International Journal of Music in Early Childhood - Volume 15, Issue 2, 2020

In response to COVID-19, various resources were disseminated to the music education community regarding research, practice and policy. Few of those resources, however, included implications for early childhood music learners and educators. Therefore, the purpose of our piece was to describe how a group drawn from the leadership boards of NAfME’s Early Childhood Music Special Research Group, Early Childhood Music & Movement Association and the editorial board of the International Journal of Music in Early Childhood gathered, created resources and participated in ongoing research projects.

Many early childhood music teachers suddenly shifted to remote teaching in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to gather information about parents’ and caregivers’ perspectives on and reactions to remote teaching of caregiver–child early childhood music classes. The participant families were enrolled in an on-site music class when the switch in format happened due to COVID-19 and were given the option of continuing with instruction via Zoom or receiving a refund for the remainder of the semester. All families were invited to complete a survey with questions about their decision to participate or not and suggestions for ongoing remote programming. Families who chose to participate in synchronous online classes were invited to complete interviews. Eleven adults, representing nine enrolled children, offered their perceptions of the affordances and constraints of the remote caregiver–child music class and suggestions for improvement of remote teaching. Four themes arose in the interviews: (1) the centrality of interaction, (2) the need to support families, (3) the kids & screens paradox and (4) something is better than nothing. Families who chose not to do remote classes in the spring reported they were not interested in trying Zoom classes in the fall either. The main reason families gave for not wanting to participate was concerns about children and screen time. We share implications for teaching and suggestions for future research.

As stakeholders turn to online methods, researchers would benefit from assistance in identifying ways to address important questions related to children’s musical lives in an altered research landscape. The purpose of this article is to describe how online methods can be used to conduct research with young children and music. A secondary purpose is to introduce and orient readers to relevant literature and resources to enable them to complete investigations. Our discussion is presented in three primary sections: online research with children and music, ethical considerations and suggestions for practice. Sections one and two provide general overviews of relevant literature and resources while establishing a foundation for our suggestions, which are also informed by our previous experiences. As researchers, we began this investigation to address a need in our own work, and we offer our preliminary findings and suggestions in this article as a resource for others.

Infants and children in their earliest years (6 months to 3 years) are highly motivated to act on objects to produce sounds and to explore the possibilities of sound production. Yet educational practice and music education research rarely concentrate on very young children’s abilities to produce sounds with objects or with age-appropriate musical instruments. There is, however, a small corpus of studies that have explored sound production among the under-3s and have suggested the importance of this activity in early musical development. In this article we first introduce and discuss this corpus of studies. In light of the theories of musical gesture and sound production emerging from these studies, we then propose a complementary music education perspective for young children under 3 years of age which is focused on sound production with objects.

Fieldwork experiences for undergraduate music education majors provide opportunities to gain pedagogical content knowledge as well as a deeper understanding of child development and musical behaviour. Early childhood music fieldwork experiences are vital to preservice music educators in order to gain insight into the specific needs of young learners and increase preparedness to teach in a variety of musical settings. Critical examination of the fieldwork opportunities provided to undergraduate music education majors in the early childhood music setting could benefit all preservice music educators. This article will describe one early childhood fieldwork placement and its impacts on the preparation of three undergraduate music education majors. Implications related to the importance of early childhood music education fieldwork experiences for preservice music educators are discussed.

Infants are curious about sounds and can perceive them as a means of communication with others. This article describes the ways sound properties were used in music therapy encounters to facilitate communication with a group of infants and toddlers. The music therapy interactions were based on Brazilian traditional songs, musical instruments and body movements. We explored loudness, timbre and pitch used to enhance non-verbal communication. Participative performance and community music therapy principles were deemed appropriate to our interactions as we observed improvement in the quality of the infants’ and toddlers’ social and affective expressions throughout the process.