In this preliminary study, improvisational songs of 43 Estonian children (22 girls, 21 boys, Mage = 5.5 years, age range: 2–8 years) were collected using the AIRS Test Battery of Singing Skills (ATBSS). Improvisational songs from two tasks of the ATBSS (song completion and song creation) were evaluated by three experts according to the performance’s coherence with the relevant criteria of children’s songs in the Western musical canon (a song has a melody and a rhythm and ends on the tonic) and the spontaneity of the singing process. Combining these two parameters we could describe four types of songs. Due to the size and diversity of the sample, this article does not report statistical evidence to support the proposed typology, but rather reports trends in the results to provide new research questions for further research. The results show that most of the children in this study had acquired the rules of children’s songs in the Western tonal musical canon by the age of four and could apply them in creative test-like situations, whether they did so consciously or spontaneously. Most of the children were consistent with their song-making strategies (conscious vs. spontaneous) during the two different improvisational tasks.
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