Musical play: a case study of preschool children and parents

In this rather broad study, the experimenters wanted to know how preschool children play musically when given a free rein, and how the role of the parent and a parent's behavior influences children's free music play. They observed 18 children over ten weeks in several different kinds of sessions and when the experimenters were involved in the play, they allowed themselves to be led by the children's exploration. They coded for three different types of play; in unfinished play, a child in free music play is interrupted in the middle of doing something and shows a desire to continue. In extinguishing play, there are behaviors by others that interrupt free music play and result in the ceasing of the play. Finally, in enhancing play, the role of others serves to encourage free music play. The experimenters found that parents can be very instrumental in the music play of their children, and that the role of others may have implications for peer-to-peer relationships and also artistic expression in the context of a family system.

While I was initially confused by the presence of a "prologue" and "epilogue," and I am much less accustomed to this extreme of qualitative research, I think the broadness of the inquiry adequately matches the broadness of possible findings. In a free play environment, there are an infinite number of different things that could happen, and especially in a realm of inquiry that is relatively young, research questions must be necessarily broad. I also think that this kind of research finding has implications for all kinds of areas, not just music in preschool children's lives. Especially in secondary and post-secondary arts education, there is a rampant obsession with correction and perfection that begins even in primary school, where children are only permitted to repeat back a rhythm pattern or paint with a certain kind of brush, on a certain kind of paper, or even in literary arts where sonnets and quatrains and limericks are taught but no one would even think to suggest allowing freeverse, let alone writing in a style like Joyce or Faulkner. The same is true in fine arts and performing arts; in music, composition is taught as "something other people do" and children are taught simply to play the music, not to play with it or allow any sort of creativity, even with nuance of expression. The modern conservatory's obsession with canon is a larger version of the oppressive ban on creativity that begins early in life when parents engage in extinguishing behaviors toward play. Encouraging free play, especially in arts, engenders creativity, builds confidence, allows children to integrate modes of perception, even exercises their linguistic skills. I read on the main blog that one of the moms noticed her child loving the song "Yankee Doodle" and even changing the words around to create a humorous version. Without parents exhibiting enhancing behavior toward play, those creative exercises are less likely to happen.

DeVries: Music at home with children under five

In this study, Peter DeVries wanted to know more about what kind of musicking was happening in the homes of children under the age of five. A survey was sent out to parents of children in three Australian preschools, and then two focus groups were created in order for parents to discuss more thoroughly the answers to the survey and to comment on each others' opinions. 63 parents responded to the survey and the focus groups had 5 parents in one and 6 parents in the other.

Many of the parents admitted that they had few to no musical activities on a regular basis, citing mainly lack of time and lack of confidence in their own musical abilities as excuses. Most parents were under the impression that school took care of whatever musical education their children needed and added that besides, music wasn't as important as reading or math, anyway.


As far as the method is concerned, there was really only one thing that stuck out to me. It is never stated in the article which parent was in the focus group or answering the surveys and if the other parent was asked questions as well or kept informed. I found this worrying; after all, in a self-declared "unmusical" household, it is not likely that everyday musical events would be discussed between parents, so how could one parent be sure of the other's musical interactions with the children? If parents are not aware of the music that spontaneously happens (as when children hum to themselves or tap rhythms), then a Daddy and daughter duet in the car on the way to the grocery store is not likely to be a topic of conversation at dinner, so the other parent may never know what sorts of musical things are going on, and so could give misleading answers in the survey or focus group.

The other thing that struck me about this article was the misinformation the parents in the focus groups were flaunting. There seems to be an epidemic of parent insecurity about their own musical abilities and a projection of that insecurity onto their children in the form of differentiating "real music" (formal training) and "not music," which is everything from children making up their own songs, playing with toy instruments, etc. Parents do not seem to value musical exploration in children, and they also seem to be unaware of most of their musicking. I think that if parents were more aware of the music that occurs naturally when children are allowed to explore, then they would feel more inclined to encourage musical expression in their children.

Singing Practices in 10 Families with Young Children

Lori Custodero studied 3-year-old children from 10 families in New York, chosen from a larger telephone survey about music in the household. The study used home visits, interviews, and parent journals to document singing practices in everyday life in these families. Socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds were diverse. The study looked at the different functions of singing in households, like traditional cultural songs, songs that accompanied routines, songs for play, songs to direct children's attention, and songs for aesthetic purposes.



I found it interesting that many of the parents did not realize how central music was to their lives until they paid attention to it. It is common for people to sing or hum to themselves absentmindedly without realizing it, and parents often do the same with children, to fill silence or because talking to young children in a sing-song voice seems to come naturally to mothers. I was glad to see that Custodero cited Dissanayake; it reminded me of Dissanayake's work "Becoming Homo Aestheticus" and also a paper (I can't find the author) that I read in a cognitive science class that was about the developmental function of babytalk in mother-infant communication. Studies have suggested (and I also believe this to be true, just from my own personal observation) that incorporating music into routines helps children to learn; musical mnemonics are more easily remembered than strings of data, and associating certain songs with routines like hand-washing or shoe-tying helps to both entertain children and structure their routines.

The part I found most interesting was the one mother who said that she used songs to make her children behave. When they would fight, she would redirect their attention to singing together, taking up any cognitive faculty they would otherwise be using to fight. This application of the cognitive economy theory is particularly useful in young children, whose brains focus best on the concrete rather than the abstract and have not yet learned to run on multiple lines at the same time. It also reminds me of the ancient classical ideas that music can control one's emotional state. That idea seems so attractive to people for whatever reason that it has gone through the medieval with different church modes, the baroque with the doctrine of affections, it's touched upon in some texts in terms of what, exactly, absolute music expresses; obviously, even in the present, people who are not trained in music history tend to believe it. It's a huge testament to the power of music in society.