvey required

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all of the students to write an individual composition for recorder that followed a tonic
and dominant progression. After the students ﬁnished composing, Ms. Harvey compiled
all of the compositions for each fourth grade class into a class songbook. During one
music class, Ms. Harvey displayed each student’s song on the interactive whiteboard so
that she could conﬁrm the name of each student’s composition before printing the
songbooks. As students saw some of the songs, they began to ask, “What does it sound
like?,” prompting Ms. Harvey to play some of the student’s pieces. Justin responded
positively to having his piece played, which he felt, “was a good song,” (Interview,
Justin, May 26, 2009), and he understood that hearing his composition in class allowed
him an audience:

JK: How did it feel to hear Ms. Harvey play your composition?

Justin: Um, good, I guess. So the whole class could hear it, and after it, Ravi

patted me on the back (Interview, Justin, May 26, 2009).

Not only did Justin enjoy having his composition recognized by his peers, but he also
appreciated the physical affirmation given by his friend and classmate.

Unlike Justin, Ravi gave-conﬂicting responses to the experience. When Ravi
heard his song played, a major piece with repeating sixteenth note ﬁgures, be bent his
torso over his legs, stretching his arms out on the ﬂoor and lowered his face to the ﬂoor
so that no one could see it. Ravi occasionally took this position when receiving musical
attention in class, as though he was trying to minimize his size, making him more hidden.

However, when I asked him about how he felt when Ms. Harvey played his composition,

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he said, “It felt nic_e that Ms. Harvey can play a song that _I_ wrote” (Interview, Ravi, May
22, 2009), and he did not address why he had tried to hide his face during class.

Immediately after that comment, Ravi began discussing the second piece he
composed at home (which formed the basis for the opening vignette) and that he
preferred it over the piece he had written in class. In reﬂecting on how it felt to have Ms.
Harvey listen to and record his composition, Ravi shared, “It made me feel proud (smiles
widely and sits up straighter in his chair) that some people want to keep my
song” (Interview, Ravi, May 22, 2009). Here, Ravi recognized that his composition was
a musical piece that others might want to hear or own. In this instance, both his body
language, by sitting up straight, and his words indicate his positive musical self-esteem
about this composition.

Unfortunately, Olivia and Jillian did not have positive reactions to having their
compositions shared in class. After hearing some of the compositions, students in the
class would clap loudly, but for others, students would clap either half-heartedly or not at
all. Ms. Harvey explained that the amount of applause seemed to be related to the
popularity of the composer and the demonstrative nature of the composer’s friends:

With this particular group and the [group] dynamics, I think that the clapping had

Mg to do with the level of composition. I think it had everything to do with

the friendships and the popularity kind of issues you face now (Interview, Ms.

Harvey, May 22, 2009).

Both Olivia and Jillian received little response from their classmates after Ms. Harvey

performed their compositions, which made them feel disappointed:

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Jillian: I was a little disappointed because every other song, it might have been

m ears, but every other song, people clapped. And one person was like (claps

three times with a limp, half-hearted gesture) at my song, so whatever (Interview,

Jillian, May 21, 2009).

Olivia responded like this:

(In a babyish voice) Weeell, ﬁrst when she was playing it, I was like,

“Yeeeaa!” (She pumps her hands in the air like she :9 cheering.) I’m so happy

she’s playing my song!” (Suddenly her voice drops.) And then when I didn’t get

any claps, I was so sad (Interview, Olivia, May 21, 2009).

While Olivia sat silently during this music class, Jillian chose to respond to the
situation verbally, not only in defense of her own composition, but to encourage equal
recognition for all of the compositions. After the students neglected to respond to another
composition, Jillian said, in an agitated voice, “If you’re going to clap for one person,
you should clap for everyone,” and she continued to make comments like this after
several other compositions. In this case, Jillian was not only aware of others’ responses
to her own composition, but she was sensitive to how her peers might respond to the
situation. Ms. Harvey interpreted the situation further, believing that Jillian perceived
that the lack of clapping meant a negative judgment of her composition:

She was m upset about the clapping, because she felt that people clapped for

compositions— for other people and not for hey, and she felt that they were

making— I mean, at least I interpreted her cements that she felt they were

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making a judgment that one was better than the other (Interview, Ms. Harvey,

May 22, 2009).

In interviews afterward, both of the girls rationalized the situation to help them cope with
the negative feelings they perceived from others. Olivia attributed the differences in
clapping to gender alliances:

JK: Why do you think they didn’t?

Olivia: They didn’t clap for me? Prob’lyyy, I’m just guessing, probably because

they didn’t think it’s bad, but (now faster and ﬂippantly, tossing her hand to the

side) because it’s boys, and they don’t clap for girls. They don’t have My
attention for girls at all. They were just like (in a low, bored-sounding voice),

“Uh, another girls’ song, so I’m not gonna clap for that weird person” (Interview,

Olivia, May 21, 2009).

Olivia was able to see that her classmates’ response was not a judgment of her
composition, and thus, it did not affect her musical self-esteem. She instead perceived
that the response is a judgment of her whole person, as someone who is “weird,” which
may have affected her personal self-esteem.

Jillian chose to believe that her classmates simply were not paying attention to her
composition: “They weren’t really listening, probably. They were just, (moving her hand
like a puppets mouth) ‘Blah, bla blah, bla blah, bla blah’” (Interview, Jillian, May 21 ,
2009). She further went on to make predictions of what her classmates’ response might
have been had they actually listened: “I thi_nk they probably would have liked the song,

because I spent a lot of time on it. I know it’s not any mastegpiece, but it i_s still good, and

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I think it’s a nice song” (Interview, Jillian, May 21, 2009). Jillian still believed in the
quality of her composition, even though she did not receive the applause she desired.
Also, she believed that, if her classmates would have paid attention to her composition,
they would have enjoyed it. At the same time, Jillian compared her composition with
others by rating it as less than a “masterpiece.”

In social situations, all four of the participants felt aware of others’ responses to
their music, as evidenced during their singing and in the sharing of their compositions.
Their awareness of others caused them to feel nervous and to interpret this awareness as a
judgment from others. Singing a solo in front of others had a positive impact on Jillian’s
musical self-esteem, despite her nerves that made her giggle. Ravi’s and Justin’s hearing
their compositions played for others positively affected their musical self-esteem,
whereas it had the opposite effect for Olivia and Jillian.

Motivation

Motivation emerged as a factor inﬂuencing the participants’ musical self-esteem,
in that the participants felt a stronger desire to take part in activities in which they felt
more enjoyment and competence. All four of the participants demonstrated their musical
motivations through their words and actions. Ravi summed up this idea with a statement
he made about his feelings toward singing and playing instruments: “1 don’t put my best
gig; in singing than in playing” (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009). Ravi felt more
positively about his instrument performance than about his singing. As a result, he lacked
the motivation to pursue singing, and, instead, chose to put more effort into playing

instruments.

