A study about children's musical improvisation in an interactive/reflexive musical context: a study.

This paper introduces an study of the process of musical improvisation of two children in interactive/reflexive musical context. The data were collected in Italy within the MIROR Project (Music Interaction Relaying On Reflexion /Commission´s Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union) polo at the University of Bologna. Several improvisational sessions were carried out in a primary school, with two 8 yearold children who played together a keyboard augmented with an interactive reflexive musical system, improved in the MIROR Platform. In this study, children played several games with and without the system that organized responses to the various children musical interventions (melodic, harmonic, rythmic) by imitating the children's musical style. The analysis was based on the observation of video recordings collected during the sessions (2011), and was considered the elements of the flow experience (emotion, concentration); the musical elements of the children’s experience, (the exploration ways of playing, exploration of the keyboard); music improvisation (repetition, variation, musical ideas, elaboration, musical form, texture, musical gesture); and elements of social interaction between children. The results analysed so far indicate that the children engaging in interactive/reflective environments, and in the context of collective practice (in pairs), can generate a flow state, through intrinsic motivation and creative musical practice.