This section will do so, and show a distinction between ‘informal play’ and
‘free play’. Studies concerned with informal musical behaviour of (young)
children (i.e. informal play) concentrate on spontaneous musical behaviours
of children during everyday activities and events. Studies that concern free
musical play however, include environments that have been prepared by the
teacher in such a way as to stimulate the child to experiment with sound,
albeit that the child still initiates its musical play (free musical play). The role
of the teacher in free musical play varies from purely facilitating to higher
levels of teacher intervention (Smith & Montgomery, 2005).