University of London
Goldsmiths
How children understand musical expression
The YoungGold project introduces a new set of research tools designed to explore musicality in primary school aged children (5-11 years). These tools have been designed to capture affective, embodied and motivational facets of musicality which are often overlooked in areas of developmental and educational music research. Crucially, the tools are fun and interactive drawing on innovative approaches such as motion tracking, movement sonification, emotion detection and storytelling. This makes them suitable for engaging groups of young children and gathering rich, robust and meaningful data on musicality. These data can ultimately be used to inform evidence-based interventions that support children’s social, emotional and musical development.
Publicaitons
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MacGregor, C., Mednicoff, S., Vollweiler, D. J., Hannon, E., & Müllensiefen, D. (2026). The child musicality index: a child-friendly version of the Goldsmiths musical sophistication index. PLoS One, 21(1), e0339261. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0339261
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MacGregor, C., Buren, V., Müllensiefen, D., & Degé, F. (2026). Measuring children’s motivation for music: a systematic review of quantitative tools [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Pre-print: https://osf.io/sajrd/overview?view_only=85c32821ce3c47c5871d637b666522dc
Press - ‘New child music index could transform how primary schools teach music’