Children's Singing Games: Composition in the Playground?

This paper reports the findings of an ethnographic study of processes of variation and transmission in Australian children's playground singing games, conducted in a multiethnic inner city primary school in Sydney from 1990 to 1994. The paper focuses on children's processes of innovation or composition in relation to text, music and movement in these games and children's own awareness of these processes. Findings of the study are used to challenge the notion that children's compositional processes fit an invariable model such as that proposed by Swanwick and Tillman (1986). Instead, the author proposes that compositional processes vary according to the context in which they are enacted. Implications for teaching practice are outlined with particular reference to provision of a challenging classroom environment in which the considerable compositional and performance skills of children are acknowledged and the importance of group interaction is recognised.