Musical Creativity in Childhood- A Research Project in Retrospect

Abstract

This paper provides the first English language report on a research project undertaken from 1960 to 1963 in three kindergartens in Stockholm, Sweden, with children from 3.6 to 6.6 years of age. The purpose was to learn more about young children's own musical culture and especially their invented songs. The study combined ethnographic and quasi-experimental approaches. The first consisted of naturalistic observations of the spontaneous musical life of the children, while the second asked children individually to sing known tunes and to invent their own songs. Parents and teachers were interviewed and rating scales were used to compare the children's musical life in different contexts. The songs were transcribed and categorized. The results imply that musical creativity is relatively independent of both singing ability, intelligence and parents' musical interest and is more an expression of a general creative attitude. The results, which were pioneering for the time, are discussed and compared with more recent research in the area.