Home Musical Environment Research Articles

Music@Home–Retrospective: A new measure to retrospectively assess childhood home musical environments

Early home musical environments can significantly impact sensory, cognitive, and socioemotional development. While longitudinal studies may be resource-intensive, retrospective reports are a relatively quick and inexpensive way to examine associations between early home musical environments and adult outcomes. We present the Music@Home–Retrospective scale, derived partly from the Music@Home–Preschool scale (Politimou et al., 2018), to retrospectively assess the childhood home musical environment. In two studies (total n = 578), we conducted an exploratory factor analysis (Study 1) and confirmatory factor analysis (Study 2) on items, including many adapted from the Music@Home–Preschool scale. This revealed a 20-item solution with five subscales. Items retained for three subscales (Caregiver Beliefs, Caregiver Initiation of Singing, Child Engagement with Music) load identically to three in the Music@Home-–Preschool Scale. We also identified two additional dimensions of the childhood home musical environment. The Attitude Toward Childhood Home Musical Environment subscale captures participants’ current adult attitudes toward their childhood home musical environment, and the Social Listening Contexts subscale indexes the degree to which participants listened to music at home with others (i.e., friends, siblings, and caregivers). Music@Home–Retrospective scores were related to adult self-reports of musicality, performance on a melodic perception task, and self-reports of well-being, demonstrating utility in measuring the early home music environment as captured through this scale. The Music@Home–Retrospective scale is freely available to enable future investigations exploring how the early home musical environment relates to adult cognition, affect, and behavior.

The Impact of Music Training on the Cognitive Development of Preschool and Junior School Children: A Review of Research

The review presents the results of studies of the impact of music training on the cognitive development of preschool and junior school children. It is shown that music lessons can contribute to the development of reading, writing, listening and speaking as well as mathematical skills, memory, intelligence, and executive functions. After analyzing a number of relevant studies, the authors came to the following conclusions: (1) the impact of music lessons on the development of the cognitive sphere in children is associated with concomitant factors, such as: parental involvement in music lessons and home musical environment, age when a child begins to take music lessons and their duration, socioeconomic status of the family; and 2) it is systemic music training, which includes singing, playing musical instruments and solfeggio, that can have a beneficial effect on cognitive development. The mechanisms by which music training promote the cognitive development of children were also examined. While a vast body of work confirms the beneficial effects of music training in this regard, there are a number of studies showing no such effects. Special consideration is also given to the reasons why positive research results can be erroneous. In conclusion, the authors give recommendations for designing further research on this topic as well as for organizing music lessons for children of preschool and junior school age.

The impact of the home musical environment on infants’ language development

There is strong evidence that musical engagement influences children’s language development but little research has been carried out on the relationship between the home musical environment and language development in infancy. The current study assessed musical exposure at home (including parental singing) and language development in 64 infants (8.5–18 months). Results showed that the home musical environment significantly predicted gesture development. For a subgroup of infants’ below 12 months, both parental singing and overall home musical environment score significantly predicted word comprehension. These findings represent the first demonstration that an enriched musical environment in infancy can promote development of communication skills.

Exploring Changes in Musical Behaviors of Caregivers and Children in Social Distancing During the COVID-19 Outbreak.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had profound effects on all aspects of society. Families were among those directly impacted by the first measures imposed by health authorities worldwide to contain the spread of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, where social distancing and mandatory quarantine were the main approaches implemented. Notably, little is yet known about how social distancing during COVID-19 has altered families' daily routines, particularly regarding music-related behaviors. The aim of this study was 2-fold: (i) to explore changes in families' daily routine and caregivers' levels of well-being and stress during the COVID-19 outbreak in Brazil and (ii) to investigate whether musical behaviors of caregivers and the children under their care (aged from 3 to 6 years old) changed during social distancing. One hundred and eighty-eight caregivers residing in Brazil participated in an online cross-sectional study conducted between July and August 2020. Our findings suggest significant changes in families' dynamics during the COVID-19 outbreak, with parents (especially mothers) spending more time on childcare and a substantial decrease in caregiver's well-being. Regarding music-related behaviors, our results revealed considerable changes in caregivers' and children's musical activities at home during social distancing, including an increase in child-only musical behaviors and shared caregiver-child activities. Moreover, sociodemographic factors such as caregiver background and well-being as well as the child's disability status significantly influenced musical engagement at home during social distancing. This study captured some features of the home musical environment of middle-class families in Brazil in the first stages of social distancing restrictions during the pandemic and caregivers' role in providing an environment where musical experiences are nurtured. Further research is needed to better understand aspects such as the long-term impact of the changes of musical behaviors at home on musical parenting and families' well-being.

