Musical Culture in the Family and the Music Aptitude and Competence Observed among Early School-Age Children on the Basis of Research Conducted in Poland

Abstract

The paper consists of: introduction, methodological part, presentation of the research results, and conclusions. Its content is focused on the connection between musical culture in the family and the music aptitude and musical abilities (perceptual, vocal and improvisation) demonstrated by children at early school age (1st to 3rd grade). In this research, musical culture in the family is defined through various forms of musical activity undertaken for the sake of children and in their environment, for instance, singing, learning songs, playing instruments, listening to music and participating in concerts together. Musical culture is additionally shaped by parents, who either work with music or are outside of the field, thus parentsí education also plays an important role. The author of this paper applied the testing and questionnairebased strategy of quantitative empirical research. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results was conducted based on singled out groups of pupils with the highest and the lowest scores in the Edwin Elias Gordonís IMMA (Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation) test.