Whilst the role of interactive play, thought and language in children’s development has been acknowledged, less is known of the role of interactive play, thought and music. Children’s early music-making is both generative and performative in nature and provides a means by which they engage with self and others. Their independent music-making arises from the infant’s early interactions with carers in a form of “communicative musicality”. Children’s interactive musical engagement may be viewed as foundational in their identity work both as music-makers (identity in music) and as users of music (music in identity), and provides a means for them to trial different ways of being in the world. This article explores the uses of music for a 2-year-old girl and the ways in which she employs music as a resource in her identity work and world-making to narrate a self in and through music.
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Margaret S. Barrett (2015) studied this question.