According to Tereska and Ruismäki (2006) musical instruments are an essen-tial part of the musical stimulation environment of the home. Most often they indicated either active music playing or at least an interest in music. The type of musical instruments in the childhood home (N=590) were piano, guitar, school or toy instruments, harmonium/electric organ, strings, accordion and wind instruments. Of the home’s background variables the development of a positive self-concept in music is especially promoted by art interests and music appreciation. Concerning the childhood home’s musical stimuli the pleasure and amount of singing correlate with positive self-concept in music.
The most important playing variables are the number of persons who play instruments and the number of instruments in the home. Likewise, the fa-vourable experiences of music instruction before the age beforeof seven years form a positive self-concept in music.
According to Vikman’s study (2001), the figure notes (marked with dif-ferent colours and symbols) support young children’s learning in piano play-ing and help the child progress to real note-readplay-ing. Practisplay-ing playplay-ing devel-ops a child’s innate skills perhaps more than any other activity, although these skills later become an integrated entity for the player him/herself.
Gardner (1993, 73–278) has noted that playing skill consists of seven types of talent; according to Vikman (2001, 48–51) in piano playing these dimensions are as follows:
• Linguistic—comprehending the meaning of words and rules;
• Logical-mathematical—understanding the theoretical structure of music;
• Spatial—perceiving the structure of sound material and identifying note-reading (Karma 1986, 50–52);
• Bodily kinaesthetic—controlling motor coordination in finger and body movements;
• Musical—expressing oneself musically in rhythm, melody, harmony, and timbre;
• Intrapersonal—analysing one’s own emotions, developing better self-esteem and motivation, and
• Interpersonal—understanding others in group playing.
In Finland even pre-school children can begin their musical studies in the music institutions founded in the 1950s and at music playschools connected with them. Later through entrance examinations children can pass on to study their own main instrument in addition to school studies. The music institution network nowadays covers the entire country. Nowadays there are approxi-mately 150 music institutions and music schools and they have in all 86 000 students (Partanen 2001).
Although the importance of the home’s musical environment early on is emphasised, this should not diminish the significance of music education given in day care centres, kindergartens and school. Nowadays, the media are also important in the children’s sound environment. However, it is useful for parents, kindergarten teachers, and educators to know about the connection between parental musical attitudes as well as the home’s everyday musical activities and children’s musical development (Brand 1986, 118–119).
Childhood singing and playing experiences at home clearly contribute to the musical progress in teacher education too. According to Tereska and Ruismäki (2006) the scores for singing and playing are very close to those for self-concept in music. The importance of the teacher’s singing and playing skill to his/her young listeners according to our study proves to be greater and more widespread than supposed.
According to Ruokonen (2005) the home environment had an essential role in child development and early giftedness. Ruokonen interviewed alto-gether 64 six to seven-year old children in Finland and Tallinn. In the inter-views children reported that their musical environment consisted of many aspects. The informal learning in music was usual especially from media. All children mentioned that music sounds surround them at home: they reported interaction with radio, TV, CDs and computer games with music. There was a correlation between a child’s musicality test results and her/his television
viewing habits. Those who followed music programs from TV were better in the musicality test. Also on the basis of the parents’ questionnaire we noted a strong correlation between different indicators of musical giftedness and TV music programmes the child had watched, which clearly implies the child’s interest in musical activity and performing. Live music was heard in homes where children had musical activities; children were practising and they also described the situations where parents were playing with them, for example, four handed piano. One 7-year old girl said: “It is nice to be lazy with mother and laugh at silly things. I enjoy it also when we play four-handed piano pieces together”. When children were asked if their parents sing for them, only some of them said it is common. One 6-year old boy said: “My mother used to sing to me in the evenings when I was younger, but not any more”.
Children described more official singing situations, such as this 6-year old boy: “My father sang to my mother on Mother’s day, and I was also sing-ing”. Another 7-year-old girl said: “When someone has a birthday my mother sings her special song”. There were no descriptions of everyday singing, for example while cleaning, in the shower or while cooking. Estonian children described more singing situations than Finnish. Three children mentioned that the whole family sang while riding in the car. Children had a few de-scriptions of live concert situations. These dede-scriptions came from those children who had studied music. Most of the children described their pre-school and pre-school as the place of singing especially in Estonia, where almost all children valued their music lessons in kindergartens. In Estonia there are specialised music teachers in every kindergarten and singing is an elementary part of every day living in day care centres (Ruokonen, 2005).
There is a great difference between the music education of day care cen-tres in Estonia and Finland. Music education has long traditions in both Esto-nian and Finnish cultures. In Estonia during the last 20 years singing together and choir singing in particular has preserved its dominant position in music education. In all this one can observe the unique phenomenon of Estonian music education and its unifying role in society. The role of the teacher-specialist, without a doubt, is very important, as he or she makes very im-portant decisions: choices concerning the content of the subject, the methods of treatment and communication with children. In Estonia a qualified music teacher works in every kindergarten and music education is more homoge-neous in quality than in Finland where generalist kindergarten teachers are responsible for music education.
Ruokonen’s (2009) study concerned the kindergarten student teachers’
experiences and reflections on the musical environment of their practicum period in day-care centres. The research material was collected from student texts and observations of music educational situations in day care centres.
Students were asked to write their experiences about the musical learning environment of children in a day-care centre in which they were practising.
Students were asked to observe the musical learning environment of children from many perspectives: physical and material environment, curriculum, objectives, core contents and children’s activities. The method of the study was a content analysis of the students’ essays and episode descriptions of the music educational situations. The results of the study show that there are significant differences in the music educational environment between differ-ent day care cdiffer-entres in Finland (Helsinki Area) in spite of the common national core curriculum and policy definition on early childhood education (Ruokonen, 2009).