Enculturation

Musical Enculturation

From infancy through adulthood, humans are musically enculturated into the musical worlds of the cultures they are born into, grow up in, and live in. Children often form their musical identities due to initial exposure in their families; as they mature, the web of musical influences gradually increases in complexity. Through the shaping of the environment and active participation in the social rituals of music making, as well as formal and informal instruction, humans develop culturally specific frameworks and musical schemata through which they perceive music. They assimilate the values and ideals of their musical cultures, including their expressive and aesthetic norms, as well as the use of music in different social, cultural, and political contexts.

Research in Musical Enculturation and Perception

Researchers have investigated musical enculturation over a wide range of age groups and across multiple cultures. Research with Western infants has shown that infants who actively participated in a music class were enculturated to Western musical norms earlier than those who experienced music passively. In another study, children without formal music training were found to be musically enculturated into Western harmony by 4 and 5 years of age. Furthermore, qualitative research found that children from Irish American, Mexican American, Vietnamese American, African American, and Native American families became musically enculturated in the United States through musical speech, media and technology, and active engagement with ethnic cultures in America. On the Asian front, findings from research with five diasporic Chinese xianshi musicians in Hong Kong indicated that their musical enculturation from their homeland might have contributed to their value of and long-term commitment to making music.

Research evidence indicates possible links between musical enculturation and musical memory. For example, research involving native-born participants from the United States and Turkey found that all subjects were more adept at remembering music from their own cultures, suggesting that enculturation influences the ways in which humans process and recognize musical information. In a follow-up study involving children and adults born in the United States, all participants were better able to remember music from their own culture than music from the Turkish culture.

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