‘In comparison with other fields of children’s musical development,
there is relatively little research into children’s musical play…..
focusing their attention on adult-initiated activity in formal educational
settings rather than child-initiated activity. Research mainly concerned
‘serious’ formal skills such as learning to sing, to play an instrument or
to develop aural skills. Play for which there is no obvious ‘product’ in
the form of measurable learning is thus seen as trivial and unworthy of
serious study’ (Marsh & Young, 2006:291