Musical Beginnings Origins and Development of Musical Competence

From where, and by what mechanisms, does an individual's musical ability originate? This is a subject of major interest both to developmental and music psychologists, heightened by the recent research into prenatal perception of sound. This timely volume brings together authoritative reviewson central issues, beginning with prenatal auditory experience, through infancy and early childhood. The chapters chart the developmental progress with reference to the child's changing environment: from the uterus, through the intense and semi-exclusive mother-baby bond, to the wider contextsprovided by the family, school, and society at large. The book provides the most up-to-date integration of developmental and music psychology.