Abstract
This study shows a database developed to investigate developmental changes in children's musical behaviors in the context of the parent-child dyad. Data were collected through longitudinal observations of 30 parent-child pairs who interactively played with musical instruments (e.g., a small glockenspiel) during the first four years of the children. We organized the database not only as an archive of the collected videotaped data but also as a research tool by installing some functions (e.g., synchronized presentation of the data with a coding sheet [text data] and addition of bookmarks to points of interest on the coding sheet) that would allow researchers to code and analyze the data more efficiently. We presented the utility of our database as a research tool by illustrating the first behavior of the children in regard to playing with musical instruments (such as hitting a glockenspiel with mallets) and related it to the development of children's behavioral and cognitive abilities, and the contextual features (both physical and social). In the last section, we briefly explained some issues relevant to creating conditions for the secure, open, and flexible operation of our database, which would be crucial for sharing its value with researchers from a diverse range of scholarly interests.
