Spontaneous singing in early childhood: An examination of young children’s singing at home

Abstract

Spontaneous singing is widely acknowledged as an important part of young children’s everyday musical experience. However, its fleeting and often private nature makes it difficult to study. Research into young children’s singing at home frequently relies on data gathered through parental reporting, and studies are often limited to small sample sizes. In this article, I explore the nature, extent and contexts of spontaneous singing among 15 three- and four-year-old children at home. Continuous audio recording was used to collect naturalistic data during the children’s normal everyday routines. This innovative method resulted in data that could be analysed quantitatively to provide a comprehensive overview of spontaneous singing in young children’s everyday home lives that has so far been missing from the literature. Analysis showed that all the children sang spontaneously. The singing behaviours they displayed were similar to those described in the literature, but contrary to some of the literature, the most prevalent singing behaviours were improvisatory. Spontaneous singing occurred during many everyday activities; however, the strongest influence on singing was found to be the social context in which it took place. The children used different ways of singing when interacting socially or when playing on their own, with most singing occurring when children were on their own, potentially unnoticed by adults.

Beyond transparency: more‐than‐human insights into the emergence of young children's language

“…This understanding of young children's vocalisations as joining in with a place or a soundscape coheres with other research that has demonstrated the influence of place on children's talk (Arculus and MacRae, 2020; Dean, 2021; Hackett et al, 2021; Heath, 1983; Richardson and Murray, 2017) and the importance of bodies and movement for young children's meaning making (Daniels, 2016; Dernikos, 2020; Flewitt, 2005; Hackett, 2014; Powell and Somerville, 2018; Thiel, 2015). A more‐than‐human understanding of young children's talk extends this work by rethinking the tendency to separate out place from body and see the one acting on or influencing the other.…”

Children's playful musicking: Peer culture within a day-care setting in Singapore

“…E holds it up in the air while he’s half lying on the floor and he sings, ‘I love you, you love me’ [Barney tune] – this was another song that the class had performed. He showed me the little man on the ladle minutes before this, whispering, ‘He’s sleeping’.Such instances of individual children's spontaneous musicking concur with Dean’s (2020) findings when she captured the prevalent yet fleeting singing behaviours of 15 three- and four-year-olds in their home settings. Many of these instances occurred when children were playing on their own and potentially unnoticed by adults.…”

Young children, solitude and singing: self-directed singing and personal agency in three- and four-year-old children at home

“…While social singing is imbued with meaning that is intended to be understood (Dean, 2020), self-directed singing is intended for the singer alone and contains fewer reference points for the listener. This makes it more difficult for the listener to infer the meaning and purpose of self-directed singing than social singing.…”

“…These questions are important because the answers can provide insights into a young child's everyday life, both musical and extra-musical. This article aims to explore these questions by drawing on data from a study of the spontaneous singing of 15 three-and four-year old children at home (Dean, 2020). The originating study set out to explore the nature and extent of spontaneous singing at home, the contexts in which singing occurred, and how musical agency is demonstrated in spontaneous singing.…”