ABSTRACT
Young children’s lives are shot through with music: music in the quiet cooing of a baby in her cot; the rhythmical banging of spoon on plate; the running around singing ‘Bob the Builder’ more times than can be possible and tolerable; the anticipation of the ‘Tickly, tickly’ in a play rhyme with adults; the locked-in focus on the tinkling glass-piece mobile or boisterous dancing to a television theme tune. The sensitivity, energy and inventiveness of children’s own music, and the ways they participate in and exploit the musical opportunities around them, are the starting points of this book. It is entitled, quite clearly, ‘Music with the Under-fours’ to convey the idea that music is something which happens between adults and children, and that within close and caring relationships meaningful musical development can unfold.
