缅北强奸幼女

A new child-friendly measure of musicality is challenging the idea that only technically able children are truly “musical” – and could reshape how music is taught in primary schools.

Doctoral researcher Chloe MacGregor redesigned the globally used 缅北强奸幼女 Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI) originally created for adults by Professor Daniel M眉llensiefen, so it can meaningfully assess 6鈥�13-year-olds. 

The original Gold-MSI focuses on five facets of adult musicality 鈥揳ctive engagement, musical training, emotional engagement, singing ability, and perceptual ability. It has become the standard measure in music psychology, cited in around 1500 papers and read over 70,000 times. But, as MacGregor explains, this adult framing does not fit children: 

鈥淭he adult version captures aspects that are most relevant to musicality in adulthood鈥� Children, for example, might not be likely to be engaging with lots of reading and writing about music. Musicality during childhood just looks very different.鈥�  

Working with colleagues in the US, MacGregor first adapted questions from the adult Gold-MSI and combined them with items from existing children鈥檚 music questionnaires, before asking 6鈥�13-year-olds to complete the survey and then running a statistical factor analysis on their responses. Rather than clustering around technical skills, the strongest patterns in the data pointed to two core dimensions: children鈥檚 enjoyment of music making, and what MacGregor terms 鈥渕usical drive鈥� 鈥� their motivation, enthusiasm and even 鈥渙bsession鈥� with music. When she compared these new scores with traditional perceptual ability tests of pitch and rhythm, they did not strongly line up, providing evidence that a child鈥檚 passion and drive for music is a distinct and crucial aspect of musicality, not simply a reflection of current technical skill. 

The new Child Musicality Index produces three main scores 鈥� reflecting a child鈥檚 general musicality, enjoyment of music making, and musical drive 鈥� shifting the emphasis from technique to motivation, joy and engagement. Typical items include: 鈥淢aking music is a lot of fun for me鈥� and 鈥淚 like making music or singing many times during the day.鈥� 

Professor M眉llensiefen believes these findings underpin a powerful developmental hypothesis: that children鈥檚 early motivation and drive for music may be a better guide to their future musical lives than what they can technically do at a given moment. Drawing on work where his team has tracked musical engagement alongside intelligence and working memory, he argues that active music-making can shape cognitive development over time, but that it usually starts with an inner spark of interest. 鈥淪kills and drive and motivation are two different things. It鈥檚 often necessary to be motivated and have drive in the first place. You don鈥檛 go by the skills that you see right now but go by the potential that might be expressed as motivations, interest, drive, obsession with music.鈥�    

M眉llensiefen sees the child index as the basis for longitudinal studies that follow pupils from the first years of primary school onwards, to test whether those scoring highly on 鈥渕usical drive鈥� go on later to make music a central part of their identity. Such long-term tracking, he suggests, would give educators and policymakers a way to spot musical potential early and target lessons, resources and opportunities towards children whose passion is strong, even if their technical skills are still emerging. 

MacGregor is critical of a narrow focus on early instrumental skills: 鈥淚nstrument learning is far too heavily focused on in primary school years. We should be focusing to a greater extent on engagement through singing and dancing and musical play, listening to lots of different styles of music, nurturing children鈥檚 enthusiasm.鈥� The impact of focusing too heavily on instrument learning, she conjectures, can be evidenced by many adults describing themselves as 鈥渘ot musical鈥� after negative early experiences with instruments: 

 鈥淧eople say, 鈥極h, I鈥檓 not musical鈥� because they鈥檝e tried to learn the keyboard or the recorder during primary school and decided it鈥檚 not for them, perhaps because they didn鈥檛 receive enough encouragement from parents or teachers or because they didn鈥檛 feel inspired to keep on practising. However, everyone has the capacity to be musical, and it is important that children don鈥檛 get put off," MacGregor said.

Developed in collaboration with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where Professor Erin Hannon鈥檚 lab is already using the scale across multiple studies, the  is now being shared as a free research tool. By helping teachers see beyond who can sing in tune or play an instrument early, it offers a way to spot and support musical potential in far more children 鈥� including those whose strongest asset, for now, is a powerful drive to make music.