Melodic expectations in 5- and 6-year-old children

It has been argued that children implicitly acquire the rules relating to the structure of music in their environment using domain-general mechanisms such as statistical learning. Closely linked to statistical learning is the ability to form expectations about future events. Whether children as young as 5 years can make use of such internalized regularities to form expectations about the next note in a melody is still unclear. The possible effect of the home musical environment on the strength of musical expectations has also been under-explored. Using a newly developed melodic priming task that included melodies with either “expected” or “unexpected” endings according to rules of Western music theory, we tested 5- and 6-year-old children (N = 46). The stimuli in this task were constructed using the information dynamics of music (IDyOM) system, a probabilistic model estimating the level of “unexpectedness” of a note given the preceding context. Results showed that responses to expected versus unexpected tones were faster and more accurate, indicating that children have already formed robust melodic expectations at 5 years of age. Aspects of the home musical environment significantly predicted the strength of melodic expectations, suggesting that implicit musical learning may be influenced by the quantity of informal exposure to the surrounding musical environment.

Study reveals home music impact

A group of researchers from Middlesex University and Goldsmiths University of London have developed a new tool to assess the influence of the home musical environment in early childhood.

Music@Home: A novel instrument to assess the home musical environment in the early years.

The majority of children under the age of 5 appear to show spontaneous enjoyment of singing, being exposed to music and interacting with musical instruments, but whether variations in engaging in such activities in the home could contribute to developmental outcomes is still largely unknown. Critically, researchers lack a comprehensive instrument with good psychometric properties to assess the home musical environment from infancy to the preschool years. To address this gap, this paper presents two studies that describe the development and validation of the Music@Home questionnaire, which comprises two versions: Infant and Preschool. In Study 1, an initial pool of items was generated and administered to a wide audience of parents (n = 287 for the Infant, n = 347 for the Preschool version). Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify different dimensions comprising the home musical environment of both infants and pre-schoolers, and to reduce the initial pool of items to a smaller number of meaningful items. In Study 2, convergent and divergent validity and internal and test-retest reliability of the new instrument were established, using data from a different sample of participants (n = 213 for the Infant, n = 213 for the Preschool version). The second study also investigated associations between the Music@Home and musical characteristics of the parents, such as their musical education and personal engagement with music. Overall, the Music@Home constitutes a novel, valid and reliable instrument that allows for the systematic assessment of distinct aspects of the home musical environment in families with children under the age of 5. Furthermore, the Infant and Preschool versions of the Music@Home present differential associations with musical characteristics of the parents opening a new area of inquiry into how musical exposure and interaction in the home may vary across different developmental stages.

The development of music competencies in preschool children: Effects of a training program and the role of environmental factors

The present study investigated the development and training of music competencies in children in transition from kindergarten to school. In an intervention study with three experimental groups (music training, language training, no training) we investigated music performances of N = 202 5-year-old children before and after a period of 6 months. Results indicate substantial improvement in several low- and high-level musical competencies independent of children’s participation in one of the training groups. In addition, the music training group improved significantly more in their tonal discrimination, rhythm repetition, and synchronization skills compared to the no-training group. Results show that children in the language training group also improved in their music skills, which indicates noticeable overlap between these two domains. By contrast, interindividual differences in potentially relevant environmental factors, such as home musical environment and their socioeconomic status, did not affect children’s musical skills. By disentangling music training effects from musical experience based on informal exposure, the present findings contribute to the understanding of the development of various music competencies and to the effects of musical trainings in preschool.

Multidimensional measurement of exposure to music in childhood: Beyond the musician/non-musician dichotomy

Much research in music psychology characterizes the music background of its participants in a dichotomous manner, labeling participants as “musicians” and “non-musicians” or professionals and non-professionals. However, this terminology is inconsistent from study to study, and even more sophisticated measures fail to accurately represent music experiences; moreover, there is no standardized measure suitable for use with younger participants. This article presents a new measure, the Exposure to Music in Childhood Inventory, for capturing the amount and type of exposure to music activities suitable for use with children. Children from public and private school, aged 5 to 13 years old ( N = 1006; M = 8.36 years old, SD = 1.5 years) completed the inventory, and through a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis a two-factor solution was obtained. The first factor includes personal music listening activities, home musical environment and the influence of television and the internet; the second reflects more social, active and public elements of music-making, playing an instrument and performing. This scale is suitable for use in a wide range of future research to more accurately assess the kinds of music activities children have access to in a dimensional way, which can have a bearing on their understanding of music.

Interactive technologies in the instrumental music classroom: A longitudinal study with the Music Paint Machine

Can interactive technologies be useful for music education? This question was empirically investigated during a nine-month longitudinal study in which twelve children (1st and 2nd grade) learnt to play the clarinet. Six children (the intervention group) received instruction with the Music Paint Machine, an interactive music system that allows a musician to make a digital “painting” by playing music while making various movements on a coloured pressure mat. The other six children (control group) received the instruction without the use of technology.The overall goal of the longitudinal study was (1) to integrate the Music Paint Machine in instrumental music instruction in order to develop good practices and (2) to investigate the effectiveness of instruction with the system on the learning process. To measure the effectiveness of instruction with the system, children were administered the Primary and Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation (Gordon, 1986) as pre- and post-test. In addition, pre-tests were organised to map possible confounding variables, such as personality, home musical environment, motor skills and self-regulation skills. Although no statistically significant differences were found between the control and intervention group the study revealed important aspects about the transformative impact of technology in education. Furthermore, dealing with the complexity of a real-life educational setting and with the requirements of the quasi-experimental design, this study has provided insights on methodology (design, measures, analysis) in music educational technology research that can contribute to the further development of this branch of educational research.

