Why Early Childhood Music?

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Summary of research: Early Childhood


Kathleen M. Howland, Ph.D.

Music study group for Northborough-Southborough school district


It is remarkable how children, especially infants are able to perceive, analyze and distinguish various elements in music. They are not passively listeners to music, music is not just washing over them. Now that effective scientific methods of investigation have been innovated, we can see that infants are “active listeners and adept learners” (Trehub, 2010, p. 79). The following study results highlight the extraordinary musical abilities of infants:


  • Infants demonstrate preferences for consonant versus dissonant music (Trainor & Heinmiller, 1998; Zenter & Kagan, 1996).

  • Western infants prefer simple to complex patterns of meter (Soley & Hannon, 2010). Turkish infants prefer more complex music patterns of meter, presumably because of exposure to their culture’s music (Soley & Hannon, 2010).

  • Infants detect changes in music that are not identified by adults (Trainor & Trehub, 1992; Trehub, Schelleneberg & Kamenetsky, 1999). It appears that the adults have been influenced by culture but the infants have not been enculturated. They are therefore more like ‘universal listeners’ to the music of any culture.

  • 6-18 month old infants move rhythmically to music but not to speech (Zentner & Eerola, 2010).

  • Movement with an adult significantly affects infants’ perception of rhythmic music (Phillips-Silver & Trainor, 2005).

  • Infants demonstrate short-term memory and long-term memory for music, with only 2 weeks of exposure daily (Saffran, Loman, & Robertson, 2000, Trainor, Wu, & Chang, 2004).

  • Infants recognize music that has been transposed to another key demonstrating that infants retain information about the relationship amongst notes (Plantinga & Trainor, 2005).

  • Infants react to patterns that are interrupted in an awkward place. This is called an expectancy violation. An example would be singing ‘Mary had a little _________’ or ‘I was on the way to the store when __________.’

  • Infants demonstrate preference for mother’s voice over other women’s voices. They have been listening to their mother’s voice for the last 3 months in the womb (Winkler, et al., 2009).

  • Infants demonstrate preferences for higher-pitched version of songs that are plainsongs and lower pitched versions of lullabies (Tsang & Conrad, 2010).

  • Early exposure to music, in the relationship of child to mother, may contribute to music’s role in emotional regulator and synergistic in social connections (Trehub, Hannon & Schachner, 2010). Music interactions with one’s mother may be essential to life-long well-being.


Every child deserves a proper music education to advance these innate skills like language or reasoning. Children enrolled in K-12 education should have age appropriate curricula to encourage the uses of music for emotional regulation and socialization. Considering the high incidences of anxiety and depression, music would be a substantial asset in well-being. Songwriting, starting in middle school, would be able to support fundamental skills in writing simpler songs like lullabies and playsongs. As children in middle school and older are the babysitters of the day, they would be empowered to bring music to children in their care. This would empower the babysitter sense of confidence and competence in caring for a young child and for the child to transition well to being without their parents. The effects of regulating another’s well-being would enhance the sitter’s well-being. 


Parents of children with whom there is a family history of dyslexia, may want to enroll their children early childhood music education classes starting in infancy.  

Research from Children’s Hospital in Boston shows that 3 year olds who can’t distinguish between music sounds have a higher probability of becoming dyslexic. This cutting edge, progressive research again shows us the import of music, especially in the 0-7 year age range (see the review for music in infancy).


In summary, research is demonstrating music is essential to tuning the brain to prepare for language learning and reading. Its effect on the development of the brain is of the utmost importance and will influence cognition and socialization.


Bibliography


Phillips-Silver, J., & Trainor, L. J. (2005). Feeling the beat in music: Movement influences rhythm perception in infants. Science, 308, 1430. 

Plantinga, J., & Trainor, L. J. (2005). Memory for melody: Infants use a relative pitch code. Cognition, 98, 1-11. 

Saffran, J. R., Loman, M. M., & Robertson, R. R. W. (2000). Infant memory for musical experiences. Cognition, 77, 15-23.

Soley, G., & Hannon, E. E. (2010). Infants prefer the musical meter of their own culture: A cross- cultural comparison. Developmental Psychology, 46, 286-292.

Trainor, L. J., & Heinmiller, B. M. (1998). The development of evaluative responses to music: Infants prefer to listen to consonance over dissonance. Infant Behavior and Development, 21, 77-88.

Trainor, L. J., & Trehub, S. E. (1992). A comparison of infants’ and adults’ sensitivity to Western musical structure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18, 394-402.

Trainor, L. J., Wu, L., & Tsang, C. D. (2004). Long-term memory for music: Infants remember tempo and timbre. Developmental Science, 7, 289-296.

Trehub, S. E., & Hannon, E. E. (2006). Infant music perception: Domain-general or domain- specific mechanisms? Cognition, 100, 73-99. 

Trehub, S. E., Hannon, E. E., & Schachner, A. (2010). Perspectives on music and affect in the early years. In P. N. Juslin & J. A. Sloboda (Eds.), Handbook of music and emotion: Theory, research, applications (pp 645-668). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Trehub, S. (2010). In the beginning: a brief history of infant music perception. Musicae Scientiae, 71-87

Trehub, S. E., Schellenberg, E. G., & Kamenetsky, S. B. (1999). Infants’ and adults’ perception of scale structure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25, 965-975. 

Trehub, S. E., Unyk, A. M., & Trainor, L. J. (1993a). Maternal singing in cross-cultural perspective. Infant Behavior and Development, 16, 285-295. 

Trehub, S. E., Unyk, A. M., & Trainor, L. J. (1993b). Adults identify infant-directed music across cultures. Infant Behavior and Development, 16, 193-211. 

Tsang, C., & Conrad, N. J. (2010). Does the message matter? The effect of song type on infants’ pitch preference for lullabies and playsongs. Infant Behavior and Development, 33, 96- 100. 

Winkler, I., Haden, G. P., Ladinig, O., Sziller, I., & Honing, H. (2009). Newborn infants detect the beat in music. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 106, 2468- 2471. 

Zentner, M. R., & Eerola, T. (2010). Rhythmic engagement with music in infancy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 107, 5768-5773. 


Zentner, M. R., & Kagan, J. (1996). Perception of music by infants. Nature, 383, 29.