First, let’s start at the beginning…
Music and Babies
The first year of a baby’s life is obviously a time of immense development. Different parts of the brain are forming connections that will enable them to process information and make sense of the world around them.
Sound plays a very important part in this.
The first sensation that a baby feels, before it is even born, is the sensation of sound. Inside the womb a baby can hear its mother’s heartbeat, her voice and the rhythms of her body when she walks.
Babies continue to make sense from patterns in sound throughout childhood.
The natural way that mothers talk with their babies – Babytalk or “Motherese” is similar all over the world.
The imitation of the sounds the baby makes; the exaggeration of pitch and intonation and taking turns to make silly sounds – create a means of communication between mother and baby.
Before understanding spoken language, the baby understands how the mother is feeling through the tone, pitch and rhythm of the mother’s voice.
Since the late 1990’s researchers have established that this type of structured, rhythmic, meaningful communication is a form of “Musicality” with which we are all born, and which lays the groundwork (creates structures within the brain) for developing verbal language.
Scientists in the field of evolutionary Psychology are beginning to agree that before humans evolved spoken language, our ancestors communicated through some type of rhythmic music, song and dance.
The huge amount of information coming from our recent ability to perform detailed, real-time brain scanning reinforces the idea that we are all born with musical ability, and indeed, that music is an essential part of what it is to be human!
Draw your child’s attention to sounds all around – indoors as well as when you are out for a walk!
Describing and comparing sounds really helps to focus their listening skills…essential for later learning!
Listen along with your child to the sound file “A walk to the farm” below.
I just edited together some recordings I made on my phone during a walk last summer.
There are lots of different farmyard sounds – how many can you identify?
So don’t be hung-up about singing aloud or playing musical games with your child – it’s a skill that we all have… built-in from birth…it is literally in our DNA.
engagewithmusic 