This book focuses on the importance and role of adults in promoting music in the early years. Designed to promote the idea of the value of music in the early childhood years, the research discussed in this book explores the experiences of a number of adults working with children from birth to age 8. The initiatives discussed in this work all focus on adults who have encouraged the development of musical identities ranging from music in the home, to musical play in the preschool years, preparing a performance with children, and programs for disadvantaged groups that use music as a communicative tool. Each chapter will start with a description of the particular setting and the protagonists’ specific skills and interests and how they came to be working with young children. Themes for the chapters have emerged from the videos and interviews conducted and consist of both reflective and affective experience. The themes include musical background, the adults' own stories, theories of childhood, and pedagogy and philosophy.

This book examines four main areas of music in early childhood: the traditions of music for young children, their capacities for music, the way they make music with others, and constructed and mediated musical childhoods. It studies several themes in detail, including music making in the home and family life, various musical experiences in schools, day cares, and the community at large in several locations around the globe. It looks at technology and diverse musical repertoires, as well as innovative pedagogies, children’s agency, and brain research. Expanding on the knowledge bases on which early childhood music education typically draws, the book brings together contributions from a range of authors from diverse fields such as education, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, philosophy, ethnomusicology, and the neurosciences. The end result is a volume that offers a broad and contemporary picture of music in early childhood.

Featuring chapters by the world's foremost scholars in music education and cognition, this handbook is a convenient collection of current research on music teaching and learning. This comprehensive work includes sections on arts advocacy, music and medicine, teacher education, and studio instruction, among other subjects, making it an essential reference for music education programs. The original Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning, published in 1992 with the sponsorship of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC), was hailed as "a welcome addition to the literature on music education because it serves to provide definition and unity to a broad and complex field" (Choice). This new companion volume, again with the sponsorship of MENC, explores the significant changes in music and arts education that have taken place in the last decade. Notably, several chapters now incorporate insights from other fields to shed light on multi-cultural music education, gender issues in music education, and non-musical outcomes of music education. Other chapters offer practical information on maintaining musicians' health, training music teachers, and evaluating music education programs. Philosophical issues, such as musical cognition, the philosophy of research theory, curriculum, and educating musically, are also explored in relationship to policy issues. In addition to surveying the literature, each chapter considers the significance of the research and provides suggestions for future study. Covering a broad range of topics and addressing the issues of music education at all age levels, from early childhood to motivation and self-regulation, this handbook is an invaluable resource for music teachers, researchers, and scholars.

Special Needs, Community Music, and Adult Learning is one of five paperback books derived from the foundational two-volume Oxford Handbook of Music Education. Designed for music teachers, students, and scholars of music education, as well as educational administrators and policy makers, this fourth book in the set focuses on issues and topics that help to broaden conceptions of music and musical involvement, while recognizing that development occurs through many forms. The first section addresses music education for those with special abilities and special needs; authors explore many of the pertinent issues that can promote or hinder learners who share characteristics, and delve deep into what it means to be musical. The second section of the volume addresses music as a shared, community experience, and the diverse and constantly evolving international practice of community music. The chapters in the third section provide evidence that the process of music education exists as a lifelong continuum that encompasses informal, formal, and non-formal methods alike. The authors encourage music educators to think in terms of a music learning society, where adult education is not peripheral to the priority of other age groups, but is instead fully integral to a vision for the good of society. By developing sound pedagogical approaches that are tailored to take account of all learners, the volume endeavors to move from making individual adaptations towards designing sensitive 'universal' solutions. Contributors Carlos R. Abril, Mary Adamek, Kenneth S. Aigen, Chelcy Bowles, Mary L. Cohen, William M. Dabback, Alice-Ann Darrow, John Drummond, Cochavit Elefant, David J. Elliott, Lee Higgins, Valentina Iadeluca, Judith A. Jellison, Janet L. Jensen, Patrick M. Jones, Jody L. Kerchner, Thomas W. Langston, Andreas C. Lehmann, Katrina McFerran, Gary E. McPherson, David Myers, Adam Ockelford, Helen Phelan, Andrea Sangiorgio, Laya H. Silber, Marissa Silverman, Rineke Smilde, David S. Smith, Kari K. Veblen, Janice Waldron, Graham F. Welch