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Ravi, Jillian, and Olivia expressed their motivation to earn more belts in Recorder
Karate. When Ms. Harvey tested the students for their belts, the students formed a line
along her desk to wait for their turn to play for her and earn their belt. Ravi, Jillian, and
Olivia always seemed to be in line in order to earn recorder belts as quickly as they could.
Early in the recorder unit, I observed Ravi in line to test for a recorder belt, and I asked
him if he had gotten his white belt, which was the ﬁrst level. He answered proudly, “Yes!
I already got my white Q91 my yellow at my orange” (F ieldnotes, March 5, 2009). I
looked down and noticed that, in his haste to continue testing, Ravi had not even stopped
to tie the ribbons on his recorder. He did not want to take the time to tie them on, because
he was too interested in using his time to test for more belts.

Jillian and Olivia pursued their recorder belts even more aggressively. Both girls
came to Ms. Harvey’s room during recess time to test for additional belts. Their
willingness to give up their personal time to test for recorder belts showed the strength of
their motivation. In particular, Olivia strove to be the ﬁrst fourth grader to earn her black
belt, which was the highest level. I did not observe Olivia earn her black belt, because
she came in during her recess time to test for Ms. Harvey. Olivia became the ﬁrst in Ms.
Lewis’ class to earn her black belt, although she was third person in the entire fourth

grade:

 

I was the third one overall. Technically, if you were counting just by in order, I
would be the third one, but [names student], the person that was before me who
got his black belt, it really, wasn’t like, by a (1331, it was by in line. He was right in

front of me. So, technically...

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JK: It was just because he was in line ﬁrst?

Olivia: Yeah. So, I don’t know. I would have been the second, but I was like,

whatever (Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).
Although Olivia acted as though she was brushing off her third-place ﬁnish, she then
explained that her placement was not her fault because Ms. Harvey was gone during one
of her music classes, causing Olivia to have to “catch up” with some of the students in
other classes. Her knowledge of her placement among other “black belt” achievers,
which Ms. Harvey did not acknowledge or promote publicly in front of the class, along
with her view that she only ended in third place through a “technicality,” indicates that
Olivia valued the competitive aspect of Recorder Karate more than she wanted to admit.

Ms. Harvey rewarded students who earned a black belt by giving those students a
second book of songs to learn on their own. However, they could not earn any more
Recorder Karate belts. Instead, this second book allowed black belt students to have
more challenging pieces to continue their recorder playing. Once Olivia earned her black
belt, she practiced the songs in the second book, but she did not feel as motivated,
because she could not test for any more belts. It appears that Olivia’s motivation was
primarily extrinsic:

[W]hen I got the second book, I thought, “Oh yeah, I’m going to try to do this

one,” but I was sad because I ﬁnished all of them, and now I’m like, “Oh, dam,

 

now I want to test for more! I want to get another belt!” But there’s no more belts
to t§s_t for, so it was really like, “Oh, bummer,” and “Yay!” at the same time

(Interview, Olivia, April 21, 2009).

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In contrast, Jillian’s actions demonstrated that she was at least somewhat
intrinsically motivated to play the recorder beyond the external motivation of earning the
recorder belts. I observed Jillian test with Ms. Harvey for her black belt. She had to play
“Ode to Joy” and “Simple Gifts” in order to pass that level. After she ﬁnished playing
the two pieces, Ms. Harvey told her, “Congratulations! You earned your black belt,” and
handed her the black ribbon to tie onto her recorder. Jillian smiled with an enormous grin
and hopped back and forth from one foot to the other as she took the ribbon. Then,
several other students interrupted to ask Ms. Harvey a question. Jillian immediately
stopped her celebrating. Instead, she waited with an intense look until the other students
ﬁnished talking to Ms. Harvey. Jillian then spoke out before anyone else could interrupt
her, asking, “When do I get the new book?” Ms. Harvey handed her the new book, and
Jillian expeditiously walked back to the comer of the classroom, sat down cross-legged
on the ﬂoor, and began to practice some of the pieces in her new book (F ieldnotes, April
2, 2009). However, later on, Jillian revealed that she only practiced her recorder outside
of class when she was motivated to earn her black belt:

JK: Do you ever practice your recorder?

Jillian: Sometimes. When I was trying to get the black belt, I practiced g 191,

otherwise, I didn’t really practice (smiles and laughs apologetically). (Interview,

Jillian, May 21, 2009).

Jillian’s words seem to contradict her actions in music class. Her admission that she only
practiced to earn her black belt indicates that she, like Olivia, felt extrinsically motivated

by the recorder belts. However, her effort and focus to start leaming the songs in her new

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recorder book music once she earned her black belt indicates that she also felt some
intrinsic motivation to continue learning new recorder songs.

Outside of school music, the theme of motivation appeared in Jillian’s, Olivia’s
and Justin’s lack of motivation to continue taking piano lessons. All three had taken
piano lessons, starting in ﬁrst or second grade, but this year, Jillian and Olivia had chosen
to quit piano lessons. Jillian explains simply that she “didn’t really like it
anymore” (Interview, Jillian, April 21, 2009). Olivia explained that she did not like her
piano teacher: “Our [her and her sister’s] teacher was kinda mean, so we kinda stopped
from playing,” and her negative feelings for her teacher overpowered her motivation to
continue playing (Interview, Olivia April 21, 2009).

Although Justin still continued his lessons, by the end of the school year, he did
not feel motivated to continue. He shared that, “It takes away time that I could be
outside” (Interview, Justin, May 26, 2009). In my interview with Justin’s mother, she
shared that Justin preferred playing piano on his own time, as described in the section on
control/agency. Justin’s motivation to practice depended upon his ability to choose when
he wanted to practice. If he felt forced to practice, then he did not feel as motivated. At
Justin’s end-of-the-year piano recital, Justin’s mother corroborated his feelings about
playing outside by intimating that he “probably won’t take piano” next year (F ieldnotes,
June 12, 2009). When I asked her why, she told me that, “It doesn’t ﬁt in his lifestyle
right now.” She also mentioned that Justin would often rather be playing outside than

practicing piano, which matched what Justin told me in his interview. Justin’s perception

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that piano interfered with his playtime indicates that he lacked the motivation to play
piano and that he valued his playtime more than piano.

In summary, Ravi, Jillian, and Olivia described the extrinsic motivation that drove
them to earn Recorder Karate belts. Once Jillian and Olivia had earned the top level of
black belt, they felt less motivated to continue practicing their recorder. In playing piano,
Jillian, Olivia and Justin gave different reasons for their lack of motivation to continue
their lessons. While Jillian felt that she did not want to cause an extra expense for her
family, Olivia felt discouraged to continue because of her negative feelings toward her
piano teacher. Out of the three who played piano, only Justin continued to play, but he
did not feel motivated to continue because he wanted to pursue other interests.
Summary of Musical Self-Esteem

The musical self-esteem of the participants ranged across the “spectrum,” as Ms.
Harvey described, including both positive and negative perspectives. The participants
made personal assessments of their own musical performances and abilities and all
except Jillian compared different aspects of their musicianship with others. Justin,
Olivia, and Ravi compared themselves with peers, their music teacher, and even
professional composers. The participants also exhibited an awareness of others,
particularly in their singing. As a result of this awareness, the participants often made up
statements that projected what they believed others might say. Perhaps the participants
needed appropriate models of achievable musical successes from adults and peers in
order positively evaluate their own achievements. Finally, the participants expressed

different motivations for continuing to pursue different musical activities. Ravi, Jillian,

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and Olivia demonstrated through their words and their actions their extrinsic motivation
for playing the recorder in order to earn recorder belts, and Olivia, Jillian, and Justin

described their lack of motivation for continuing on the piano. Overall, the participants
demonstrated their ability to make judgments concerning their musicianship in different

types of musicing, like singing, playing instruments, and composing.

