The pathway of music acculturation: a duet between parent and infant

[摘要] English: In designing a pathway model of music acculturation, it is proposed that infants areborn musical, are ready at birth to process musical information and motivated to takepart in musical communication. This position contests views that regard musicaldevelopment as a matter of biological growth, or musical aptitude as an exclusivetalent. My position also challenges the perception that organised music-educationalsettings offer a complete music acculturation process. Such views pay no attention tothe fact that infants learn musics of their culture by way of adapted behaviour whichemerges as a result of repeated, spontaneous and arousing stimulating experiences.Due recognition also needs to be given to the fact that the daily absorption of avariety of musical literature, the experience of being sung and chanted to, and theexperience of being moved to music, are essential for processes of acculturation asthe foundational phase of audiation. Thus, the thesis of this study is that acculturationtakes place in an intimate reciprocal relationship.The mother-infant dyad express their emotional bond by means of a non-verbal,musical duet. In experiences of primary intersubjectivity, infants display their inherentmusical sensitivity when adapting to the prosodic contour and temporal structure ofthe mother's sing-song conversation and multi-modal movement. The intuitiveconversation is described as infant-directed speech and identified as a musicalemotionalnarrative. A secondary form of psychological intersubjectivity(companionship) emerges as a result of the dyad's growing reciprocal confidencewhen attuning to subjective experiences of the other by way of intuitive musicalbehaviour.It is argued that musical aptitude develops by way of early and experience-drivenreorganisation of neuronal networks. These networks are activated by way offrequent absorption of and interactive response to music of different musical contextsin the home environment. This situation indicates the parental role in unstructuredmusical guidance of infants.Applying a bioecological systems approach, this pathway model determines thatearly competencies, cultural influences and social relations all play roles infoundational processes of music acculturation. Parents should be informedaccordingly; therefore basic principles for an appropriate approach towards musicalparental guidance (MPG) are extrapolated.

[发布机构] University of the Free State