ABSTRACT
Anthropologists and ethnomusicologists travelled often long distances to explore and bring back stories of the cultural activities and music of adults. This chapter provides a real-world illustration of a particular cultural niche for bringing up children that revealed how the parenting culture of the Somali mothers is already determining the musical experiences of their babies and toddlers. It demonstrates how the theory of communicative musicality is based on sociocultural conceptions of infancy and infant upbringing and reflects social values that have a high currency in our society at the moment. The chapter provides some examples of how ethnomusicology can provide conceptions of music that offer conceptions of musical process that are more inclusive of children's ways of making and participating in music. It explores musical practices initiated and led by adults in their cultural contexts that are specifically child-directed, and almost all of these are studies of lullabies and lullaby singing.
