Abstract
Family musical life is the first musical environment a child encounters. The richness and depth of that experience, or lack thereof, affects a child's musical aptitude, development, and future behavior. This qualitative study examined the musical lives of five families. The guiding precept of the investigation was to learn about the activities that comprise family musical life. What are the activities and their frequency? Where and when do they occur? Who participates? How are the participating families' musical lives similar or different? As past research about this topic has always been conducted from an adult point of view, the research design also included strategies to elicit and include the perspective of children. After their parents completed a Parent Questionnaire and an inhome Parent Interview, a 6-year-old girl from each family became an active participant in the research process. The children attended three focus groups where they discussed family musical behavior; video recorded family musical activity for one week; and described, explained, or clarified family musical behavior while watching their video recordings during an individual interview. Two forms of data were collected: (1) Reported data that revealed who participates in family musical activity, what the activity is, when the activity occurs, and its frequency; and (2) Reflective data that provided context and meaning for the activities as described by children. Both data sets were coded and analyzed for themes and patterns from which emerged an in-depth portrait of the musical lives of the five families. The data suggested that parents and older siblings influence the emerging musical identity and behavior of children-first as musical guides and later as musical co-players. The families' musical activities, sprinkled throughout the day and often embedded in family routines or prompted by the environment, included singing, playing instruments, and listening to and moving to music. Family members also composed their own songs and created new lyrics for familiar melodies. Musical choices ranged from popular music and Broadway show tunes to songs that expressed spiritual beliefs and/or family cultural connections. Results of this study indicate that musicmaking is a well-integrated element of the participating families' daily lives. The information gleaned informs music educators about children's home musical experiences, the music-making activities with which they are already familiar, and how they are perceived and valued by children. Music educators can utilize these findings to create curricula that link home and school music-making.