Human singing: Towards a developmental theory

Abstract

he aim of this article is to propose a revision of models of singing development that identify age-related stages of mastery of basic elements of the Western-European music system. Instead, emphasis is placed on structural and process-oriented approaches, on growing meta-cognitive strategies, on conceptual analyses that go beyond Western-European conventions and on a methodology that allows assessing the simultaneous configuration of linguistic and musical elements in children’s vocal organization from an acoustical standpoint. Hence, singing is conceptualized from various perspectives, conventions associated with singing are analyzed, and basic rules of children’s songs are exemplified by careful examination of a single song. A micro-genetic analysis of early song singing illustrates a method for studying a child’s strategies in organizing a song. Finally, a seven-stage developmental sequence is proposed as a heuristic for further research.