ABSTRACT
From about the age of seven years onwards, the non-verbal part of vocal expression tends to be met with stronger and stronger adult disapproval - or at least less and less tolerance. During the same period, for most of us singing is largely neglected in favour of speech, out of all proportion to the other modes of vocal expression. By late adolescence or early adulthood, most of us have become verbally adept and musically silent, and we have learned to reserve nonverbal vocalising as a mainly unconscious form of self-expression, for football games and other sports events, fairgrounds, parties and pop concerts.
