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Arts & Communication Japanese children’s musical flow

at the same time, the sound came from the same single
speaker with many different buttons. As a result, children
just pressed the buttons and did not experience flow in
the sound-making compared with the violins and metallic
materials. The device itself may need improvement for
children to capture the sound tied directly to the action
of the pressing buttons. This interpretation matches the
trait of the original flow theory that immediate feedback
is necessary.

4. Conclusion
The results revealed that children experienced the most
apparent flow when interacting with metallic materials,
followed by violin-related activities, but not so much
with the technological instrument. Specifically, children
Figure 1. Big buttons tied to the technological devices enjoyed exploring musical sounds on metallic materials
using chopsticks. The open-ended nature of producing
sound with metallic materials allowed children to freely
explore the sounds without the pressure of right or wrong
answers. The results suggested that children of all ages
tend to experience flow in their interaction with objects
that produce sound, especially when they were unknown
or originally created as musical instruments. Another
notable observation was that caregivers often exert
pressure on their children to learn the violin, diminishing
their natural musical flow. They pressured children to
learn the “right” way too quickly before the children had
a chance to become genuinely interested and explore the
sounds of the instruments. Technological instruments
were popular in the short term at first, but children’s
flow was not sustained because the instruments were too
Figure 2. The violins were presented on a low desk
simple and easy to play in most cases. We may need to
adjust the challenge-skill balance to devise them based
on these findings. There might be another reason that
technological instruments are not facilitating children’s
flow. In fact, the room was too noisy with various sounds,
causing the sound from the speaker near the button to be
insufficiently loud. As a result, there was no immediate
feedback between pressing the button and the sound
creation for the children.
This study investigated the observable flow experience
in Japanese children’s interactions with technology,
metallic musical materials, and the violin, employing a
case study approach. The study participants comprised
20 children, aged two to nine, comprising both boys and
girls. Researchers collected over 50 video clips for analysis.
Children were observed in a workshop for 120 min to
Figure 3. Children and caregivers hitting metallic materials using sticks explore the sound created by technological instruments,
violins, and metallic musical materials. Custodero’s FIMA
instrument captured children’s flow experiences during
flow was spontaneous and sustainable. In contrast, the workshop activities. Findings included interpretations
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technological device was too easy to make sound, but of children’s flow experiences when exploring different

Volume 2 Issue 2 (2024) 6 doi: 10.36922/ac.1782