Moving towards music: motivation, identity, agency and co-ordination through musical engagement in the early years

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This opening keynote will set the scene for the conference by presenting a broad brush of theory and research covering the early years of musical development. Adopting a developmental perspective, I will talk through different examples of sites and contexts of early years musical experiences and link these to theories and models of musical and general development and to developments that follow on from these early experiences. I will cover physical, cognitive, and social responses to and engagements with music from infants, toddlers, pre-schoolers and children at the start of school. Beginning with the earliest physical responses to music in utero, I will span topics such as the role of parent-infant interaction and synchronisation through music, the ways in which toddlers negotiate their access and responses to music, and the early stages of developing musical identity in relation to playing musical instruments and singing. These will be linked to a range of useful theoretical perspectives for understanding musical movement, embodiment, and engagement in the early years. The key theoretical concepts of listener-music-situation, of agency, autonomy and control, of engagement, and of developing musical identity will be interwoven through this review of empirical research.