Musical Self-efﬁcacy

Ms. Harvey: ...I have one little girl who, her goal is to be a Broadway singer, and she
completely sees herself as a musician and as a performer, but she also comes from a very
musical background and family. I don’t see many of my kids, my average families and

average kids seeing themselves as musicians (Interview, Ms. Harvey, November 3, 2008).

Musical self-efﬁcacy refers to a person’s belief that he will succeed at future
musical endeavors. In the quote above, Ms. Harvey described how one of her students,
had plans to become a singer on Broadway. While this is an example of a successful
musical career, this goal does not necessarily indicate that student’s belief in ﬁrture
success. Rather, this plan indicates a future plan and a vocational choice. The
participants in this study never directly described any beliefs in their future musical
successes, and thus, they never exhibited an understanding of their musical self-efﬁcacy.
When asking them questions about their future musical activities, I intentionally left the
questions open-ended to allow the participants to speak without asSerting my inﬂuence
over their answers. In responding to these questions, the participants chose to speak

about their future plans in music, including the ensembles in which they would

165

participate and the length of time they would take part in those ensembles. It is possible
that the participants may have possessed a sense of their musical self-efﬁcacies, but did
not reveal it to me. However, it is also possible that they did not yet make predictions of
their future musical successes, revealing an unforrned musical self-efﬁcacy. Based on the
data, the themes ensemble participation and future musical goals emerged as the
participants consider how they wanted to make music in the future.
Ensemble Participation

While both the parents and siblings had an effect on the instruments that the
participants chose as discussed earlier in the theme of family inﬂuence, the participants’
siblings had a stronger inﬂuence on the participants’ choice of ensembles, as well as the
length of time they envisioned themselves participating in music. All four of the
participants happened to be the youngest child in their families, and each had either one
or two older siblings. Jillian’s older sisters, in addition to playing brass instruments,
participated in the high school marching band. Jillian described one of her favorite
memories in music as when she attended her sister’s marching band competition:

Well, one of my favorite musical memories is my sister’s marching band

competitions. I like going down to the competition place and seeing their show

and seeing the other peoples’ show, and I think it’s really interesting to watch

them progress from, like... Sometimes I’m allowed to go to band camp to watch

them at the ﬁnal place. So, to see them progress from gels; to the fo_otb_all gprpe_s

to the competitions is really kinda cool (Interview, Jillian, May 21 , 2009).

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At ﬁrst, I felt surprised that Jillian would choose a memory of others performing
as her favorite, considering that she had experienced several interesting and exciting
performances herself, like singing at the Fine Arts Festival and singing a solo at the choir
concert. However, in light of J illian’s plans for the future, this favorite musical memory
made sense. When sharing her plans for pursuing music in high school, Jillian shared,
“In high school, I’ll probably be in band and in marching band, like one of the concert
bands, and in the marching band, and in probably, possibly, if it doesn’t conﬂict, in
choir” (Interview, Jillian, May 21, 2009). Jillian had no doubt as to whether she would
participate in an ensemble in high school. Rather, the difficulty for her came in choosing
in the ensemble in which she should participate. Although Jillian loved singing, she
already had plans to participate in marching band, a choice that probably was inﬂuenced
by watching her sisters perform in marching band competitions.

Like Jillian, Ravi also shared that one of his favorite musical memories was
watching his sister play in a middle school band concert: “My favorite musical memory
was when my sister played La Bamba and G—force Five at a concert” (Interview, Ravi,
May 26, 2009). However, when discussing his plans for playing instruments in high
school, Ravi did not see himself participating in band:

I would Q i_t in middle school, but then in high school, because the high school is

[ﬂy by [I would not do it]. There’s not enough time because you need to do a

lot of stuff. My sister’s ﬁnishing high school right now, and she has a lpt, of work

to do, [like] college applications (Interview, Ravi, May 22, 2009).

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I then asked Ravi if his sisters had played instruments in high school, and he shared that
one of his sisters had just decided to give it up: “My sister, the one that composes a lot,
she’s going to not do the ﬂute anymore in high school” (Interview, Ravi, May 22, 2009).
While we did not discuss the sister’s reasons for giving up the ﬂute, Ravi still expected to
follow her time line for playing an instrument. From his sisters’ example, Ravi learned
about the challenging school work in high school, and that he might have to give up
playing an instrument to make time for his studies.

Justin also did not see himself continuing with music in high school, and Justin’s
View of his musical future seemed to be directly inﬂuenced by his older brother. Justin
declared, “Well, my brother stopped playing an instrument in high school, so I’ll
probably stop” (Interview, Justin, May 26, 2009). While Justin said that his brother no
longer played an instrument, I believe he was referring to his giving up playing trumpet
in the band; he had mentioned in other statements that his brother continued to play guitar
at home.

When I talked to Olivia about her plans for music in middle school and high
school, she immediately responded by referencing her sister:

JK: What do you see yourself doing with music in middle school?

Olivia: In middle school? Well, my sister’s in middle school. She’s not much a

 

fan of the music... I’m an unwritten story right now. I have n_o idea what I’m
gonna do. (Interview, Olivia, May 21, 2009).
She further explained how her sister tried to encourage her to join band instead of

orchestra:

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‘Cause my sister was in band, and my sister’s like, “I don’t really like the
orchestra teacher.” I’m like, “You’ve never M with the orchestra teacher!” I
don’t wanna be in band, I want to be in orchestra with my friends, and I thought,

“I don’t Ln_o_v_v what to do!” (Interview, Olivia, May 21, 2009).

When thinking of her future in music, Olivia looked to her sister, but then chose to go her
own way and join orchestra, rather than taking her sister’s advice. Further, Olivia’s
comparison of herself to “an unwritten story” reveals that she had not yet decided how
music would be a part of her life in the future.

Jillian, Ravi, and Justin all made plans that followed in the footsteps of their older
siblings. For Jillian, that meant playing in marching band in high school, but for Ravi
and Justin, it meant playing instruments through middle school, then eventually giving
them up in high school. Olivia chose to go against her sister’s suggestion and play in
orchestra, rather than in band. While Olivia did not follow her sister, she considered her
sister’s words and actions when making her own decision for next year. While their
predictions of ensemble participation do not speciﬁcally describe their musical self-
efﬁcacies, they reveal the participants’ visions for future musical participation. Since
some of the participants did not see themselves participating in musical ensembles
beyond middle school, it is possible that they did not believe they would be successful in
these situations. It is also possible that the participants did not anticipate feeling
enjoyment from participation in those ensembles, which would suggest that perhaps

enjoyment would be a precursor for making predictions of future success.

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Future Musical Goals

As we talked about their participation in middle school and high school
ensembles, each of the students shared his or her future musical goals. Olivia had unclear
goals for her future, while the others had deﬁnite plans for how they did or did not want
to continue in music. Justin felt that he would not do anything with music when he grew
up:

J K: What do you think you will do with music as an adult?

