ABSTRACT
In this chapter we will look in detail at young children’s musicmaking with instruments. Children derive great pleasure and satisfaction from playing instruments and finding their own ways of making music. But it can be easy to look upon this strand of activity as merely a source of fun, a relatively low-level activity of free, exploratory play. As with spontaneous singing in the previous chapter, careful observation will reveal the detail, the organisational thinking that lies behind young children’s music and the ways in which it blends and integrates with other forms of activity. Once these processes become clear it gets easier to imagine ways of extending and developing children’s music made with instruments. Like earlier chapters, this one will begin by looking at the ways children play instruments when left to their own devices and then at how adults can join in with and connect with their play.
