Description: Documenting how parents use music in family life to accomplish practical tasks, make relational connections, and guide their children's musical development, Parenting Musically presents a framework for understanding families' musical interactions in the home, at school, and in community settings using the concepts musical parenting/parenting musically and practical/relational musicking.
Review Quotes: "As we read through the poignant narratives presented in this book, we laugh, cry, feel for and empathize with the families, as if we were right there with them. By co-interpreting these lived experiences, we are invited to rethink our roles as musical parents, music teachers, and music researchers." -- Beatriz Ilari, University of Southern California
"This book takes readers to children's musical beginnings, and to the seeding of their musical identities. It is well-conceived, compelling, and consciously attentive to the realities of music's presence in children's lives at home and in the family. Lisa Koops brings experience and ethnographic styling into focus, and offers new insights on the meaningful roles that parents play in nurturing their children's musical development. A resonant study of human musicality in the everyday lives of families, this work is essential reading for parents, teachers, and care-givers who claim to support their children's expressive social-emotional growth." -- Patricia Shehan Campbell, University of Washington