Justin: (Mumbling) I don’t know. Probably not much at all. That’s probably

when I’ll just stop (Interview, Justin, May 26, 2009).
However, Justin, who greatly enjoyed playing baseball, saw himself playing as an adult,
“maybe on a minor league team” (Interview, May 26, 2009). I believe that the disparate
answers Justin gave between his participation in both music and sports highlighted
Justin’s lack of a musical self-efﬁcacy. Justin saw himself succeeding, but in sports
rather than in music.

Similarly, Olivia did not see herself making music as an adult, but rather than
stopping music, like Justin, she believed that she would engage in music as a listener:

JK: What do you think you will do with music as an adult?

Olivia: I don’t really know. The one thing about music is that sometimes I don’t

really like si_ngipg it a lot, or FEELS it a lot. Sometimes, my favorite thing to do

is Lstep to music. All the time, if I’m not dancing, if I’m not playing the recorder,

if I’m not watching t.v., if I’m n_ot doing the computer, I’m listening to music.

JK: Do you think you’ll do that your whole life?

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Olivia: (Laughing) Probably! ‘Cause 1% listening to music! (Interview,
Olivia, May 21, 2009).
Olivia did not see herself making music through singing or playing instruments. Instead,
she saw herself participating with music through listening, her self-proclaimed favorite
thing to do with music and during which she often visualized herself dancing. Because
Olivia enjoyed dance so much, I wanted to know if she saw herself dancing as an adult:

JK: Do you think you’ll dance your whole life?

Olivia: (Conﬁdently) Ooh, yeah. I reilly want to. I really want to ‘cause I g§a_lly

love dance (Interview, Olivia, May 21 , 2009).

Like Justin, the contrast in Olivia’s answers indicated that her musical self-
effrcacy was not strong, especially when compared to her self-efﬁcacy in dance. She saw
herself listening to music, but as an activity that supported her dancing. Further, Olivia’
uncertainty about her future as a music performer could be seen in her journal. In her
journal, she had drawn a picture of herself playing a stringed instrument as an adult
(Figure 9). However, I could not make out exactly what instrument she had drawn, so I
asked her about it:

JK: (While we are both looking at her drawing.) What are you playing?

Olivia: I don’t really know! I just choosed [sic] something. It was either a string

bass or a guitar or something. I can’t remember, because my daddy was playing

guitar as I was drawing this, so I thought, “I’m going to do me playing

that” (Interview, Olivia, May 26, 2009). I

Olivia simply chose to draw a stringed instrument, without much care about which

171

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 9. Olivia (student) making music as an adult

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instrument she drew, in order to have an answer ﬁlled out on the page. Her lack of detail
and the hurried nature of the drawing, as compared to her other drawings, indicated that
she did not put much effort into this drawing. Olivia did not have a clear understanding
of how she planned to make music as an adult, which is reﬂected in the laissez-fair
attitude toward her drawing.

While both Justin and Olivia did not see themselves doing much with music, Ravi
and Jillian felt more conﬁdent about their future plans in music. Ravi envisioned himself
composing and playing instruments. When I asked him what he planned to do with
music in the future, Ravi answered, “After high school, or maybe when I’m grown up, I
can, when I’m in my free time, I can compose some stuff sometimes” (Interview, May 22,
2009). In his journal, Ravi drew a picture of himself sitting at a table composing with
music notes on the page (Figure 10). However, I had noticed during the interview that,
when I used the phrase “making music,” Ravi would consistently interpret it to mean
“composing,” which was why he drew a picture of himself composing to answer the
question: “Draw a picture of yourself making music as an adult.” I then explained that,
by “making music,” I meant participating in a musical activity, and asked him if he would
have drawn something different, considering this new deﬁnition. He answered that he
would have and conﬁdently stated what he would have drawn: “Me. Playing the
trumpet” (Interview, Ravi, May 26, 2009). Ravi’s answer seems to contradict his earlier
statement that he would stop playing the trumpet after middle school. Perhaps Ravi
intended to give up playing the trumpet in school but planned to continue playing on his

own. Another possibility is that Ravi simply felt obligated to the answer the question,

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. . . "mum

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Figure 10. Ravi (student) making music as an adult

174

and so he gave an answer that may not have reﬂected his true feelings. Perhaps, like
Olivia, he was an “unwritten story,” and felt unsure about his future musical plans.

Out of all four of the participants, Jillian gave the most thoughtful and detailed
answer about her future musical activities. I had stopped by J illian’s classroom and
invited her to come with me so that we could conduct our last interview in the library as
we had done before. On our way down the hallway, Jillian stopped to get her journal out
of her backpack. As we walked to the library, Jillian ﬂipped to an unﬁlled page and
immediately started drawing. As we found a table and I set up my microphone, Jillian
continued drawing, as though she had a clear idea what she wanted to put on the page. I
asked Jillian, “What’s your picture about?” She answered, while still drawing: “My
picture’s about me making music when I’m adult” (Interview, May 21, 2009). Several
moments passed as the only sound heard was Jillian’s pencil scratching the journal page.
She had drawn a picture of a female conductor with her arms raised in the air and a baton
in her right hand (Figure 11). To the right of her hand, Jillian had drawn some music
notes on the staff. “It’s me as a conductor,” she offered. I asked her what she was
wearing in the picture, and she answered, “I’m wearing a suit for a conductor. I mean, I
don’t know what girl conductors wear.” She continued drawing, this time adding
instruments around the conductor, which she explained were a baritone, a French horn, a
violin and a piano. “What are you conducting?” I asked. “A band.” I even asked her
what kind of music the band was performing, to which she answered, “I don’t really
know. Mozart or Beethoven or something like that.” Jillian astounded me with the

amount of detail she envisioned in her image. Not only did she see herself conducting a

175

 

 

Figure 11. Jillian (student) making music as an adult

176

large ensemble, but she imagined an appropriate outﬁt for the occasion and even had an
idea of the type of music she would conduct (Interview, Jillian, May 21, 2009).

After seeing her drawing, I wondered why Jillian had chosen to draw a conductor.
Both her mother and Ms. Harvey had told me that “one of her aspirations is to become a
Broadway singer” (Interview, Ms. Harvey, May 22, 2009). However, Jillian never
mentioned wanting to be a Broadway singer. Perhaps she had changed her mind or had
decided to pursue a new career. Whatever her reasons for changing her answer, Jillian
seemed conﬁdent about her decision to become a conductor and explained her desire to
control the music, as described in the theme of control/agency.

Jillian never described that she might be successful as a conductor. However, in
considering how she envisioned herself participating in music, she selected a career in
music as a conductor making decisions for the musical sounds of others. Considering
that Jillian’s mother was a band director, Jillian had most likely been inﬂuenced by her
mother’s career, as described in the family inﬂuence theme. J illian’s exposure to different
experiences and careers in music gave her an opportunity to choose how she wanted to be
involved with music in the future, and her passion for music helped her determine that
she wanted her future to have music be at the center of her life and career. While it is not
an example of musical self-efficacy because her plans did not describe feelings of
success, J illian’s vision came the closest out of the four participants to achieving musical
self-efﬁcacy because of the amount of sophistication and detail with which she described

her ﬁrture.

