Spontaneous singing in early childhood: An examination of young children’s singing at home

Spontaneous singing is widely acknowledged as an important part of young children’s everyday musical experience. However, its fleeting and often private nature makes it difficult to study. Research into young children’s singing at home frequently relies on data gathered through parental reporting, and studies are often limited to small sample sizes. In this article, I explore the nature, extent and contexts of spontaneous singing among 15 three- and four-year-old children at home. Continuous audio recording was used to collect naturalistic data during the children’s normal everyday routines. This innovative method resulted in data that could be analysed quantitatively to provide a comprehensive overview of spontaneous singing in young children’s everyday home lives that has so far been missing from the literature. Analysis showed that all the children sang spontaneously. The singing behaviours they displayed were similar to those described in the literature, but contrary to some of the literature, the most prevalent singing behaviours were improvisatory. Spontaneous singing occurred during many everyday activities; however, the strongest influence on singing was found to be the social context in which it took place. The children used different ways of singing when interacting socially or when playing on their own, with most singing occurring when children were on their own, potentially unnoticed by adults.

Music Creative Processes in Infants and Children

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.

Opening space at school for creative activity based on music

The aim of the article is to analyse the ways of using creative music-based activities in the educational process. The authors emphasize the marginal role that art plays in contemporary school, including music. At the same time, they emphasize the need to change this state of affairs, convincing about the huge, unused potential of using music-based activities to build relationships, improve mood, develop creativity and emotional and social competence. The use of musical activities on educational grounds may go beyond the typical activities known from music lessons. Building space for experiencing creative forms of contact with art, expression, spontaneous singing or improvisation, enabling multi-sensory art experience, can result in measurable benefits for both students and the teacher, being the answer to the challenges of modern education. An additional benefit of conducting such classes is the opportunity to observe the functioning of students, ways of coping with social situations, and assumed roles in the group. The article presents practical examples of the implementation of musical activities under the “ZA PROGIEM – wyprawy odkrywców project. The reactions of children participating in these activities testify to their great commitment, they also show that properly selected musical activities can have a positive impact on the child's behaviour in a very short time. Conclusions from the implementation of the activities under the project indicate that music-based – or more broadly art-based – activities, present so far, in the presented form, in pedagogy to a very limited extent, may prove to be an effective tool to support teachers’ work and student development.

Raise your voice

Children's musical experience begins very early in their life, from hearing their mother's singing in the womb to spontaneous singing as they play. This is the first in a series of articles providing practical inspiration to develop their musicality.

Social context differentially modulates activity of two interneuron populations in an avian basal ganglia nucleus

Basal ganglia circuits are critical for the modulation of motor performance across behavioral states. In zebra finches, a cortical-basal ganglia circuit dedicated to singing is necessary for males to adjust their song performance and transition between spontaneous singing, when they are alone (“undirected” song), and a performance state, when they sing to a female (“female-directed” song). However, we know little about the role of different basal ganglia cell types in this behavioral transition or the degree to which behavioral context modulates the activity of different neuron classes. To investigate whether interneurons in the songbird basal ganglia encode information about behavioral state, I recorded from two interneuron types, fast-spiking interneurons (FSI) and external pallidal (GPe) neurons, in the songbird basal ganglia nucleus area X during both female-directed and undirected singing. Both cell types exhibited higher firing rates, more frequent bursting, and greater trial-by-trial variability in firing when male zebra finches produced undirected songs compared with when they produced female-directed songs. However, the magnitude and direction of changes to the firing rate, bursting, and variability of spiking between when birds sat silently and when they sang undirected and female-directed song varied between FSI and GPe neurons. These data indicate that social modulation of activity important for eliciting changes in behavioral state is present in multiple cell types within area X and suggests that social interactions may adjust circuit dynamics during singing at multiple points within the circuit.

Crib song: Insights into functions of toddlers’ private spontaneous singing

The aim of this study was to investigate, describe and understand the developmental function (musical and social/emotional) of nine toddlers’ private spontaneous songs. Between the initial interviews with the eight families and follow-up interviews 5 to 6 weeks later, parents observed their child at home twice a week for 4 consecutive weeks. When the child was alone at bedtime, the parents stood outside the bedroom door and completed a written Parent’s Observation and Reflection Form (PORF) describing and contextualizing what they heard on a minute-by-minute basis for the first 15 minutes of each session. Additionally, the parents collected audio recordings of the eight sessions using a smartphone that they placed inside the child’s room. Data sources included transcripts from family interviews, field notes, PORFs, and audio recordings. Findings suggest that many of the toddlers used solitary spontaneous singing at bedtime as a way to demonstrate and practice musical skill, reflect, experiment, self-soothe, and understand their own worlds. Spontaneous singing functioned to support these adaptive strategies during this intense developmental period. Further research is needed to understand the conditions and varieties of toddlers’ private spontaneous crib song.

Singing, allogrooming, and allomarking behaviour during inter- and intra-sexual encounters in the Neotropical short-tailed singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina)

In this study we determine whether brief interactions with unfamiliar conspecifics stimulate audible singing behaviour in the Neotropical short-tailed singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina). Specifically, we examine whether intra- or inter-sexual interactions elicit singing in males in a neutral-arena design. We conducted two experiments. In experiment 1, we recorded singing behaviour of male subjects both before and after a brief exposure to a female mouse. Males significantly increased their singing behaviour after the exposure to the female, as compared to prior to the exposure. In experiment 2, we compared the singing behaviour of male test subjects after a brief exposure with one of three different treatment animals: a male, a non-oestrous female and an oestrous female. We found that males are most likely to sing after an interaction with a female, regardless of her reproductive condition. Male subjects sang significantly less following an interaction with another male. Although spontaneous singing is known to occur in males and females, opposite sex elicited-singing behaviour was found to be sexually dimorphic. An interaction with a male was not effective in eliciting singing in females. In experiment 2, we also recorded incidences of allogrooming and allomarking by males during the interactions with males, non-oestrous females, and oestrous females. Male allogrooming and allomarking behaviours using the mid-ventral sebaceous gland tend to occur more frequently during interactions with females as compared to males, but were significantly different only in the case of allogrooming. Thus, this study clearly suggests sex differences in singing, allogrooming and allomarking, and a likely relationship between these behaviours and courtship in this Neotropical rodent.

Maḥazor Ha-Ḥayyim:Life-Cycle Celebration in the Song of the Ashkenazic Synagogue

Joyous life-cycle events celebrated by American Ashkenazic Jews, especially those belonging to the more liberal denominations, invariably conclude with the singing of the wordssiman tov u-mazal tov, yehei lanu u-lekhol yisra'eil(May it bring good luck to us and to all Israel). Whether after the long anxious minutes of theberit milah, the struggle of the youngster through the Hebrew text and trope of thehaftarah, the calling up of the bridegroom (and the bride as well in most non-Orthodox synagogues) at anaufruf, or the breaking of the glass at a wedding, the spontaneous singing serves as a catharsis to relieve the built-up tensions of the communal ritual event as well as to express an outpouring of joy.