International Journal of Music in Early Childhood

At Home in the Atelier: Protagonists and Provocations in Music Making with Young Children

Kerry Renzoni — 2023-01-18

In this qualitative case study study, we explore the at-home musical play experiences of the Merchant family and their toddler-aged daughter Eleanor. We wondered: What roles can Eleanor’s parents assume in guided musical play with Eleanor?; What roles does Eleanor assume when engaging in guided home musical play?; and What can early childhood music specialists learn from the Merchant family to help other parents and children find these roles? We provided weekly challenges, which we called musical provocations, to the Merchant family. The provocations featured different aspects of musical play, including creating and performing. Through the Merchant family’s submissions we identified many play-enhancing musical provocations enriching their experiences. These provocations helped to form a makeshift musical workshop in their household, which we label as a musical atelier, using the family kitchen as their main workspace. Our findings suggest that using musical provocations at home can help parents create playful music environments for themselves and their children, and lead to new shared repertoire and deepened cultural and familial identity.

Where have I been all these years?

Christiane Nieuwmeijer — 2023-01-18

This article reports a narrative case study on Sanne, an experienced, 46-year-old early years teacher with both a negative musical identity and a music teacher identity, caused by (a) few childhood musical experiences, (b) teacher education that focused on musical performance skills, and (c) a professional context with minimal music education. These experiences reinforced her belief that musicality equates to musical performance skills, rendering her "unmusical" - a Western conception of musicality which prevented her from teaching music. Participation in a Professional Development (PD) programme on musical play however, positively influenced her music teacher identity, resulting in confidence to teach music. This paper explores what factors contributed to this identity shift.

The PD was set up according to criteria for effective professional development as argued by literature, amongst which collective participation, demand-driven content, long-term duration, and a focus on Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK).

Data were collected by means of surveys, interviews and e-mails containing video images.

Using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) ‘Three-dimensional space narrative structure’, text excerpts were selected from the data and ‘re-storied’ into a narrative.

Analysis revealed how a combination of newly acquired PCK and existing general play guidance skills enabled Sanne to facilitate musical play successfully, thereby neutralizing the obstacles raised by her self-perceived non-musicality, and positively affecting her music teacher identity.

In the discussion, we reflect on how our current Western conception of musicality may negatively affect individuals’ musical identity and provide some further thoughts on the implications of our findings for music educational practice.

Lived Experiences of First-Time Caregivers in Early Childhood Music Classes

Karen Salvador — 2023-01-18

While scholars are interested in parent perspectives on early childhood (EC) music education, the perspectives of first-time attendees and non-maternal caregivers are relatively unexamined. Using phenomenology as both a method and a theoretical frame, we followed ten caregivers (three fathers and seven mothers) as they engaged in their first experience as caregivers accompanying their children to play-based, child-led EC music classes. Through analysis of pre- and post- interviews, biweekly email check-ins, memos, and field notes from observations, we distilled four essences of first-time experience: Being Family, Fitting In, Engaging with Others, and Having Fun. In this article, we describe each essence and offer interpretation through our lens as mothers, scholars, and EC teachers.