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Summary of Musical Self-efficacy

Although none of the participants predicted any future musical successes, the
participants made plans for their musical futures, including determining their ensemble
participation and making future goals. The participants’ siblings inﬂuenced the type of
ensemble in which they wanted to participate and the length of time the participants saw
themselves in that ensemble. While Justin and Ravi saw themselves participating in a
music ensemble through middle school like their older siblings, Jillian did not give a
timeline for when she would end her music participation. Instead, she had trouble
deciding the ensembles in which she should participate. In considering their ensemble
participation, the four participants may have looked to their siblings as trusted individuals
as they made their decisions. Perhaps through the examples of ensemble participation
witnessed in their siblings, the participants could construct a script of musical
participation that would guide them until they made their own independent decisions.
Finally, in the theme of future goals, Ravi, Justin, and Olivia had difficulty in describing
how music would play a role in their future. Jillian could provide speciﬁc details of her
vision for pursuing music in the future, which included becorrring a conductor who
controlled the sound of her band. Perhaps the plans and choices that the participants
made were necessary precursors to making musical predictions, and thus, they may serve

as factors when they begin developing their musical self-efﬁcacies in the future.

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CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS FOR MUSIC EDUCATION, AND

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Summary

With the goal of improving elementary music education, the purpose of this study
was to describe the nature of four fourth-grade children’s musical identities and the role
that various musical experiences play in the development of their musical identities.
Speciﬁcally, this study sought to answer the following questions:

1. What are the characteristics of four fourth-grade children’s developing musical
identities?

a. How is musical self-concept exhibited in four fourth-grade children?

b. How is musical self-esteem exhibited in four fourth-grade children?

0. How is musical self-efficacy exhibited in four fourth-grade children?

2. How does participation in various musical experiences in an elementary general music
class play a role in four fourth-grade children’s developing musical identities?

3. How do experiences outside of the music classroom play a role in four fourth-grade
children’s developing musical identities?

The participants were four fourth-grade students, their parents, and their
elementary general music teacher from a suburban Midwestern city. Data collection for
this study included interviews with the four fourth-grade participants, their parents, and
their elementary music teacher; observations of the participants in their general music

class and in settings outside of school; and a written journal kept by the primary

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participants. To analyze the data, I transcribed the interviews and then assigned codes to
the interview transcripts, as well as to my ﬁeldnotes and the written journal entries. I
reviewed the codes to look for emerging themes.

Emerging themes demonstrated characteristics relating to musical identity as a
whole and in each of the three musical identity constructs: musical self-concept, musical
self-esteem, and musical self-efficacy, which directly answered research question number
one. In answering research questions two and three, the data revealed evidence that
activities in music both in school and outside of school played a role in the participants’
developing musical identities.

Overarching themes relating to the participants’ musical identities included family
inﬂuence and control/agency. The participants’ families, particularly their parents,
inﬂuenced them by providing access to different kinds of music and musical instruments
and in providing the children with the models of musicians. While Olivia’s father
showed his daughter the roles of performer, composer, and improviser as he made music
in his rock band, Jillian’s mother showed her daughter the roles of performer and
conductor. The girls then imitated their parents’ musical roles in their own musicing. In
the theme of control/agency, the participants explained their desire to control their
musical sound; this helped them to see themselves as musicians. Speciﬁcally, Jillian’s
need for control reached beyond her musicings, but related to her self-deﬁnition as a
musician. In developing their overall musical identities, the themes of family inﬂuence
and control/agency suggest that perhaps the participants needed exposure to various

musical roles as provided by their families, and then they need to make music on their

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own terms within the boundaries of those musical roles in order to recognize themselves
as musicians.

The results revealed that musical self-concept was not a stable construct, but was
developing as the participants considered whether they were musicians and as they
described how much they valued music. Ravi and Olivia deﬁned a musician as a person
who plays instruments. While Olivia believed that she was a musician, because she had
played and planned on playing a variety of instruments, Ravi only felt that he was “kind
of” a musician, although he had played the recorder and the trumpet. Justin and Jillian
deﬁned a musician as someone who composes, but they did not feel as strongly about
attaching the label of “musician” to themselves. Jillian felt that she was a musician when
she controlled when and how she would compose, while Justin did not identify himself as
a musician, despite his experiences in composing. The participants described activities
from their participation in school, including listening, singing, playing instruments, and
composing, and outside of school, including taking private instrumental lessons. Olivia
described creating a rock band at home with her sister and a friend. Also, the participants
could specify activities they did and did not enjoy. While Olivia enjoyed listening to
music, especially to help her dancing, Ravi and Justin stated that they mostly enjoyed
playing instruments. Jillian described singing as her favorite musical activity, but the
other three strong expressed their discomfort with and dislike of singing, despite their
having proﬁcient singing voices. As the participants continue to decide which musical

activities they enjoy, they will not only develop an understanding of what music means to

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them, but they will also begin to develop musical identiﬁcations that correspond to their
preferred type of musicing.

The results indicated that, in terms of musical self-esteem, the participants made
speciﬁc evaluations of their musicianship. They were also able to differentiate between
their skill levels in different types of musical activities. The participants made these
evaluations as they rated themselves, both favorably and unfavorably, at different types of
musical activities. The participants also compared themselves to others. While Olivia,
and Ravi sometimes compared themselves to their peers, Justin and Ravi compared
themselves to accomplished adults, like their music teacher and professional composers.
Making comparisons to individuals older and more accomplished than themselves made
it difficult for them to see how they could also achieve at such a high level. The
participants felt an awareness of others both in the music classroom and in performances
like their choir concert. As the participants recognized that others might be watching
them, they began to create projections as to what others might be thinking. Finally, the
participants held both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations for completing different musical
tasks. In particular, the participants felt extrinsically motivated by earning Recorder
Karate belts, and they recognized their lack of motivation to play the piano.

In the theme of musical self-efficacy, the participants did not make any speciﬁc
predictions that they would succeed or fail in music in the future, but instead, they
described their future musical plans. Thus, while it is possible that the participants made
these predictions and did not share them with me, it is also possible that they had not yet

made predictions of future musical successes. Perhaps the plans they made served as a

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forerunner to any musical self-efficacies they would eventually make. Regardless, the
participants felt inﬂuence from their families regarding their ensemble participation and
ﬁxture musical goals. The participants made predictions for how long they believed they
would continue participating in an ensemble. For Ravi, Olivia, and Justin, their
predictions matched the length of time that one of their older siblings had continued in
school music. However, Jillian did not consider ending her participation in music, but
instead had trouble limiting her ensemble participation to only one group. Finally, the
participants envisioned some of their future musical goals. Three of the participants did
not have a clear vision for how they might continue in music, which Olivia explained in
describing herself as “an unwritten story.” Jillian deﬁned speciﬁc details of her plans to
become a conductor, even down to the type of music she wanted to conduct and what she
would wear as a conductor. Although J illian’s goal did not explicitly demonstrate
musical self-efﬁcacy, her vision for her future revealed aspirations to pursue a powerful
career in music. As the participants made decisions about their future participation in
music, they looked to the words and actions of their siblings members for guidance,

especially in their ensemble participation, until they could determine their own path.

