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Abstract

This thesis focuses on the information dynamics of children’s melody and, more specifically,
on modeling children’s perception of melodic surface. The topic of children’s melody has
not received much attention in the past, and there are currently no clear definitions of
what exactly a “children’s melody” is. As neither children’s folk songs nor children’s songs
are now recognized as a unique genre, the study of children’s melody is pertinent to efforts
to provide new insight into both genres.
In addition, children’s melody is addressed within the context of three major research
objectives: (i) musical segmentation in children of different ages, (ii) (ir)regularity in children’s
folk songs, and (iii) (dis)similarities in the use of musical features and dimensions
between and within 22 European countries. The purpose of the research presented here is
to fill current gaps in all three fields.
The majority of studies on the mechanisms underlying perceptual grouping in music
include adult participants, and few studies have examined how infants and children of a
particular age perceive and organize musical structure. There has been little to no research
on how children of different ages perceive and process music. Consequently, the first part
investigates how children of varying ages perceive musical boundaries and how music is
segmented in order to fully comprehend the perception of music segmentation and present
a more complete picture of human segmentation.
The second part examines the (ir)regularity of children’s folk songs. Numerous studies
on children’s folk songs focus on the musical content, the social and cultural significance
of children’s folk songs and their relationship to adult music, the contribution of children’s
folk songs to cultural preservation, and their transmission from generation to generation.
(Ir)regularity and complexity of children’s folk songs and their impact on children’s perception
of musical structure are rarely discussed.
There are currently no studies addressing the (dis)similarities between and within countries
in terms of how musical dimensions and features are perceived and utilized in folk
songs, children’s folk songs, and children’s songs. Therefore, the third part explores the
(dis)similarities in musical dimensions and features across these genres in 22 European
countries deemed to be geographically close or to have similar political, historical, economic,
and cultural backgrounds. The decision to include not just folk songs, but also
children’s folk songs and children’s songs as distinct genres from a given country is based
on the fact that children’s folk songs and children’s songs are rarely used in cross-cultural
studies.
A multidisciplinary approach is utilized by employing disciplines such as music theory,
music psychology, computational musicology, folkloristics, and information theory. The
Information Dynamics of Music (IDyOM) computational model is used for simulating
and modeling the listener’s perception of music and observing its structure, to uncover
meaningful and unexpected findings in all three research fields.