1 Introduction

Music is an essential part of education, while the benefits of music education in elementary and secondary education have been widely studied and debated (^{De Moya Martínez, 2022}; ^{Restrepo, 2022}).

Through music education, students develop their communication, expression and socialization, so that they are able to develop their cognitive, motor and emotional skills (^{Muñoz, 2018}). Future teachers must have a solid musical education in order to provide their students with quality musical learning, since, through the work developed in the music classroom, learning can be improved (^{Alonso, 2003}), while developing their cognitive, motor and emotional skills. Music education can also help students develop their critical thinking, creativity, coordination, and self-esteem (^{Del Barrio, 2017}).

The teacher specializing in the didactics of musical expression must create environments that allow students to establish meaningful connections with music and for this they must have a wide range of didactic resources, fleeing from the little or no practical master class. It cannot be taken for granted that all music classes will succeed in stimulating listening, performance, the development of musical culture, or individual and shared creation. Some classes, far from bringing students closer to these objectives, are counterproductive. In fact, according to Dr. Andrea ^{Giráldez (2019)}, interest in music decreases as students’ progress in their learning process.

On the other hand, in the primary school music classroom, music is usually one of the preferred subjects in the first school years, although it tends to be rejected in the third cycle, being a typical response for all students the one collected in the study by ^{Carbajo Martínez and Lacárcel Moreno (2005}, p. 17): "[...] this is for me what it is for, I am not going to be a musician". This is due, in part, to the lack of stimuli in the classroom and the disconnect between school music and music that exists outside the classroom. Therefore, facing this challenge implies, among others, linking the experiences offered in the classroom with the musical experience provided by the students themselves, with their most common motivators: play.

The union of songs and musical games has been widely studied in the methods of Martenot or Suzuki, as José ^{Ibáñez (2020)} has shown in his studies. While Game-Based Learning (GBL), as a motivating element in the educational context, is currently one of the most utilized active methodologies, as it enables students to become protagonists of their own learning (^{González González, 2015}; Morales et al., 2020).

BPA has gained popularity in various educational fields, including music education. This approach combines the elements of games and education to create an interactive and immersive learning experience for students. In the context of music education, BPA has proven to be very beneficial as it engages students, improves critical thinking skills, and increases motivation. Furthermore, the use of practical instruments, such as boomwhackers, further enhances the effectiveness of game-based learning in music education.

Boomwhackers, or sound tubes, are tubular percussion musical instruments, generally manufactured in bright colors, according to the international code, for each musical note, and different lengths for each tuned sound, corresponding to a specific musical note. These instruments, developed in the 1990s, have gained popularity in education due to their ease of use and ability to engage students in meaningful musical experiences.

Sound tubes provide students with the opportunity to explore basic musical concepts, such as rhythm and melody, in a playful and engaging way. Its simplicity and accessibility allow even the youngest students to actively participate in the creation of music, which promotes motivation and self-esteem.

This article analyzes how it is possible to combine the didactics of music through the BPA, developing the curriculum of the subject with future teachers through the use of boomwhackers and current music.

In addition, the results of the learning mediated by BPA and sound tubes are presented, an analysis developed in the subject "Didactics of Music Education in Primary Education", during the years 2022 and 2023 with the students of the Degree in Primary Education of the University of Almería.

2 Methodology

The main objective of the research carried out in the classroom is to demonstrate that the implementation of active methodologies, specifically BPA, can increase motivation, attention and, therefore, performance, making future teachers the protagonists of their learning. Project work increases motivation and improves performance (^{Lafuente, 2019}), with the instruments called sound tubes having been integrated as connecting elements between the different sets.

The main objective has been formulated as a research question: can musical games improve learning through the development of musical skills using boomwhackers?

Active methodologies are a teaching approach that focuses on the student and on achieving their training in a certain discipline through an active and constructive process. In contrast to traditional teaching, where students are limited to passively receiving a series of concepts and knowledge presented by teachers, active methodologies act on the interconnection between teachers, students and teaching material (^{Rodríguez López, 2022}). Active methodologies have a series of characteristics that distinguish them and make them effective in the educational context. These characteristics are fundamental for a methodology to be considered active and promote meaningful and participatory learning by students: significance, current context, being creative, pursuing student autonomy and developing from systematic collaboration, among others.

Collaborative learning is a strategy employed by educators to facilitate the learning process and improve student achievement. According to ^{Peterson and Anderson (2001)}, collaboration is defined as teamwork among individuals who collaborate in achieving a shared vision and common goals.

Within this approach, participatory action research stands out as an invaluable form of research due to its ability to involve participants as researchers and generate representative and relevant results (^{Walton et al., 2012}). This study methodology has distinctive characteristics that differentiate it from other types of research, according to ^{Northway (2010)}:

3. Results and Discussion

The 25 groups formed throughout the 2022 and 2023 academic years have actively participated in the entire development of the BPA designed to improve hearing, tuning, rhythm, group interpretation and, ultimately, develop the curriculum of the subject in a more playful and participatory way.

For the development of the initial phase, up to five different musical games were developed with the participating groups in which the sound tubes were used and the objective was the development of the ear and acquiring basic notions of harmony.

After the first phase of the action research, the participants had to answer a short questionnaire - see Table 2 - and then created different musical games in which modern music played a fundamental role. Some of the group creations are reproduced:

Sound tubes, which are easy to use, can be used by students of all ages and levels of musical ability. The use of boomwhackers in the music classroom can be an excellent tool to encourage game-based learning while putting into practice the pedagogical principles of the Orff and Willems methods, among others.

In this project, proper and fair evaluation of students was prioritized. Special attention was paid to the planning and review of the process to ensure a faithful assessment of the taxonomy established by Bloom in 1956 and subsequently revised in 2001 and 2019. This taxonomy identifies five key cognitive processes: remembering; understanding; applying; evaluating and analyzing; and creating, presented in a hierarchical structure from the simplest to the most complex.

During the project, students worked in cooperative teams, leading to assessment of most proficiency tasks in groups. A rubric was implemented to monitor the performance of each engagement team as it was considered an objective and effective assessment tool to ensure that all parties understand expectations.

The evaluation approach was not limited to a quantitative rating, but also sought to obtain a qualitative rating to provide a complete view of the work developed.

A future game-based learning project with boomwhackers based on this research could include activities such as the creation of scores using colors, the interpretation of popular songs to bring folklore closer to the music classroom, improvisation and music composition. Students could work in groups to create their own songs and present them to the rest of the class, thus improving rhythmic and percussive musical abilities, while active listening.

In addition, the dynamics followed have been attractive to students in view of the results - see Table 2 - and it is expected that the application in the primary education music classroom will show similar results of participation and learning.

4 Final considerations

In conclusion, a game-based learning project with boomwhackers can be an excellent way to promote active and participatory learning in the music classroom. Students can improve their musical skills while having fun and working as a team. In addition, the use of sound tubes is inexpensive and accessible to all students, allowing them to practice and improve their skills anytime, anywhere.

It is known that more than 75% of the sample had never worked with boomkhackers and challenge-based learning is also considered as a methodology capable of motivating students, specifically 80.83% of the participants say so.

It is highly relevant that more than 90% of the population plans to use ABJ and sound tubes in their future teaching in the elementary school music classroom.

This study, limited in time, has a really small sample, although, in view of the results obtained, it is interesting to be able to develop it in other faculties of education and/or music classes, both primary and secondary, since the benefits provided by the music game are always necessary in the development of the course curriculum.