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Recordings of parents’ sharing life with infants in the first year, and their detailed description, have led to the theory of human “communicative musicality”, and recognition of the importance of melody for cultural learning. With advanced methods of computer graphics in studies of musical acoustics, affective qualities of the voice and rhythms in narrative patterns have been revealed in proto-conversations of mothers with infants in the first 6 months, and in motherese talk, songs and action-games that the mothers begin to share with infants at that time. It has been shown that the infant, even a newborn, discriminates and shares both the emotions evoked by different qualities of vocal or instrumental sounds, and their composition in narrative sequences of melody, with or without words. Babies learn to perform favourite games of song with actions with parents and siblings, sometimes making use of rituals invented by ancestors centuries ago. This ability to share and remember meanings and stories of vocal sounds, together with patterns of expression seen of face and hands, gives vital support to learning of all cultural patterns of behaviour, including use of tools for eating and toys for games, as well as first words in language. Both aesthetic and moral conventions are acquired with awareness of the feelings of life expressed in song, and used to enliven practical customs. Creative poetry of dance, song and story-telling, the “how” of expression, not just the “facts” referred to, are increasingly recognised as important in psychotherapy, as well as early education.