Musical thinking in the early years

Abstract

Musical thought, as a separate form of thinking, has been the object of study of musicologists, ethnomusicologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and educators alike. At least two distinct yet complementary forms of musical thought (see Figure 27.1 ) have been outlined in the literature, namely, thinking music and thinking about music (Nettl, 1996 ). Thinking music, as the term suggests, involves thinking in terms of musical and sound structures such as notes, rhythmic patterns, timbres and melodies, much in the same way that composers, performers, and improvisers do (Nettl, 1996 ). Thinking about music relates not to musical elements per se , but to extramusical associations and meanings associated with musical elements and practices of different cultural groups, such as beliefs and values (Nettl, 1996 ). These two different forms of musical thought coexist, intersect, and are often diffi cult to disentangle, especially where young children are concerned. Yet, different disciplines have typically focused on one or the other. Music psychology and more recently the neurosciences, for example, have provided much information on what we know about youngchildren’s perception and cognition of musical elements like pitch and rhythm, or thinking music (Nettl, 1996 ). By contrast, early childhood education has helped us situate music within a wide array of learning contexts and their associated meanings, and disciplines such as cultural studies and ethnomusicology have contributed to our understanding of young children as social-musical actors (Young, 2013 ), fi tting well with Nettl’s ( 1996 ) concept of thinking about music. Underlying these disciplines are conceptions of children, childhood, development and, of course, musicality (Young, 2013 ). These, in turn, have helped to orient groups of people (researchers and practitioners), who work with young children. Important contributions from each discipline have sometimes been in confl ict with one another, at times due to their underlying orientation (e.g. the ‘global’ versus the ‘local’ child), specifi c research methods (experimental, laboratory-based work versus more descriptive and naturalistic work), or even allegiance to particular theoretical frameworks and/or disciplines, thus becoming a political issue (for discussions see Young, 2005 , 2013 ; Young and Ilari, 2012 ).