Experiments with a musical machine. Musical style replication in 3/5 year old children

ABSTRACT. The relationship between new technology and learning is gaining increasing relevance in the field of music education (Webster 2002; Folkestad et al. 1998). However, only a few studies have considered the nature of the interaction between children and musical machine. This article describes an observation setting realised to study young children 3-5 years old confronting a particular interactive musical system, the Continuator, able to produce music in the same style as a human playing the keyboard (Pachet 2003). The analysis of 2 case-studies suggest that the Continuator is able to develop interesting child/machine interaction and creative musical processes in young children. It was possible to observe a sort of life cycle of interaction, as well as micro-processes similar to those observed in child/adult interaction (Stern 1985, Imberty 2002). The ability of the system to attract and hold the attention of children has been interpreted through the theory of Flow introduced by Csikszentmihalyi (1990).