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Review of Musical beginnings: Origins and development of musical competence

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Article  in  Psychomusicology Music Mind and Brain · January 1996

DOI: 10.1037/h0094076

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Stadler Elmer, S. (1997). Book review on: Deliege, I. & Sloboda, J. (eds.) (1996).
Musical beginnings. Origins and development of musical competence. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. (222 pp.) Psychomusicology, Vol 15, Spring/Fall, 110-115.

The history of this interesting book goes back to a Summer School on musical development orga-
nized in London (City University) by the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music
(ESCOM) in 1993. Each of the eight lecturers at the Summer School contributed a chapter to this
volume.
In their preface, the editors emphasize that their and the author’s intention was to address funda-
mental research on musical development from a scientific point of view rather than dealing with
educational and practical issues. This focus on what science has revealed about the musical ca-
pacities of the young human is connected with the editors’ hope that the scientific perspective so
obtained will, nevertheless, serve as a firm basis for practical and educational decisions and policies.
The 8 chapters are subdivided into four sections: the fetal stage (chap. 1); from the baby to the
infant (chap. 2 to 4); time and childhood (chap. 5); and school age (chap. 6 to 8).
The first chapter on “Prenatal auditory experience” by Jean Pierre Lecanuet presents a thorough
survey of the body of experimental research on fetal audition. This domain has been growing tre-
mendously within the last few decades and has helped to do away with some of the fairy tales
about infant capabilities such as, for instance, the legend about pre- and postnatal deafness.
The reader may need some stamina to go through all the detailed experimental procedures and
behavioral effects described. These result from systematic variations of the countless possible varia-
bles and factors that are applicable to the sound’s acoustical properties, environmental conditions,
and fetal reactions. The chapter convincingly concludes that: the fetal auditory system is functional
3 - 4 months before birth; that the fetus reacts to a large variety of acoustical stimulation; and that
the prenatal auditory experience may exert structural and functional effects on the auditory sy-
stem’s neural pathways. Already at early stages of development, the prenatal auditory “equipment”
appears to develop adaptively. There does seem not to be any purely physiological or biological
maturation but always adaptation to certain environmental requirements. Whether this prenatal
adaptation could be effectively influenced by repetitive musical experience is difficult to determine,
and is, therefore, more of theoretical interest. However, the issue of fetal audition is fascinating
since, at this early stage, it is a culturally independent and highly adaptable sensory system and
is an example of the elementary level of sensory processing that humans share with animals. From
this stage to the much later higher levels of competence related to a specific musical culture is a
long and complex path which has yet to be fully understood.
The third chapter, on “Infants’ auditory sensitivity towards acoustic parameters of speech and
music”, by Christoph Fassbender, deals with experimental studies of auditory perception among
infants, and so serves as a kind of continuation of the first chapter. It is concerned with the
infant’s auditory sensitivity to several acoustical properties that are relevant to the perception of
both, speech and music. The reader will again find considerable detail given about infant reactions
towards various acoustical stimuli, but this appears to be only very scantily related to music and
to questions about musical beginnings and how further musical development may be rooted in the
early functioning of auditory capacities. That is to say, it is left mostly up to the reader to imagine
possible connections with musical development.
Both scientists, Lecanuet and Fassbender, provide a wealth of information about pre- and postnatal
auditory development, which is carefully assembled and lucidly described. It will be a major task
in this new and promising field to synthesize the growing data and knowledge into principles and
theories that can provide insights into the ontogeny of music.
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One such attempt at synthesising research findings related to early musical development is ela-
borated by Hanus Papousek in the second chapter on “Musicality in infancy research: biological
and cultural origins of early musicality”. He outlines an integrative theoretical framework where
he situates the beginning and development of infants’ early musical capacities within the context
of their emerging multimodal human communication. He examines the role of music in the pro-
cess of an infant’s early cultural integration by including: evolutionary and functional aspects of
vocal communication; possible biological predispositions; the caregiver’s intuitive use of musical
parameters for regulating emotions and scaffolding communicative development; processes of la-
ter representation and symbolization; the significance of play and other variables. By integrating
multiple perspectives, Hanus Papousek provides a rich and stimulating theoretical overview of the
book’s main topic, namely musical beginnings and developmental mechanisms.
The fourth chapter by Mechthild Papousek on “Intuitive parenting: a hidden source of musical
stimulation in infancy” highlights developmental aspects of early musical expression, namely voca-