The Underlying Structure of Parental Involvement–Home Environment in Music

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to examine the underlying multifaceted structure of home environment in music using a factor analysis methodology, and to create a scale that reflects this structure. Students from a major metropolitan area in the southeastern United States (N = 523) enrolled in general music classes, orchestra classes, band classes, and chorus classes in grades 4–12 completed a 99-item pool measure. Items were created based on previous research in music education and education. A factor analysis of the item measure identified seven parental involvement–home environment in music factors: Home Musical Structure, Attitudes Toward Music, Home Musical Environment, Music Program Support, Parental Expectations, Family Musical Participation, and Family Musical Background. Six items for each factor were selected for the final scale based on factor loadings and to measure unique aspects of each factor. The MANOVA revealed that five of the seven factors (Home Musical Structure, Attitudes Toward Music, Home Musical Environment, Music Program Support, and Family Musical Participation) differed by sample characteristics.

Home Musical Environment of Children in Singapore

The home musical environments of a class of 28 first-grade children in Singapore were examined in this ethnographic study. Technology was an integral part of the soundscape in the home. The musical repertoire gathered was closely associated with electronic and pop-influenced music, approaching the styles favored by teens and adults. Particular musical styles and selections that the families listened to and watched through the media also fueled these children with a sense of ethnic identity and nostalgia. Children's popular media culture was part of these children's broader social repertoire, creating a shared frame of reference for their musical play and generating cultural capital that was valued within their peer groups. Consideration of the various contexts in which these children learn about music, where their musical identities are being shaped under the influences of their techno-, media-, and ethnoscapes (dimensions proposed by Arjun Appadurai), has implications for music education classroom practices.

An Experimental Study of Children's Sensitivity to Mood in Music

This experiment tested children aged five and nine years in their abilities to perceive in music. The non-verbal response instrument used schematic faces arranged in a semantic differential format within each of Wedin's (1972) three musical mood dimensions. Twelve brief but complete classical music selections were used. Three public school elementary music educators acted as the criterion group. Involved in this study were 81 five-year-olds and 92 nine-year-olds. In addition to the age factor in the ability to perceive mood in music, other variables were examined, including gender, handedness, home musical environment, and socio-economic status. Age and handedness did not show significant single effects. Girls performed significantly better than boys at both age levels. Socio-economic status was revealed as a significant effect among the nine-year-olds. The presence of a home musical environment did show a significant effect.

A Comparison of Home Musical Environment and Musical Aptitude in Kindergarten Students

A Comparison of Home Musical Environment and Musical Aptitude in Kindergarten Students

Relationship Between Home Musical Environment and Selected Musical Attributes of Second-Grade Children

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between home musical environment and musical attributes among second-grade (primarily) Mexican-American school children. Parental musical involvement with child, attitude toward music, and other aspects of the home musical environment were examined as sources of variance in tonal and rhythmic perception and school musical achievement. Data from 116 students and their parents were analyzed by means of setwise multiple regression. Although analyses revealed that scores on the Home Musical Environmental Scale (HOMES) were not significantly related to tonal or rhythmic perception, the results did show a statistically significant relationship, p < .001, between scores on the HOMES and musical achievement as assessed by the subjects' music teachers. The scores on the HOMES account for 20% of the variance in musical achievement scores. Additionally, an important finding in this study is that not all home musical environmental variables are related in the same degree to musical achievement.

Development and Validation of the Home Musical Environment Scale for Use at the Early Elementary Level

This study was designed to develop and validate the Home Musical Environment Scale (HOMES), a 15-item parent sell- reporting measure to assess the home musical environment. The initial contents (content validity) of the HOMES represented a variety of aspects of parental musical attitudes and efforts in pro- viding a nurturing musical environment as identified in the litera- ture and present in available measures. After a panel of experts revised the instrument, it was tested with 157 second-grade children and their parents. The analysis revealed an alpha relia- bility of *86 and the factor analysis uncovered four factors (scales) with eigen values over 1-0, which accounted for 63 per cent of the variance. Concurrent validity was established by comparing the scores on the HOMES with the music teacher's perception of the subjects' home musical environment. Results showed that three of the four scales were significantly related to the teacher's per- ception. These results suggest that the HOMES may be used by parents to improve their home musical environments, by music teachers wishing to encourage parents of their students, and finally by researchers hoping to learn more about the musical develop- ment of children.