The pathway of music acculturation: a duet between parent and infant

In designing a pathway model of music acculturation, it is proposed that infants are born musical, are ready at birth to process musical information and motivated to take part in musical communication. This position contests views that regard musical development as a matter of biological growth, or musical aptitude as an exclusive talent. My position also challenges the perception that organised music-educational settings offer a complete music acculturation process. Such views pay no attention to the fact that infants learn musics of their culture by way of adapted behaviour which emerges as a result of repeated, spontaneous and arousing stimulating experiences. Due recognition also needs to be given to the fact that the daily absorption of a variety of musical literature, the experience of being sung and chanted to, and the experience of being moved to music, are essential for processes of acculturation as the foundational phase of audiation. Thus, the thesis of this study is that acculturation takes place in an intimate reciprocal relationship. The mother-infant dyad express their emotional bond by means of a non-verbal, musical duet. In experiences of primary intersubjectivity, infants display their inherent musical sensitivity when adapting to the prosodic contour and temporal structure of the mother’s sing-song conversation and multi-modal movement. The intuitive conversation is described as infant-directed speech and identified as a musicalemotional narrative. A secondary form of psychological intersubjectivity (companionship) emerges as a result of the dyad’s growing reciprocal confidence when attuning to subjective experiences of the other by way of intuitive musical behaviour. It is argued that musical aptitude develops by way of early and experience-driven reorganisation of neuronal networks. These networks are activated by way of frequent absorption of and interactive response to music of different musical contexts in the home environment. This situation indicates the parental role in unstructured musical guidance of infants. Applying a bioecological systems approach, this pathway model determines that early competencies, cultural influences and social relations all play roles in foundational processes of music acculturation. Parents should be informed accordingly; therefore basic principles for an appropriate approach towards musical parental guidance (MPG) are extrapolated.