lization as a precursor of singing. Sharing the same theoretical framework as Hanus Papousek, she
also stresses that the early communication between infant and caregiver is playing an important
role in the continuous promotion of the infant’s musical and linguistic development. In this chapter,
she further elaborates on the Papouseks’ hypothesis already put forward in the early eighties (1981)
that prosodic and melodic capacities both have their common roots in the early development of
affective vocal signalling and communication. Whereas traditional research on early vocal develop-
ment has just concentrated on linguistic aspects, Mechthild Papousek succeeds in demonstrating
an inseparable involvement of musical properties in the early communication between caregivers
and infants. Moreover, she describes how intuitive parenting can be a means of stimulating and
maintaining mutual and multimodal exchange. She observes that it is through enjoyable social
processes that the infant’s communicative abilities are promoted, for instance, through reciprocal
vocal imitation in dialogues, the infant’s delayed imitation, and spontaneous vocal play. Her claim
that the infant’s early vocalizations are precursors for speech as well as for singing suggests that
this is an early premusical developmental stage. Furthermore, the Papouseks’ findings concerning
intuitive parenting provide valuable insights into processes of learning and cultural mediation that
may well not be restricted in their nature to this early stage of development.
The next chapter by Viviane Pouthas on “The development of the perception of time and temporal
regulation of action in infants and children” is the only one in the book’s third section headed
‘Time and Childhood’. The first half of this careful survey is devoted to describing various tem-
poral abilities of infants from both a motor and perceptual point of view. The second part deals
with children’s actions within time and their related mental representations. At the outset, Pouthas
points out that a synthetic overview of this subject is still missing. The reader will find a strong
focus on studies to do with ‘duration’ and ‘synchronization’, which is clearly and interestingly pre-
sented.
It is, however, astonishing that the musical perspective is hardly present in this chapter although
there are various developmental studies to be found in the psychomusical literature on ‘meter’ and
other closely related aspects of the timing of musical sounds. This said, I am still impressed by the
otherwise high quality of Pouthas’s contribution. The omission of musical features is somehow sym-
ptomatic of the general tendency in the traditional psychological literature to ignore psychological
studies of musical features, not even attempting to integrate musical concepts into psychological
research on ‘time’. A brief browse through the index of any general textbook on psychology checking
for musical key words will substantiate my claim that music is given short shrift.
Each of the three chapters in the last section on ‘school age’ covers a very specific area within that
huge field.
In chapter six, David Hargreaves tackles “The development of artistic and musical competence”,
aiming to provide a “fairly ‘broad-brushed’ descriptive account” (p. 145) of this multidisciplinary
field. In the first part he elaborates on some theoretical and practical aspects of four issues. The
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first deals with pedagogical methods in music education. He suggests a tentative classification,
e.g. into ‘generalist’ vs. ‘specialist’ approaches. The second issue relates to this last distinction
and he describes several viewpoints on normative vs. expert development. The third question on
developmental stages and the fourth on domain specifity prepare the theoretical underpinnings for
the second part. In this he proposes an age-related, five-phase model covering synoptically several
domains of ‘cognitive aesthetic development’. By this he means that music develops in parallel
with other art forms, and he suggests some possible features of artistic development in general
that apply in all domains and appear to be determined by chronological age. This is, as he says,
a normative account. In the course of the chapter he addresses very briefly several highly relevant
theoretical issues and problems of developmental and educational psychology in order to provide a
comprehensive and practically useful framework. Undoubtedly there is a need for such integrative
approaches, but I am not altogether convinced by Hargreaves’ laudable attempt at synthesis. I miss
general principles that would somehow coherently tie together the different issues he introduces.
Chapter seven on “The young performing musician”, by John Sloboda and Jane Davidson is con-
cerned with excellence. They focus on uncovering the key factors that propel individuals towards
achieving high-level skills in performing music. The authors review the research findings, including
their own, on young excellent performing musicians. They reject all those myths about musical
excellence that rely on some kind of innate talent or genetic predisposition that are said to be rare
by their very nature or indicated by certain signs in early childhood. They focus instead on social
components, such as parental support and attitude, family conditions and relationships with tea-
chers. In addition, they emphasize the importance of quantity of practice activities, the challenge of
finding a balance between enjoyment and discipline, and the child’s intrinsic motivation for music.
It goes almost without saying that the research area addressed in this chapter is highly pertinent
