This article looks at how children between three and six years of age use recorded music in their everyday lives. In Norway, where the project is situated, most children in this age group probably have access to CDs and/or Mp3 files, both in their family homes and pedagogical day-care facilities. Thus recorded music and the way it is used by children presumably have an impact on the children's relation to music, their musical tastes and attitudes.Linking up with the research field of children's culture and resting upon qualitative inquiry (observation and interview), a play or listening situation including four children and the soundtrack from a children's TV-series is explored. The notion of affordance serves as an important approach, allowing me to address both what the children do with the music and what the music does for, to and with the children.

This article presents a study of Norwegian-recorded music for children from World War II to the present, combining a historical perspective with an ethnographic approach. The underlying research has employed both quantitative and qualitative approaches, producing various data sets. The results of the data analyses indicate that the evolution of children's phonograms is characterized by some distinct genre-and style-related development features. This article describes and interprets such features in light of concepts and theories of children's culture and music sociology. It also elaborates on the emergence of a music market aimed at children, with an emphasis on phonograms. The association with the popular music industry enables an apparent contradiction, addressed in this article, between pedagogical and commercial considerations and outcomes.

I denne artikkelen diskuteres barnemusikk som emne for transdisiplinær forskning. Med utgangspunkti et forskningsprosjekt som dreier seg om 3 til 6 år gamle barns egen bruk av fonogrammer (cd-plater,mp3-filer osv.) i hverdagssammenhenger, retter artikkelen fokus mot hvordan emnet barnemusikk kanposisjoneres slik at en på fruktbare måter trekker veksler på forskningsfeltene musikkpedagogikk,musikkvitenskap og barnekultur. Samtidig berører artikkelen hvordan forskningen kan legitimeres medstøtte i de nevnte feltene og nødvendigheten av å arbeide på tvers av forskningsfelter for å tilføre nykunnskap. Etter en kort redegjørelse for barnemusikk som barnekulturforskning føres en mer inngående diskusjon av musikkbegrepet i lys av det musikkpedagogiske feltets selvforståelse og utvalgtemusikkvitenskapelige perspektiver. Tilslutt foreslås affordanse-perspektivet (affordance) som enfruktbar, fleksibel måte å nærme seg ”musikk” på i barnekulturell sammenheng.

Processes of musical canonization occur at different levels of culture and society. People have a strong propensity to categorize, differentiate, and evaluate the music that is important to them, and music is ascribed value in action by people in real-life settings. Based in these premises, the article discusses two questions: First, how does the idea of a canon of children's music influence the daily musical activities and repertoires used in children's day care facilities and family homes? Second, in what ways is music legitimized in the everyday lives of children? Our data is collected by observation and interviews conducted in two pedagogical day care facilities and nine family homes. Children, day care staff and parents participated in the study. We find that a discussion of canonization in children's music along the following four paths of legitimation is meaningful: the "good, old stuff," the need for renewal, the inclusion of other types of music other than that aimed at a child audience, and the need for a wide array of genres and sentiments. Finally, we argue that although the legitimation and canonization in children's music obviously involve considerations of musical aspects, separating these canonization processes from the prevailing socio-cultural ideas of childhood and children's best interest is impossible.

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