Musical elements in the vocalisations of infants aged 2–8 months

Abstract

This report is the first stage of a longitudinal inCanto research project, the aim of which is to find out if children who receive an appropriate ‘musical education’, broadly speaking, from the 6th month of prenatal life onwards are able to sing in tune, and if they develop this skill earlier than the general population. In the stage presented here we try to establish the point at which children who have been musically stimulated 3–4 months before birth start to produce their first musical babbling, and analyse the musical content of their vocalisations. For these purposes we organised a weekly course of music for 68 mothers-to-be and for their children after birth. The amount and the quality of the vocalisations produced by the children in the experimental group were found to be higher than reported in previously published studies, and the analysis of the musical babbling revealed the presence of musical patterns belonging to our musical system.