Improvised Song in Schools: Breaking Away from the Perception of Traditional Song as Infantile by Introducing a Traditional Adult Practice
By Albert Casals, Jaume Ayats, Mercè Vilar
This article revolves around a project aimed at incorporating improvised song into primary school education. Among its objectives, this pilot scheme aimed to solve the problem of infantilization and the lack of functionality affecting the traditional school repertoire of songs in Catalonia by introducing a hitherto untested genre of traditional song into the official curriculum. The findings obtained in five centers suggest that this traditional form of oral expression through singing obtains positive results in the 10-12- year-old age group, and manages to break free of the clichés about traditional song pre-existing in the school environment.