The musical dimension of daily routines with under-four children during diaper change, bedtime and free-play

This paper deals with an action-research project currently being undertaken at the University of Bologna concerning the observation of music making during daily routines with under-four children during diaper change, bedtime and free-play. Several observational protocols were carried out in natural and spontaneous contexts. The data analysis was based on the analysis of video-recordings using an observational grid, check-list and microanalysis. During diaper change we observed some interesting phenomena of face-to-face mother-infant and fatherinfant interaction and also triadic mother-father-infant interactions. Some differences between father-child and mother-child dyads were observed concerning temporal contingency, turn-taking and musical quality of the vocal interaction. At bedtime, we observed ‘autotelic’ musical play of a young girl singing just before she closed her eyes and the imitative vocal interaction among peers. Fogel’s Relational Coding System (2000) allowed us to observe and analyse the musical free-play at home between the mother-musician and her three-year-old son. Keywords: