Developmental process of singing and environmental influence in infancy

To summarize the findings of musical development from past studies, the chronological order of the events appears to be as follows: an initial presence of prenatal and post-

natal responses to musical stimuli (Shetler, 1989; Woodward, 1992; Lecanuet, 1996; Tafuri, 2008), the role of musical stimulation is signalled in the first month of life (Fessbender, 1996; Papousek, H., 1996, Papousek, M., 1996), the first vocal manifestations can appear towards 2-3 months (Papousek, M., 1996), musical babbling appears towards 6-7 months (Moog, 1976), then invented and imitated songs appears towards 3-4 years (Davidson, 1994). Infant babbling and motherese are seen to be the first processes in learning to sing which have their origins in auditory perception prenatally, then right at the moment of birth, continuing the process towards 3-4 years, until the infants are able to make singing sounds in the same form in the maternal culture.

Tafuri and Villa’s research (2008) revealed that intensive musical training of both parent and infant (including the time from pre-birth) is effective in enabling young children to gain musical skills earlier (younger) than the reported ages from other researches. At 2-8 months the infants showed attention to music that was introduced when they were crying or restless. They also preferred listening to their mother’s singing than recorded music pieces. Furthermore, the amount of vocalizations were found to be higher than other documented research on infants. The presence of musical patterns belonging to the Western musical system was revealed in their musical

babbling. The Italian researchers also found that the first sung phrases appeared toward the end of the first year, and for some children, the first whole songs appeared in the beginning of the second year. The majority of children were able to sing a whole song towards the end of second year and at the beginning of the third. The study findings appear to demonstrate the strong influence of the parent’s culture, as well as their strong commitment to the children’s musical development.

Rhythm seems to be the first element to emerge in children’s singing development, though there is still some confusion regarding the rhythmic aspect of children’s musical acquisition. Previous researches have sought to answer the question: ‘Is the rhythm the first thing to emerge in children’s’ singing acquisition?’ Umemoto and Iwabuki (1999) reported that rhythm is the primary factor for children when they are composing. Hargreaves (1986) stated that rhythmic skills are the first to emerge and develop, but also noted that rhythmic performance tasks improved at the age of 8-9 years. However, Schuter-Dyson and Gabriel reported some different opinions from older researches (1981). They reviewed researches made on young children’s ability with tap-in-time and tapping-rhythm tasks (e. g. Thackray, 1972; Petzold, 1966; and others), and noted the lower percentage of success in these tasks for younger age children. On the other hand, Schuter-Dyson and Gabriel also reported Rinbow and Owen’s (1979) and Frega’s (1979) studies, which suggested that including speech rhythm is easier for 3-year-old children, and speaking the rhythmic pattern before clapping, helped to produce success in a rhythm task.

Moog (1976) also reported the results from six tests with 3-month-old to 5- year-old children, stating that babies select the quality of a sound as the criterion for attention and prefer smooth treble-register pitched sounds. His test 3, which was designed for rhythm-centered behaviour, attracted hardly any attention from the children, even though it was much louder than any other test. From this, he concluded that babies show hardly any overt behavior which could be called musical, up to the age of six months (concerning rhythm-centered sound stimuli). In other words, to attract an infant’s musical interest, pitch comes first, and rhythm follows later. The musical growth of the infant emerges first in relation to pitch, not to rhythm. However,

pitch and melody), are first to emerge in singing development. He summarized the process thus:

Most children begin, sometime between the age of one and two, by imitation of words. Then a little later they begin to add the rhythm. Finally they reach the stage of imitation the pitch as well. (p. 97)

He also reported that at the age of two to three, the number of children who could manage to sing whole songs increases noticeably, and at the age of three to four, 76% of children were more or less able to sing correctly. From his study, it can be summarized that children’s musical perception and reaction to musical stimuli begin with pitch in the first year of life, but when they start singing at the age of two to three, the musical utterance starts with words containing some rhythmic structure, with pitch and melody coming later. Considering the likely ability of young children’ singing and rhythmic behaviour, the targeted age in the present doctoral study must be older than 3 years old.

3.3 Singing in musical development and influence of

environment, society, culture and language

In this section, I present a literature overview of material concerning the development stages of young children’s singing, especially pre-school, and those who have reached school age and are supposed to have started singing whole songs. This developmental

stage would apply to the outer layers, especially concerning ‘generative musical skill development’ and ‘schooling’ layers, of Welch’s Russian dolls model of musical development theory (2006).

