What can infants hear? What are their reactions to music? Is it useful for them to sing and listen to music? Is their auditory sensitivity developed before their birth? At what age do they start singing, and clapping their hands? How can their musical development be improved? These (and other) questions are present in today's debate on music education and the responses are normally given in an intuitive way. It is now necessary and urgent to sketch a developmental profile of infants, starting from their earliest manifestations.

In the last 30 years, research in this field has been progressively developed. In most cases research has been devoted to single aspects of more complex problems. Moreover, it has been based on non-homogeneous categories of subjects and by different methods. Motivated by the fact that many open problems need to be solved, Professor Tafuri decided, in 1998, to begin a longitudinal research project devoted to studying the musical development in children from 0 to 6 years, with particular attention on the ability to sing in tune. During these 6 years, the children would have a regular music education experience with their mothers and often other members of the immediate family.

This book has two main areas of focus. The first reconstructs the development of human musical abilities. Tafuri systematically reports studies of the development of vocal, rhythmic and motor abilities through the observation of the same participants for three years, beginning with the mothers' experiences in the last three months of pre-natal life. The programme of musical activities and the modalities of the collaboration with the parents are described.

The second area of focus puts forward an educational perspective based on the results of the research. The amount and the quality of the collected data can allow parents and educators to plan different activities by considering the starting point for individual participants and the development of their musical abilities. The long-term aim is to reach an overarching understanding of the personal musicality of each subject.

The book will be of crucial interest to parents and nursery/kindergarten educators so that they can have scientific, theoretical and methodological foundations for their educational strategies, as well as being of considerable interest to all musical educators, irrespective of the age of their pupils: a good knowledge of the first stages of musical development can permit a better evaluation and a fulfilment of later educational needs in music.

Contents: Foreword, Graham Welch; Introduction: the reasons for a research study; Part I Musical Development: The literature on musical development from 0 to 3 years of age; The inCanto project; Procedures and results; The parents have their say. Part II From Research to Teaching Practice: Promoting musical development; Suggestions for musical activities; Postlude, Johannella Tafuri and Donatella Villa; Appendix; References; List of audio and video recordings; Index.

About the Author: Johannella Tafuri is Professor of Music Education at the Conservatorio di Musica "G.B. Martini" di Bologna, Italy

Reviews: 'Johannella Tafuri’s life work is to understand more deeply how infants benefit from formal and informal exposure to music. Her longitudinal studies, some of the most interesting and useful on the topic, provide a thoughtful, scholarly and practical account of early musical development with a special emphasis on infants’ singing ability. Tafuri has produced an immensely important contribution to the literature. Each chapter encouraged me to think, reflect, and above all, celebrate this remarkable stage of infants’ development.'
Gary McPherson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

'This is a very important book I recommend to everybody – not only to music educators and parents – interested in and fascinated by the musical capacities inherent in every child. This impressive project clearly demonstrates the importance of music, in all its forms, in the homes and lives of very small, even still unborn, children and should encourage all parents, whether they regard themselves as musical or not, to sing to their children and interact with them in music.'
Göran Folkestad, Lund University, Sweden

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Full contents list

Introduction

Index