Discussion and Implications for Music Education
After considering these ﬁndings, I began to see several conclusions emerge from
the results. The results not only relate to previous research in music education and in
studies of musical identity; they also correspond with existing theories of cognitive

development and identity development. Since no other studies have described musical

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identity ethnographically for children in this age group, using existing theories of identity
helps to provide a contextual framework for understanding the developments the
participants exhibited. In this section, I will discuss the following outcomes from this
study: (1) The participants ascribed meaning and enjoyment to their musicing, especially
when given opportunities to exert control/agency; (2) The participants created musical
identiﬁcations as they reﬂected on their own musicing and the models of their family
members; (3) The participants’ assessment of their performances affected their musical
self-esteem; and (4) The participants considered others’ perspectives in determining their
musical self-esteem.

l. The participants ascribed meaning and enjoyment to their musicing, especially
when given opportunities to exert control/agency.

In school and at home, the participants had opportunities to participate in a wide
variety of musical activities. In school, the participants sang songs, played the recorder,
composed their own songs, and sang in the school choir. At home, the participants each
had unique experiences with music, including taking private lessons on piano, drums, and
guitar, listening to recorded and live music with their farrrily and ﬁiends, performing in a
recital, and creating a rock band.

These experiences caused the participants to value music in their lives, a ﬁnding
that has also been discovered in studies relating to musical meaning (Blacking, 1956;
Campbell, 1998; Davis, 2009; Koops, 2006; Papazahariou, 2008; Randles, 2009).
Campbell (1998), in her ethnography of children and the role of music in their lives,

wrote that, “Children ﬁnd music a meaningful part of their daily life, and they derive

184

meaning from the music they experience” (p. 171). Like the children in Campbell’s
ethnography, the participants in this study found meaning in music. While Jillian ranked
music as “very important,” Ravi and Olivia viewed it as a part of their lives, but saw it as
less important.

The participants also discovered meaning through their enjoyment of various
musical activities. Davidson and Burland (2006) found that one of the three factors
necessary for a child to achieve the musical identity of a performer included “positive
experiences with others and within institutions” (p. 480). Similarly, in this study, the
participants expressed their enjoyment as active participants in many of the activities
listed above. Erikson (1968), in his Theory of Ego Identity, described that children in this
age undergo a conﬂict called Industry vs. Inferiority. In this stage, children possess a
desire of productiveness, which, in the case of this study, included musical
productiveness that spanned many different domains within music. This need for
productivity may also explain why the participants felt motivated in Recorder Karate; the
recorder belts gave the participants a tangible product as proof of their achievement at
each level.

The participants seemed to express the most enjoyment when they could exert
control/agency over their musicing. Koops (2006) similarly found that children in The
Gambia had more agency in their own activities, like performing songs outside of school,
rather than in adult-led activities in school. In this study, as the participants made choices
concerning the what’s, when’s, and how’s of their musicing, they began to develop an

understanding of themselves as independent musicians, which is a key component in the

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formation of their musical identities. In particular, Jillian exhibited her need for control
more strongly than the other participants, as she considered it an essential part of her
musicianship. Koops (2006) argued that music teachers should be sensitive to children’s
musical meaning and need for agency through a “culturally-informed approach” to music
pedagogy (p. 10). Perhaps music teachers should recognize that children’s lives
constitute a kind of culture in their own right, and thus, provide an opportunity for
children to express and share their perceived meanings of music within the culture of the
music classroom. Music teachers should be sensitive to the needs of students like Justin,
Jillian, Olivia, and Ravi and provide their students with individual choice in instruction.
In this study, Ms. Harvey allowed her students to exert agency over their progress in the
Recorder Karate levels and control in their individual compositions. By providing
experiences in which students have control/agency, music teachers can help their students
ﬁnd more enjoyment in music, but also begin to develop their musical identities.
2. The participants created musical identiﬁcations as they reﬂected on their own
musicing and the models of their family members.

As the participants participated in many types of musical activities, they began to
' rank their enjoyment within these different categories according to their levels of
enjoyment. Several developmental theories support this occurrence for children in this
age group. Piaget (1995a), in his Theory of Cognitive Development, believed that
children in the Concrete Operations stage began to develop classiﬁcation, or the ability
to categorize, and seriation, or the ability to order. In a similar ﬁnding, Harter (1999)

described in her theory of children’s development of self-representations that children

186

could categorize their skills in different domains. She called these differentiations
“higher-order generalizations” (Harter, 1999, p. 49). The participants’ in this study could
not only distinguish their musicianship in different musical domains, but they could also
rank which musical activities were their favorites.

Further, Erikson’s explanation for identity development sheds insight into the
participants’ musical identity development. In order for identity formation to occur, a
child must ﬁrst introject, or take on another’s identity. Then a child must create
identiﬁcations, or assimilations of perceived traits into their own identities. All four of
the participants made musical introjections as they tried on different musical roles, like
performer, composer, and conductor. The participants’ families provided opportunities in
these musical roles through access to instruments and private lessons. Jillian’s and
Olivia’s parents provided models of musical roles through their own musicing, which the
girls then imitated in their musical choices.

Sometimes, the participants’ musical identifications were incongruent with their
musical participation. For example, Ravi believed he was only “kind of” a musician,
even though he played the recorder, and Justin and Olivia did not believe that they were
composers, despite their experiences in composing at school and at home. Similarly,
Lamont (2002) found in a study with children from the United Kingdom, that although all
the children in her study had the opportunity to play instruments, not all of them
perceived of themselves as musicians. Instead, Lamont found 3 categories in the

,9 6‘

children’s self-perceptions: “trained musicians, playing musicians,” and non-

musicians.” In this study, Ravi may consider himself a “playing musician” because he

187

recognized that he played the recorder in music class, but did not have formal training.
Lamont’s deﬁnitions do not consider other musical roles, like composing, so Justin’s and
Olivia’s perceptions can not fall within one of those categories. However, perhaps Justin
and Olivia would fall into the category of “non-composer,” as they did not make a
musical identification of themselves as composers.

As Justin, Jillian, Olivia, and Ravi participated in different types of musical
activities and made musical introjections, they also began considering whether they could
assimilate those roles into their musical identiﬁcations. Music teachers should also
consider the types of musical introjections and musical identifications their students
make. In addition to providing access to different types of musical roles, like performer
and composer, music teachers should recognize the musical models children receive from
parents and caregivers. Music teachers can supplement positive musical models and
perhaps introduce new musical models that students do not receive at home. In
particular, the participants in this study seemed to have the fewest models in composing.
Perhaps music teachers can support deﬁciencies in composing models
not only by providing composing activities, but also by serving as a model of the
composing process and sharing their own compositions with students.

However, simply providing a musical model is not enough. As demonstrated with
Justin’s and Ravi’s self-comparisons to professional musicians, children need musical
models that are not too advanced, or an “idol within touching distance” (Hall, 1999), so
that they can see themselves achieving those goals.’ Perhaps music teachers need to help

students in younger grades see the achievements of students in older grades through

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displays of class work and school performances. Music teachers can also work with
middle and high school music teachers to provide mentoring or “buddy” programs in
which students from those school buildings can perform and speak to elementary students
about their musicings.

