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The infants in this clip create a musical duet by strumming and singing. A third child is interested but has not obvious way to enter the duet. Notice the ways in which they call each other back to the game. The girl is momentarily distracted by a ribbon (00:16), but hears a faith note from the boy in red. She smiles and starts to strum the noise maker on the wall (00:18). The boy on the platform holds out his hand, we know not why. The girl grabs his hand and pulls him closer (00:29). These are rather ambiguous actions to both children. The singing boy raises the level of his voice and the girl begins to shake her ribbon in rhythm to the singing (00:33) but realizes that while this action may parallel the singing it makes no noise. She moves her hand to the wall where the hand action creates the noise. She laughs as if she realizes that she has created a relation with her friend. She becomes even more energetic even as the boy in red has stopped singing. Now the third child enters the play with a few bangs on the white carton as he looks to the girl for guidance (00:45). Does he throw the white carton off the platform in an effort to make a noise more equal to the girl’s strumming? Watch the remainder of the clip and marvel at how well the children regulate their sounds to parallel what they hear. Note: these children have been together since birth. Such familiarity could explain how well they read each other’s intentions. Have you seen similar play in children less familiar with each other? As a teacher, what other materials could you bring into the classroom to support this parallel orchestration of sounds?

Length of video clip: 1 minute 45 seconds
Keywords: Infants, Child-Child, Sound, Communication