Musicians as Music-Makers
According to Webster's New World Dictionary (Lorimer and Bunch, 1980), a musician is "a person skilled in music, as a composer or one who plays a musical instrument or sings, especially for a living." Consider the picture of Ben, a 9-month old child, sitting on the floor, creating a rhythm on a set of pots and pans. Is this child a musician? Ben is music making in the fullest sense of his understanding of the language of music. His culture of infant experience allows him to be a fully skilled musician gleefully creating the "Composition of the Pots and Pans". Perhaps a more appropriate definition of "musician" is "one who makes music". As philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff is quoted as saying (Elliot, 1995, p. 49), "the basic reality of music is not the works nor the composition of works but music making."

Even before a child is born, the ability to perceive sound may eventually influence musicality. As Clifford Geertz stated, "art and the equipment to grasp it are made in the same shop" (Blacking, 1995, p. 241). Consider a recent study in Britain which describes how unborn babies can hear and remember sounds in the womb at 20 weeks after conception. In this study, ten pregnant women listened to cassettes of obscure Welsh and Devonshire folk music. Five pregnant women acted a s controls and were not given any music. Three weeks after birth, the babies were videoed listening to the music and their reactions or "kick rates" were recorded. Kick rates for the babies whose mothers had listened to music were on average below half that of those who had heard no music while in the womb (the less babies kick, the more soothed they are). These findings suggest that fetuses can recognize and store memories related to sounds at twenty-weeks (The Guardian, 1998).

The ability to respond to music and perhaps develop activities related to memories of sound are important for the perception of music as essential for the developing infant. Linked to the research on what music may mean to the prenatal infant are the written works of John Blacking regarding biological tendencies that suggest that "…music-making is an inherited biological predisposition which is unique to the human species…" (1995, p. 26). Maria Montessori furthers Blacking's idea of music making as unique to humans by stating "…none of the animals have music and dancing, but the whole of mankind, in all parts of the world, knows and makes up dances and songs." (1967, p. 120). Just as Ben was expressing his innate musicality by playing his rhythms on the pots and pans, so all children are born with the equipment to be musicians. Beyond this innate ability, a child's environment continues the raising of the musician.

Maria Montessori, the outstanding educator and psychologist, believed in the overwhelming influence of the first six years of life. In her book The Absorbent Mind, she discusses the development of hearing and a newborn's strange tendency to appear to not respond to sound stimuli. She asserts that the infant if involved in "…a deep gathering in of the sound; a concentration of sensitiveness…" (p. 119). This sensitiveness is the very mechanism that allows the infant to connect to the environment via imitation and ultimately communication.

A Musician in Progress
Soon after an infant receives sound stimuli via the tiny nerve fibrils of the ear which send a signal to the receptor points of the brain, this infant will attempt to use all of his faculties to respond via imitation. The movement of the tiny body and the attempts at formulating syllables and sounds, are all part of the infants' design on connecting with his culture via language and music. Maria Montessori states:

Every human group loves music. Each creates its own music just as it does its own language. Each group responds to its music by bodily movements and accompanies it by words. The human voice is a music and words are its notes, meaning nothing in themselves but to which every group attributes its own special meaning (p. 120).

As the child grows in the special world of the family, he responds to the culture of his people and his musicianship develops based on the musical and extra-musical experiences in that culture. In the Venda Culture of Africa, mothers take their infants with them wherever they go. Strapped on their backs, these infants share in all her musical experiences, which are frequent and varied throughout the day. According to ethnomusicologist John Blacking, who did the research on the Venda, "Venda children have the added advantage, because they have many opportunities to imitate specific rhythms and thus organize their body movements" (Blacking, 1967, p. 30).

In the Venda society, all people, including children, are perceived of as musicians. This perception is derived from the fact that the children are permitted and expected to be a part of the music of their social group. In the culture of the family or community, exposure to musical experiences and the perception of the child as musician are perhaps the key elements in the development of their musicality. Shinichi Suzuki, world-renowned violinist and teacher, aptly states:

I am convinced that it is only the body's physiological functioning ability that can be measured as either superior or inferior at the time of birth. From then on, only psychological influences are received from the child's environment. And it is the conditions of that environment that shape the core of his ability (1984, p. 13).

"Ability is Life"
This phase (p. 18) demonstrates Shinichi Suzuki's belief regarding the connection between human life and the development of ability. In summary, in each human being, there is a life force that surrounds itself with experiences, adapting that human being to its' environment. By moving through the experiences, abilities are developed. Some would say that the experience of music making becomes too complex and that eventually only passive participation is possible for most people.

Demonstrating possible long-term effects of limited childhood musical experiences is the following informal survey (of adults) regarding personal beliefs about musicality. Of the adults surveyed, one man's response was particularly interesting. John B., a computer engineer, age 35, responded that he believed he had no musical ability. Whereas he enjoyed music and was a passive listener, he felt no sense of being a musician. Upon further questioning, it was revealed that singing, instrument playing, and musical play were not even a small part of his childhood. He remembers no one singing in his home and developmentally appropriate musical exploration did not exist in his childhood (personal communication, May 23,1998). Music had no function in the early life of this person and the concept of himself as having musical abilities as an adult did not exist. This sad example demonstrates how a lack of musical experiences in early childhood can limit an entire lifetime of musical involvement or functioning.

The research of John Blacking did much to move forward the idea that musical ability and music's function in a society are inter-related. The Venda of South Africa recognize that social factors play the most important role in realizing or suppressing musical ability. Exceptional musical ability is expected of people who are born into certain families or social groups but only a few truly emerge as exceptional because they have devoted more time and energy to it (Blacking, 1973). Following this idea, Suzuki stated, "the development of ability cannot be accomplished by mere thinking or theorizing, but must be accompanied by action and practice" (1984, p. 18).

In America, Everyone is a Musician
Action in music involves singing, playing or instruments, moving, creating, and listening. When these activities are included in the social context or culture of the child, a matrix of logged emotional responses related to these activities are created. A central schema or self-perception is developed related to the child's musical abilities based on this mapping of the mind (Swanwick, 1998). Involving your child from the earliest moments in varied and frequent musical activities will allow them to map out themselves as a musician. And through practice, mastery may develop.

Across Africa, all people are regarded as musicians. Many of their waking moments from birth till death are spent music making. A central idea of themselves is one of musical relatedness. The Venda believe that "man is man because of his associations with other men" (Blacking, 1973, p 107) and reinforce their belief with music and its associative activities. Our connectedness as societies, our realization of shared humanity, may depend on renewing all children's perceptions of themselves as musicians by giving them frequent and varied opportunities for making music from the earliest moments of life.

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