The European Music Portfolio development - the EMP-L: integrated music pedagogies as a framework for learning

Within the sphere of education, music generally features in two intertwined approaches. The first involves learning about music and musical activities as well as the development of musicality within the child; and the second involves activities for the child’s holistic development. The European Music Portfolio (http://www.emportfolio.eu), which was created through the collaboration of partners in seven European countries, has been grounded on the shared properties of language and music. Music and language are both tools for human communication, the seeds of which are planted prenatally.

On the basis of Brown’s (2000) theory, language and music have evolved from a common ancestor, a ‘musilanguage’ stage. Our voices can serve the most primitive brain structures (Odent 2008). Singing, for example, can support the repetition needed for learning vocabulary and grammatical structure without the tedium of repetition (Driscoll et al. 2004). When considering theories for music teaching, it is important to understand how a child’s musical development and the ongoing musical, holistic learning events are structured and connected. In a deep holistic learning event, emotions, body and reason work together (Hannaford 2004; Damasio 1994). For successful holistic learning to take place these connections need to be articulated when designing musical activities (Ludke & Weinmann 2012) in order for learning to remain in the long-term memory (Hannaford, 2004). The goals of music education encompass cognitive, socioemotional, psychomotor and aesthetic goals (Marjanen 2002; 2009a; 2009b). The connections of music are here considered in relation to language development in order to promote a better understanding of the underlying musical processes which support children’s learning.