Music Systematics

Musical education in children of pre-primary-school age is executed by musical activities that include listening to music. Until now, the major part of the research in children’s interest in listening were mostly focused on children in the first grades of primary school. However, this study analyses the phenomenon in even younger children. The aim of the research was to find out whether pre-school-aged children are willing to listen to classical music. The hypothesis was that, at most, one third of the children studied will express the willingness to listen to the genre. Through an observation of the children while listening along with a follow-up interview on the children’s emotions, it was concluded that 100% of the children was open to the activity even though the overwhelming majority (93,75%) had no previous perceptive experience. In collective listening, the children’s attention span was longest when listening to the music from Romanticism, full of passion and dramaticity. It can thus be suggested that besides the rhythmical component, melody and harmony are also significant factors for children when listening to music.