The purpose of this study is to present a general perspective by examining the research works about primary school mathematics. Based on the findings of this study, we concluded that music composing is a promising activity through which mathematics and music theory can be learned at primary schools. Composing methods involving direct interaction with visualisations support the experiential learning of music theory, and consequently, the learning of mathematics. Music composing software were found to have affordances for teaching mathematical concepts, notations and basic calculus skills, among others. The coordinate grid-based piano roll was the most common visualisation and the tracker visualisation had the most affordances for learning primary school math.

The music visualisations were compared to the mathematics content in the Finnish primary school curriculum and the note input methods were evaluated based on their relationship to the music visualisations. Our analysis identified eight types of music visualisations and five types of note input methods.

For this purpose, 57 music composing software were categorised and reviewed. Composing software has the potential of solving some of these issues, as they are connected to mathematics via music theory and technology, and with practical opportunities arising from adopting phenomenon-based learning at schools, the affordances of music composing technologies for learning mathematics are investigated in this study. There are several issues as to why music composing is not taught at schools, such as beliefs that composing requires extensive knowledge of music theory, lack of teachers’ confidence, lack of evidence on the method’s effectiveness and difficulty of assessment. Music composing is associated with various positive learning outcomes, but in several countries, such as Finland, it is not part of the primary school music curriculum.

No piano roll mulab 7