ABSTRACT
Parents and babies communicate in phrases consisting of the utterance or gesture itself, and the silence afterwards. Communicative musicality recognises quality as a second factor, related to different musical elements such as pitch, timbre and volume of the phrases and how they vary. Schools where there is professional understanding of these issues can become sites for such positive interventions. Appreciation of the theory of communicative musicality can underpin and inform musical improvisation practices within classrooms, facilitating brief periods of musical interaction that allow the give and take of natural communicative exchange which brings benefits to all. Communicative musicality, as proposed by S. N.Malloch is a theory often used by music therapists to explain the importance of musical improvisational approaches.
