«Harpespill, fantasiskalaer og syngende fingre» – om barnehagebarns møter med tre musikkrelaterte apper

This article examines children's encounter with three music-related apps for iPad: Air Harp, Bloom and Singing Fingers. The authors aim to contribute knowledge about music-related apps and what they can offer children musical discoveries and creative exploration in early childhood education and care. The study focuses on how children's interaction with music-related apps takes place, and discusses the possibilities that these apps can offer the children. The research question is: What aspects of creative actions are there in the children's encounters with the app?

Results of the study indicate that there is potential in the apps that inspires children to musical exploration and play, and children's musical behaviour is given room for manoeuvre.
In their first encounter with the apps, most children moved their hands or fingers rapidly on the screen. Gradually, their exploration became more detailed and more calm. Often, the children were present in each other's exploration. They listened, commented on sounds, laughed and made suggestions for solutions to different problems. When the iPad changed hands from child to child, they picked input and ideas from the other children who had explored the apps before them, and often added to these ideas. The children imitated each other and the adults in the group.

According to the authors, the study indicates that music-related apps on iPads can work as a tool to make different musical discoveries and experience a creative zest. The apps could enter into different forms of intentional sound creation and enable children to express musicality. This suggests that music-related apps can have a rightful place as a supplement to the musical diversity in early childhood education and care. However, according to the author, an app on an iPad also has certain limitations, and is not the right physical device or instrument in all situations. This is evident in the study when a child tries to play on the iPad with the paws of a stuffed animal, but the screen is not sensitive to pressure from soft paws, and an IPad does not match the child's more bodily active musical exploration that involves jumping up and down in a sofa.

Six groups with four to six children aged 5-6 years took part in the study, and the article is based on observations of the children's encounter with the apps. The participating children, who came from a total of four ECEC centres, were recruited through the authors' contact to students on the bachelor degree programme in social education. Observations were carried out of music activities in the ECEC centres, and the authors were included as participating observers. During the music activities, the children were presented with one app at a time by laying the iPad on the table or on the floor and opening the relevant app while the children sat around watching. The authors briefly demonstrated how the app made sounds, and then the children were allowed to try the app in turns, while the other children listened and observed. The data material consists of field notes and photographs from observations of the children's first encounters with the apps. The analysis follows a hermeneutical approach, and the authors included observations selected to show various sides of the apps as sources of musical experience and discovery. Central concepts in the study are affordance, the basic elements of music, and children's musical expression

Engesnes, N., Danbolt, I. A., & Hagen, L. A. (2017). «Harpespill, fantasiskalaer og syngende fingre» – om barnehagebarns møter med tre musikkrelaterte apper. Nordisk Barnehageforskning, 15(6), 1-17.