and stimulating to all those who are involved in music education. The issue’s practical impacts go
far beyond the field of high achievers.
The last chapter is on ‘Linguistic and musical development in preschool and school-age children’
by Michel Imberty. He opens with a topical discussion of modular theory (following Chomsky and
Fodor), which claims that the mind has an innate modular structure. The notion of specific innate
structures is rejected by those working in the Piagetian tradition. Imberty is to be commended for
referring to Piaget’s theory in a sophisticated manner that happily differs from the usual oversim-
plified accounts of the stage model, the paradigm of conservation, or of development based on the
misconception as linked with age. After examining the role of language, thought, and operational
logic within these two opposing theoretical frameworks, the author is concerned to bring music
into the discussion. He attempts a theoretical synthesis of the viewpoints of Piaget and Chomsky
by proposing a formal system, called ‘evolutionary musical grammar of children’. Stimulated by
Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s generative approach and derived from Lidov’s semiological propositions,
Imberty proposes a set of potentially verifiable rules. They are intended to be used in describing
the development of children’s musical productions, both spontaneous and imitative ones. Although
this approach seems to be very promising and worth developing, Imberty’s brief presentation, un-
fortunately, suffers from a lack of clarity and precision and is thus very difficult to follow. Figures
are poorly explained, convincing empirical examples are largely lacking, examples as to how the
rules may be applied to children’s productions are not given, and two bibliographic references are
missing. However, these are, in fact, minor points, and they should not discourage the reader from
looking at this author’s otherwise highly interesting and valuable contribution.
As this book’s main title ‘musical beginnings’ suggests, the articles taken together do not provide
a comprehensive review of musical development. There is a strong emphasis on infant research and
on the elementary human prerequisites for developing further levels of musicality. The focus on this
early stage doubtlessly fills a gap in the literature on developmental psychology in giving a musical
perspective. In this respect, this volume is breaking new ground and is thus to be welcomed warmly.
It is likely to become an important reference in the rapidly expanding field of musical development.
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Apart from the chapters that contribute to the main title’s topic, the book does not contain
much on musical development in the sense of a continuous progression in musical competence
or on considering qualitative or quantitative changes across life periods. Unfortunately, the book
at times tends to treat (musical) development as being almost solely age-related and as implicitly
proceeding in a somewhat uniform manner. This impression may have been created by a sometimes
rather careless use of the notion ‘age’ within developmental contexts and by a domination of
empirical research that is not sensitive to developmental change. It could well be that elucidating
the different authors’ various uses of the notion ‘age’ would help to uncover some more differentiated
developmental mechanisms and implications. From a more methodological point of view, we are
familiar with the well-documented fact that age-related approaches to musical competence uncover
huge individual differences that require rather delicate handling. Dealing with these and other
methodological and theoretical issues so as to take better account of genuine developmental change
and its dynamics is going to be a major challenge for future research in this field.
The book’s emphasis on a scientific approach to musical development is convincing and productive.
So too is its inclusion of related psychological areas among which we find sensory perception,
language, time, and art. The contributions made by some of the foremost authorities in their areas
supply excellent, up-to-date accounts of their selected topics, and a rich source of references.
Another merit of this volume worth mentioning is that the authors come from different European
cultures (e.g. France, United Kingdom, Germany). Each contribution in French or English was
translated into the other language, so that the book appears in two versions, namely English and
French (Deliege & Sloboda, 1995). One of the obvious benefits of this laudable contribution to
multilingualism (an international fact of life) is the inclusion of bibliographic references in some
languages that might otherwise have been omitted.
Altogether, this volume is to be highly recommended for all those who want to gain a deeper
understanding of psychomusical phenomena and who want to keep up-to-date in the field of music
cognition and psychological development. The book’s overall viewpoint, namely, to consider the
genesis of a human capacity from its early beginnings until its complex manifestations later in life,
or, at least, from the elementary level to some later manifestations, is, in my view, a very useful
perspective to adopt in obtaining further insights into behavioral and cognitive change with respect
to music and related domains on both macro- and micro-levels.
Stefanie Stadler Elmer
University of Zürich, Switzerland.

Bibliography
Deliege, I. & Sloboda, J. (1995). Naissance et developpement du sens musical, Paris: Press Univer-
sitaires de France.
Papousek, M. & Papousek, H. (1981). Musical elements in the infant’s vocalization: Their signifi-
cance for communication, cognition, and creativity. Advances in Infancy Research, 1, 163-224.
May 26 / June 11, 1996