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A B S T R A C T Findings are presented from a three-month, two-phase study inquiring into the music experiences of 20 Grade 2/3 children (seven to eight year olds), both in-and out-of-school. The article highlights the music experiences of three children who were drawn from the group of 20. Situated within the theoretical underpinnings of social constructionism, experience and attentive listening, a framework of ethnography and narrative inquiry was utilized to create and interpret fictionalized narratives crafted in the form of ongoing dialogues between the researcher and participants. The children's tales offered insightful understandings relating to the influences that shape children's music experiences. Conversations indicated a recognizable lack of interplay of music experiences between in-and out-of-school. These tales reveal possibilities for how music educators may re/conceptualize ways in which children's voices may be centrally embedded within elementary music curricula. K E Y W O R D S : children's music-making, children's music perspectives, elementary music curriculum, in-and out-of-school experiences, narrative inquiry Personal beginningsFrom the time I was a little girl, I always remember being around music. I recall my mother singing to me as I rocked upon her knee and hearing my father whistle in the yard as he went about his farming chores. At the age of 5, I began step-dancing lessons and at the age of 6, I enrolled in piano lessons. There were countless hours of practice as I would turn on the stereo and tap my feet on the piece of plywood on the living room floor or tinkle my little fingers on the ivories of our piano in the dining room. (Griffin, 2002, pp. 2-3) As I began to formulate my research inquiry of understanding how a group of 20 Grade 2/3 children (seven to eight year olds) experienced music in their daily lives, both in-and out-of-school, I was intrigued to recollect some of my personal childhood experiences of music. Thus, my article opens with a fragment of writing that shapes the beginnings of my first recollections of the presence of music in my life. Hale Hankins (1998) noted the importance of acknowledging personal experiences in order to claim a voice in the research when she explained that, 'events remembered at AMS/Girona Library on

Music engages children in language learning, offering them opportunities to understand and express their ideas and communicate with others in ways that go beyond words. This article, based on two ethnographically-framed studies and the use of two real-life vignettes, demonstrates how singing and musical experiences (e.g., composition, soundscapes, musical improvisation) have the power to enhance children's lexical acquisition and semantic knowledge at various levels of development. Results demonstrate that singing and musical experiences, whether biologically or socially shaped, provide opportunities to celebrate language and enhance young children's vocabulary building.

Highlighting various seminal studies in music education provides grounding for the necessity of connecting children’s school music experiences with their daily lived music experiences. Allowing children to make more seamless connections between these two contexts heightens the possibility of creating increasingly meaningful school music experiences. The review of literature in children’s nonguided music experiences and ethnographic-centered research contextualizes this prominent issue within the field of music education. Such research affirms the importance of attending to children’s experiences as a means of comprehending how children’s perspectives may be a central catalyst in shaping elementary school music curricula. The varied literature showed the clear need for continued inquiry within the field of music education that investigates children’s music experiences in their daily lives.

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