The age at which children become able to sing whole songs and start going to nursery or kindergarten, is about the same in Japan as it is in the UK. When children start attending nursery, the former boundary of the carer-child environment now broadens to include influences from the outside world. The child’s first step in social experience begins at nursery or school. The musical development of singing in nursery/school children, which was found in research literatures, is the focus for this section.

The development of young children’s singing behaviour has been reported in several studies (Moog, 1976; Sloboda, 1985; Welch, 1997, 2005; Hargreaves, 1986; Slade, 1989; Papousek & Papousek, 1981). From these studies, it could be concluded that young children are usually able to sing at the age of two to three.

Hargreaves (1986, p.61) characterized the development of young children’s ‘milestones of musical development’ as follows;

age 0 - 1 Reacts to sounds

age 1 - 2 Spontaneous music making

age 2 - 3 Begins to reproduce phrases of songs heard

age 3 - 4 Conceives general plan of a melody; absolute pitch may develop if learns an instrument

age 4 - 5 Can discriminate register of pitches; can tap back simple rhythms

age 5 - 6 Understands louder/softer; can discriminate ‘same’ from ‘different’ in easy tonal or rhythm pattern

age 6 - 7 Improved singing in tune; tonal music perceived better than atonal

age 7 - 8 Appreciates consonance vs. dissonance

age 8 - 9 Rhythmic performance tasks improved

age 9 - 10 Rhythmic perception improves; melodic memory improves; two-part melodies perceived; sense of cadence

age 10 - 11 Harmonic sense becoming established, Some appreciation for finer points of music

age 12 - 17 Increase in appreciation, cognitively and in emotional response

(Hargreaves, 1986, P 61).

Table 3.1 phases of a children’s musical development according to Hargreaves (1986, p.61)

Hargreaves also agrees that young children begin to reproduce phrases of songs heard at the age of 2-3.

Davidson et. al. (1997) illustrated the early life span of musical development and confirmed the mean ages of musical behaviour as they first occur in early childhood. They obtained reliable data from past studies by Manturzewska in 1990, and Sloboda and Howe in 1990, Sosniak in 1985 and 1990. By adding their own data (Howe et. al. in

1995) to that obtained in past studies, they confirmed that the five different study groups did not vary greatly. The early stages of development were described as follows: mean ages of these activities starting being:

(1) 1.40 years for the infant moving to music;

(2) 1.94 years for the child showing a liking for musical sounds;

(3) 2.31 years for being attentive to music;

(4) 4.43 years for requests to become involved in musical activities.

(Davidson et. al., 1997, p. 192)

They noted that only in early singing was there a significant difference between the groups, with the children now attending a specialist music school being reported as singing on average six months earlier than all the other children, at a mean age of 1.70 years. They concluded that the reason why singing occurred earlier in the specialist group may be that these children’s parents engaged in more musical activities with their children than the other parents.

If parents/caregivers are more engaged in singing, their children tend to start singing earlier than the average (Tafuri & Villa, 2002; Slade, 1989; Davidson et. al., 1997). Tafuri reported the first sung phrases appeared towards the end of the first year. Slade’s study (1989) of children aged 21, 27, 30 and 46 months, who had received prenatal musical stimuli, reported that the children had a greater ability to sing in-tune and play percussion instruments. While some 4-year old children can sing perfectly in

tune, generally the percentage is relatively low at 5 years (Welch, 1997). In Davidson et. al.’s study (1997), the mean age of the children’s musical accomplishments was

observed to similarly correspond to that reported above, but the musical production itself did not take into account any differences in specific rhythmic behaviour.

Another study, which is notable in the field of language acquisition, is Grabe et. al.’s study (1999) on the acquisition of rhythmic patterns in English and French. They examined the rhythmic patterns which were produced by 4-year-old French and English children and their mothers. The PVI9 _{analysis of the rhythmic patterns showed}

that 4-year-old French children appear to have acquired the syllable-timed rhythm of French, while 4-year-old English children had not yet acquired the stress-timed rhythm of English. The differences in language development were reported between the two languages, but there is no such equivalent research on musical development.

The cultural influence on young children’s singing behaviour has been

studied more in relation to melody than rhythm (Chen-Haftek, 1999; Mang, 2003, 2006). Acccording to Sloboda (1985), it is reported that 5-month-old infants are already

sensitive to sequential structure (reporting Chang & Trehub, 1977a, 1977b). These infants perceived a six-note atonal melody (Chang & Trehub, 1977a) and were also sensitive to changes in rhythmic patterns (Chang & Trehub, 1977b, and additionaly in Trehub 2006). It could be concluded from these studies, alongside others in this literature review that musical enculturation starts at a very early stage in young children’s development.

3.4 Language and Music development policy in Education in