3. The participants’ assessment of their performances affected their musical self-
esteem.

Just as they made distinctions between their different musical identifications
(Piaget, I995a), the participants also made distinctions in evaluating their abilities and
achievements in different musical domains. The participants assessed their abilities to
sing, play instruments and compose with statements that often began as “I’m good at...,”
or “I’m not so good at...” Ravi demonstrated his ability to differentiate between different
domains in one summary statement: “I’m good at playing instruments. I’m not so good at
singing” (Interview, Ravi, April 21, 2009). These domain-based assessments comprised
the basis for the participants’ developing musical self-esteem.

Jenlink (1993) and Bridges (1996) both found that participating in music had a
positive impact on students’ personal self-esteem while participating in musically
integrated classroom activities and in a boy’s choir. Mills (2008) found that members of
a children’s choir could evaluate different musical skills, but could not relate these skills
to their overall sense of musicianship. Mills postulated whether the difﬁculty in making
this connection may be due to the age and maturity of the choristers. In this study, the
participants felt positively about some musical experiences and negatively about others.

However, most of their assessments concerned broad generalizations within music, rather

189

than speciﬁc skills like tone quality and diction, as in Mills’ study. While this may
partially be due to the fact that I asked the participants to describe their musical self-
esteem in several different activities, rather than just in choir, I believe that the
participants in this study did not yet think about their musicianship through those speciﬁc
details. Thus, the lack of detail supports Mills’ claim that the speciﬁcity of the response
and the connections to overall musicianship may be a more sophisticated concept that
develops with age and experience. Music teachers may need to help students draw
connections between the skills and concepts they learn in music class to their speciﬁc
musical achievements. For example, music teachers could create rubrics for students to
self-assess their performances and compositions based on the skills and concepts they had
studied, in order for the students to evaluate themselves on speciﬁc musical criteria,
rather than making broad generalizations of their musicianship.

4. The participants considered others’ perspectives in determining their musical self-
esteem.

In addition to making personal assessments of their musical self-esteem, the
participants also compared themselves musically to others and felt an awareness of others
watching them perform. Sometimes the participants compared themselves to their peers,
as when Ravi said that he was “far aheaaad” of his classmates on the recorder (Interview,
Ravi, April 21, 2009). Other times, the participants compared themselves to “unnamed
others,” which included both positive and negative comparisons. In particular, Justin
compared himself to a professional musician, when he compared his composition to the

more complex piano pieces he played.

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Lamont (2002), who compared children’s musical identiﬁcations in two age
groups, found that more children in the younger age group (aged 5 to 11) labeled
themselves as “playing musicians” more than children in the older age group (aged 11 to
16). Lamont postulated that the children in the younger group may have had more
“playing musicians” because they, as opposed to the older group, did not make as many
comparisons between themselves and their classmates. However, the participants in this
study made many comparisons to others. Because all of the participants were nearly 10-
years-old, and thus, at the upper end of the Lamont’s younger age group, perhaps they
had begun to make some of the same comparisons as the older age group did for Lamont.

Harter (1999), who theorized about the development of children’s self-
representations, believed that children from ages 8 to 11 tend to make comparisons with
others. Harter also believed that as children in this age group make “higher order
generalizations;” they begin to compare themselves with others in order to determine
their own self-worth. This explains the participants’ comparisons of their musical
abilities and achievements with others. Some of the comparisons resulted when Ms.
Harvey asked Ravi and Jillian to help other students with their recorder playing. The
recognition that he could help his peers gave Ravi conﬁdence in his recorder abilities.
Perhaps music teachers should provide opportunities for students to help other students,
but they should allow students to have control over whether they choose to be a helper.

In addition to making direct comparisons between their musicianship and others’,
the participants described their awareness of others, especially while singing and sharing

their compositions. Olivia, Ravi, and Jillian expressed the nervousness and discomfort

191

they felt in singing in front of others. Greenberg (1970) believed that students’ negative
self-esteem about their singing contributed to their untuned singing. However, in this
study, the participants did not all have negative self-esteem about their singing. Olivia
felt comfortable singing in the choir because her voice could blend with others, and
Jillian, who speciﬁcally said that she was “pretty good” at singing (Interview, Jillian,
May 21, 2009), overcame her nervousness to sing a solo at the chorus concert. Perhaps
Greenberg’s belief between in a causal relationship between self-esteem and singing
should have been reversed. Rather than considering the low self-esteem as a factor for
poor singing, poor singing, or even the perception of poor singing, may more likely be a
cause for low self-esteem.

Also, all four of the participants described their awareness of their peers as they
shared their compositions in music class. In this situation, as in their singing, the
participants expressed their awareness of others and created projections of what they
thought others might be thinking. The participants’ projections may be explained through
Byng-Hall’s (1995) family scripts theory. In this theory, Byng-Hall (1995) described how
children assume metaphorical roles in their families as “actors” in a play. In these family
plays, each actor follows certain expectations, or “scripts.” However, children do not
exclusively play the role of “actor.” Because children must learn their roles within their
families, they play the dual role of “actor” and “audience member.” As an “actor,” the
child is the agent of interactions, but as an “audience member,” the child can reﬂect and

consider the perspectives of other actors.

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Perhaps the participants in this study played this dual role of “actor” and
“audience member,” but in this case, the music classroom served as the “stage.” The
participants could have followed certain roles within the music classroom, but also
needed to reﬂect on the behaviors of others as they reﬁned their role. The projections
that the participants created to describe their assumptions of others may have been a
“music script” or a “classroom script” they created in order to make sense of others
around them. Although the experiences of Jillian, Justin, Ravi, and Olivia are not
generalizable, it is possible that other lO-year—old children make similar projections of
others. Music teachers should reﬂect about the type of implied “classroom script” that
students may be perceiving in their music classes. In recognizing that students may be
both an “actor” and an “audience member” in the classroom, music teachers should
provide experiences in which students can positively “act” in various musical roles and
reﬂect on others’ musicianship. For example, music teachers could have students share
their performances and compositions with each other and facilitate a discussion in which
students provide constructive feedback to each other. In this way, students could develop
a positive musical self-esteem through actual, rather than perceived, comments from their
peers and a knowledgeable adult.

5. The participants made predictions of their future musical participation through
their instrument and ensemble selection.

The participants looked to their future musical participation by choosing an
instrument and an ensemble and by considering how long they would participate in those

activities, which were strongly inﬂuenced by their families. For example, Jillian chose

193

the baritone so that she could complete the family’s brass quintet. Also, the participants
followed the model provided by their siblings in considering how long they might
participate in music. While Jillian looked to the example of her sisters’ marching band
experiences, Ravi and Justin both decided they would stop participating in school
ensembles after middle school, like their older siblings.

