This book explores the meaning and value of music in children's lives, based upon their expressed thoughts and actual musicking behaviors in school and at play. Blending standard education field experiences with ethnomusicological techniques, Campbell demonstrates how music is personally and socially meaningful to children and what values they place on particular musical styles, songs, and functions. She explores musical behaviors in various contextual settings-in
the outdoor garden of the Lakeshore Zebras' preschool, in Mr. Roberts' fifth grade classroom, on a school bus, at home with the Anderson family, in the Rundale School cafeteria, at the Toys and More Store. She documents in narrative forms some of the "songs in their heads", balancing music learned
with music "made", and intentional, purposeful music with natural music behavior.
From age three to tween-age, children are particularized by gender race, ethnicity, and class, and their soundscapes are described for the contexts, functions, and meanings they make of music in their lives. Treading through the individual cases and conversations is the image of the "universal child" children's culture that transcends localities, separates them from adults, and defines them as their own community of shared beliefs and practices.
Songs in Their Heads is a vivid and engaging book that brides the disciplines of music education, ethnomusicology, and folklore. Designed as a text or supplemental text in a variety of music education methods courses, as well as a reference for music specialists and classroom teachers, this book will also appeal to parents interested in understand and enhancing music making in their own children.
- ISBN10 019538251X
- ISBN13 9780195382518
- Publish Date 27 January 2011 (first published 1 March 1998)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 17 May 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Edition 2nd Revised edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 328
- Language English