Music Creative Processes in Infants and Children.
Abstract
Abstract This chapter presents a description of musical practices ranging from the earliest forms of musical exploration in infancy to elaborate forms of spontaneous singing in children. It focuses on the biological origins of musical creativity, situating it as a multimodal and eminently social activity. Knowledge of the precocious musical abilities of infants has grown over the past years, but their functions remain obscure. This chapter suggests that a process of musical socialization is initiated in early infancy through social interactions involving affectionate speaking, singing, and moving of adults. Accordingly, it becomes difficult to disentangle the musical and linguistic features that characterize the kind of inventive sound-play infants and children partake in. The chapter argues, finally, that the discoveries made by developmental psychologists in this field should set the stage for new pedagogical practices for very young and older music learners.