Music in the Early Years is for teachers working across the 3 to 8 age phase who want to make music integral to the life of the nursery and early years classroom. Music has often been taught as if it were different, something outside the mainstream curriculum, with teaching approaches quite at odds with early years work. This book takes children's development as its basis and works towards building a music pedagogy within early years practice. A readiness to listen, observe and reflect is central to the practice which threads through the book. Based on the authors' extensive experience and drawing on that of other teachers and researchers, lots of well-tried, practical ideas show how teachers, parents and carers can help children fulfil their music potential. Sample activities model ways of working with children and have been written in such a way that they can be substituted with other material and adapted for further use. Earlier and later stages of learning and progression are described as a basis for matching activities with children's learning needs, as well as a companion book, Primary Music: Later Years.

Exploring and expanding upon current understandings of early childhood music education, this book provides a much-needed response to the rapid social, cultural and technological developments affecting children’s experience of music today. Critical New Perspectives in Early Childhood Music returns to the core question of how children engage, participate and learn through music, and how we are to best harness musical resources to their benefit. Chapters move beyond conservative or traditional models of practice and draw upon new and emerging insights from the fields of childhood studies, neuroscience, psychology and sociology. In-depth analysis of research and real examples from practice illustrate the strengths and possible shortcomings of each approach and acknowledge the diverse impacts of digitisation, increased child autonomy, intensive parenting practices, and cultural and economic diversity on the child’s experience of music. An invaluable theoretical overview of current thinking in relation to contemporary musical childhoods, this book will support and challenge students and early childhood music educators as they rethink practice for the present day.

Child Agency and Voice in Therapy offers innovatory ways of thinking about, and working with, children in therapy. The book: considers different practices such as respecting the rights of the child in therapy and recognising and listening to children as ‘active agents’ and ‘experts’; features approaches that: access children’s views of their therapy; engage with them as researchers or co-researchers; and that use play and arts-based methods; draws on arts therapies research in ways that enable insight and learning for all those engaged with children’s therapy and wellbeing; considers how the contexts of the therapy, such as a school or counselling centre, relate to the ways children experience themselves and their therapy in relation to rights, agency and voice. Child Agency and Voice in Therapy will be beneficial for all child therapists and is a good resource for courses concerning childhood welfare, therapy, education, wellbeing and mental health.

Investigation of the role of music in early life and learning has been somewhat fragmented, with studies being undertaken within a range of fields with little apparent conversation across disciplinary boundaries, and with an emphasis on pre-schoolers' and school-aged childrens' learning and engagement. The Oxford Handbook of Early Childhood Learning and Development in Music brings together leading researchers in infant and early childhood cognition, music education, music therapy, neuroscience, cultural and developmental psychology, and music sociology to interrogate questions of how our capacity for music develops from birth, and its contributions to learning and development. Researchers in cultural psychology and sociology of musical childhoods investigate those factors that shape children's musical learning and development and the places and spaces in which children encounter and engage with music. These issues are complemented with consideration of the policy environment at local, national and global levels in relation to music early learning and development and the ways in which these shape young children's music experiences and opportunities. The volume also explores issues of music provision and developmental contributions for children with Special Education Needs, children living in medical settings and participating in music therapy, and those living in sites of trauma and conflict. Consideration of these environments provides a context to examine music learning and development in family, community and school settings including general and specialized school environments. Authors trace the trajectories of development within and across cultures and settings and in that process identify those factors that facilitate or constrain children's early music learning and development.

What makes a prodigy? Although child prodigies can be found in various disciplines such as music, mathematics, chess, and art, the origins of exceptional has long been controversial. Some have dismissed the notion of innate talent, arguing that prodigies benefit from strong parental, cultural, and environmental influences that helped them develop their extraordinary abilities. Others emphasize the role of genes supported by inborn predispositions. And what role do cognitive processes, from memory to the use of imagery and language, play in such rapid and early talent development? The notion of prodigy reaches to the heart of questions about creativity, intelligence, development, and the relationship between nature and nurture. This ground-breaking book presents the first scientific exploration of musical prodigies, bringing together research from psychology, neurobiology, genetics, education, musicology, and ethnomusicology, to provide a thorough exploration of prodigious talent. With fascinating case studies of prodigies and their often complex transitions into adolescence and adulthood, this is a unique investigation of a remarkable phenomenon, for anyone interested in child development, music, and the arts. --Cover.