In previous research, Zimmerman (2000) and Nolin and VanderArk (1977) found
that families had an inﬂuence in children’s personal self-esteem. Papazahariou (2008)
found, in her case study of a musically gifted child, that the participant, Leri, felt
encouragement from his family to continue pursuing music. Burland and Davidson
(2006) found that one of the characteristics of positive musical identity development
included “positive experiences with others” (p. 480) but does not speciﬁcally refer to
family members as part of the “others.” Finally, family scripts theory (Byng-Hall, 1995)
most directly eXplains the family inﬂuence on the participants’ musical plans. As the
participants observed their siblings participate and give up playing in a school ensemble,
they learned that the “script” for their family included participation in an ensemble only
during certain “acts” of the play, which for Ravi and Justin, only extended through
middle school. The family expectations showed that they did not have to “act” in that
role for their whole lives. On the other hand, Jillian learned that her family’s “script”
included music as a part of their daily lives, and seemed ready to take on that “role.”

Although the choices and inﬂuences of the participants of this study are not

generalizable, music teachers can still reﬂect upon the inﬂuences of their own students.

Elementary general music teachers should provide opportunities for students to reﬂect

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about the types of musical activities in which they can participate in the future. Perhaps
this can be accomplished by providing information to both parents and students by
describing different careers in music or by explaining musical opportunities at the middle
school and high school level. By informing both children and parents about future
musical opportunities, elementary general music teachers could open pathways for family
members to discuss options for future musical participation, and eventually, future

musical successes.

Recommendations for Future Research

In continuing the line of research in musical identities, future studies could
include longitudinal investigations of children’s musical identities. For example, the
participants in this study completed their ﬁnal general music class in elementary school
and would begin participating in ensemble classes the following school year. What are
the implications of this change in the class structure and musical focus on children’s
developing musical identities? Longitudinal studies that bridge the time span from
general music classes to ensemble music may illuminate these developments. Further,
the themes that emerged in this study, including family inﬂuence, control/agency, being a
musician, enjoyment, personal assessment, comparisons with others, motivation,
ensemble particzpation,.andﬁ4ture musical goals would likely change over time, and a
longitudinal study of musical identity would allow researchers to describe how these

themes might evolve. Also, because this study relied heavily on the participants’

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reﬂections, further studies are needed to support their self-reports, as self—reports are not
always correct or precise.

Existing tests of personal self-esteem and self-efﬁcacy should be adapted for use
in evaluating musical self-esteem and musical self-efﬁcacy, in order to provide measures
of music identity development. Also, more research needs to be conducted to determine
the validity of these tests with elementary-aged students and to indicate the types and
strengths of these musical identity constructs for elementary-aged students.

Further, one of the main ﬁndings of this study indicated that the participants
differentiated their self-perceptions of their musical identities across different musical
domains and activities. However, because of the musical experiences that they
participated in during the time of this study, the only musical domains described included
listening, singing, playing instruments and composing. Further research could explore
how musical identities develop with the inclusion of other musical domains. Also, the
participants, for the most part, unlike in Mills’ study (2008), could not provide many
detailed descriptions of their musicianship. Further research could explore whether this
attribute is exclusive to these participants, or can be more globally considered a
characteristic of this age group.

Finally, while family scripts (Byng-Hall, 1995) can explain the roles and
expectations that children learn by following a family “script,” more research should be
completed to determine the roles and expectations that exist within the elementary music
classroom. Do the children feel expectations to follow a “script,” or do they improvise

their actions freely? By understanding the roles that exist within an elementary general

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music classroom, elementary music teachers can reevaluate the “scripts,” or the parts,
responsibilities, and assumptions in their own classrooms. If necessary, the music teacher
can then rewrite or modify the “scripts,” so that students have more opportunities to have
control and agency in their musicianship, to participate in as many possible types of
musical activities, and begin creating their own deﬁnitions of a musician. In this way,
elementary music teachers could help support and encourage the development of their
students’ musical identities, so that the students no longer feel like they are an “unwritten

story.”

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APPENDIX A
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Interview Questions for Student Participants
General:
1.1 What is your name?
1.2 How old are you?
1.3 What does the word, “musician,” mean to you?
1.4 What does music mean to you?
1.5 Are you a musician? If so, how?

1.6 How important is music to you?

Musical Self-concept:

2.1 How do you know if someone is good at music?

2.2 What are you good at in music?

2.3 Is there anything that you are not very good at in music? How do you know?

2.4 How have you gotten better in music?

Musical Self-esteem:

3.1 How do you feel about the way you make music?

3.2 Do you like making music? Why or why not?

3.3 How do your parents/music teacher/friends make you feel about the way you make

music?

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Musical Self-efﬁcacy:
4.1 What do you see doing in music when you are in high school or when you are a
grown up?

4.2 Do you think that you will always make music? Why or why not?

School Music Experiences:

5.1 Do you like singing (playing instruments, composing, or listening) in school?
5.2 What do you like (or dislike) about it?

5.3 How does it make you feel?

5.4 What is it like to make music with your classmates?

5.5 Do your classmates inﬂuence the way you act in music class?

5.6 Do your classmates inﬂuence the kind of music you like to listen to?

Family Musical Experiences:

6.1 Who is in your family?

6.2 Do you ever listen to music at home? If so, can you tell me about it?
6.3 Do you ever make music at home? If so, can you tell me about it?
6.4 How is music at home different from music at school?

6.5 Do your parents or family members inﬂuence the way you make music?

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Interview Questions for Music Teacher Participant
General Questions:
1.1. What is your name?

1.2. How long have you been their (the student participants’) teacher?

Musical Identity:
2.1. What does the word, “musical identity” mean to you?

2.2. Does your own musical identity play a role in how you teach?

Students’ Musical Self-Concept:

3.1. Do you know if your students make musical identiﬁcations about themselves?
3.2. Do your students recognize if they are good at music?

3.3. Do students make comparisons of each other? If so, what kind of comparisons do

they make? How do these comparisons affect them?

Students’ Musical Self-Esteem:
4.1. How do you see musical self-esteem exhibited in your students?

4.2. How do you try to support musical self-esteem in your students?

Students’ Musical Self-Efﬁcacy:
5.1. What goals do you have for your students’ beyond your time with them?

5.2. How do you express these goal to your students?

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School Music:

6.1. Do different kinds of activities (listening, performing, composing, or improvising)
bring out individual identities more than others? If so, can you tell me about it?

6.2. How do the students’ interactions with you play a role in the classroom environment?
6.3. How do the students’ interactions with each other play a role in the classroom

environment?

Family Music Experiences:
7.1. Can you tell if any experiences outside of school inﬂuence students view of music?

If so, can you tell me about it?

Interview Questions for Parent Participants
General Questions:
1.1. What is your name?

1.2. Who are the members in your family?

Musical Identity:
2.1. What musical expectations did your parents and/or grandparents have for you?

2.2. Do you have any musical expectations for your children?

Family Music Experiences:

3.1. How do you experience music at home?

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3.2 How often do you participate in these activities?
3.3 Is your family involved in any musical activities in any other social groups (such as a
part of a religious group, cultural, or community group)?

3.4 Why are these musical experiences important?

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APPENDIX B

JOURNAL PROMPT S FOR STUDENTS
1. What is a musician?
2. Are you a musician? Why or why not?
3. What is your favorite way to make music?
4. Would you rather make music by yourself or with others? Why or why not?
5. Who do you like making music with the most? How does making music with this
person make you feel?
6. Do you plan on being in band, orchestra, or chorus in middle school? Why or why
not?

7. What kind of music is most important to you? Why?

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