# Re-becoming musical *Written 5 August 2026.* According to Ellen Dissanayake, *musicality is not a gift* handed out unevenly. It is a species-wide tendency to render sounds, movements and objects more patterned, varied and charged than function requires: *[[Making special|making special]]*, and about as ordinary as language.[^1] Malloch (1999) finds the same operations already running in the exchanges between an infant and a caregiver in the first weeks of life.[^2] Nobody *teaches* those. In my short talk on the opening day of this year's MISTEC Pre-conference Seminar I focused on how education, depending on how it is delivered, can *suppress* this capacity. My main argument was that, if the above holds, then the *feeling of being unmusical* is not a diagnosis; it *is an injury*. Something did that *to* a person—and something can be done *about* it. These are some thoughts around the talk rather than a summary of it. The empirical material comes from my doctoral research with immigrant families in Iceland, and the study itself is written up properly in papers and a book chapter written with my supervisor, Professor Helga Rut Gudmundsdottir. This note presents the empirical half of the inquiry. [[The unmusical self]] takes the historical and philosophical side, and asks how the conviction of being unmusical came to be manufactured at all. ## Some background *Tónagull po polsku* is a [[Family musicking]] programme in Reykjavík for parents and children up to the age of four, and the first in Iceland offered continuously to immigrant families in their heritage language. It grew out of the Icelandic Tónagull, developed by Professor Helga Rut Gudmundsdottir and running since 2004,[^3] and the Polish-language version was launched in 2019. In the design, the original structure was preserved almost exactly, but the repertoire was changed to Polish traditional children's songs, rhymes and games. Three *design decisions* are worth pulling out. **The circle.** In Tónagull, everyone sits in a circle, parents and toddlers alike. One participant put it this way: "no one feels that someone is further or closer, we are all at the same distance from each other. It matters how we perceive ourselves afterwards."[^4] Helga and I discuss the circle setting in human gatherings at more length in an upcoming chapter.[^5] **The repetition.** Same opening and closing songs, same framework of activities, same shape, week after week. "The sessions evoke a sense of security. Fixed elements—that is very convincing for us," said another participant.[^4] **The language.** The sessions ran in Polish, the heritage language of the participants, and that matters. Another participant reached for a musical metaphor when referring to it: "At work, no matter how nice my Icelandic colleagues are, we are always somewhat out of tune."[^4] The circle removed the audience/performer distinction, the repetition removed the feeling of uncertainty, the heritage language removed the fear of judgement. ## What changed One of the participating fathers had told me, early on, that he was the *biggest no-talent who walked the Earth* as far as music was concerned, and that he hoped his children would not inherit it from him[^4] (you can read more on this in [[The unmusical self]]). A few weeks into the sessions, the same person asked whether we could hand out the song lyrics and guitar chords in advance, so that he could sing them with more confidence and try them at home. Nothing had changed in those few weeks about his voice, or his "musical ear", or his talent, if you want the word. What changed was his *confidence* in his own musicality. He was not the only one. One participant picked up his guitar again and started musicking with his children in the evenings; another caught himself singing his son's rhymes at work. What the gatherings gave them was confidence, and joy in the musicking itself. What I think this shows is where the initial deficit, the lack of confidence and the harsh self-judgement came from: they were installed by the participants' own music education, by teachers who thought that *telling a child that it is not musical* is justified and the right thing to do. And in the end, this is not about words at all. I do not know what that "unmusical" father *calls* himself today. But I know that he *sings* (or at least he did for some time, while he was part of the family musicking programme). The sessions did not give him his musicality; he already had it. Which brought me to my final question: how often do we, as music educators, instead of supporting the delicate seed of musicality, actually stand on it? This, however, might also be viewed as a hopeful thing to find out. Nothing has to be installed in anyone forever. The capacity is already in the room, and the work is *making a room in which it is safe to use it*. [^1]: Dissanayake, E. (1995). *Homo aestheticus: Where art comes from and why* (p. 39). University of Washington Press. (Original work published 1992) [^2]: Malloch, S. N. (1999). Mothers and infants and communicative musicality. *Musicae Scientiae, 3*(1_suppl), 29–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/10298649000030S104 [^3]: Gudmundsdottir, H. R., & Gudmundsdottir, D. G. (2010). Parent–infant music courses in Iceland: Perceived benefits and mental well-being of mothers. *Music Education Research, 12*(3), 299–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2010.505644 [^4]: From interviews conducted as part of my doctoral research with Polish-speaking families in Iceland. The material is reported across three publications co-authored with Helga Rut Gudmundsdottir: Switala, A., & Gudmundsdottir, H. R. (in press). *The Heritage Language Approach in family music sessions: Perspectives of immigrant parents*. *Music Education Research*. · Switala, A., & Gudmundsdottir, H. R. *Family musicking with immigrant parents and toddlers: Experiences of Polish parents in Iceland*. Manuscript under review. · Gudmundsdottir, H. R., & Switala, A. *Promoting feelings of inclusion in family music groups for immigrant families: Expanding the parent–infant dyad to the singing circle*. Book chapter, in press. Participants' names and their children's names are withheld here. [^5]: Gudmundsdottir, H. R., & Switala, A. *Promoting feelings of inclusion in family music groups for immigrant families: Expanding the parent–infant dyad to the singing circle*. Book chapter, in press.