Image: Me kissing Dodo as he sleeps. March 16, 2018.
It’s been a few weeks since this project had begun. We have been through 2 months of “Circuit Breaker”(CB) lockdown due to COVID-19, with the CB easing in phases, the latest being Phase 2 where most F&B and retail open for businesses again.
However, arts and entertainment are not included in this opening in Phase 2. We continue to work from home, rehearse via zoom, and seek new and alternative means of presenting our works, such as through digitalisation.
I continue negotiating my multiple roles during these months - as mother, wife, artist, educator and researcher. Sometimes, feeling like I can manage it all, and other times, failing. I continue negotiating the fact that I can’t agree fully with digital mediums for very young children who are in need of sensory experiences, because that’s in the nature of their being at this age.
I wished I had more time to immerse myself deeply in this current project. I wished I had more energy to artfully design the environment in which Dodo is creating in. Not that he necessarily needs it, I guess my artist ego desires it.
I have interacted with 2 sets of parents and their babies thus far, and still mulling over how I should present the information I have gathered. As I do that, and reflected on the past weeks of activities at home that Dodo, myself and his father had engaged in, that are mostly musical but not always in a sing-song fashion, I related back to this “First Connections” project again and pondered,
“Why sing to or with our babies?”
This is because our babies are such keen listeners to begin with!
Our babies hear from when they are in-utero. Our foetuses’ ears begin to form around week 18-22 of gestation and by the 3rd trimester may move in response to external auditory stimuli. Newborn babies have shown to demonstrate keen ears, with innate abilities to discern between pitches, and a preference for higher ones. Thus, mummies voices are often preferred over daddies’.
Babies also have a keen sense of rhythm, where they can discern between contrasting patterns as well as time signatures (for example, a duple versus a triple metering). This perhaps explains how they distinguish between playsongs (think “pat-a-cake”), that tend to be in duple meter, more upbeat, as compared to lullabies, that tend to be in triple meter (think “rock-a-bye baby”), and at a slower tempo.
Research had established that playsongs and lullabies are the two most common styles of music parents and caregivers around the world have used to entertain them or coax them to sleep respectively. Singing has been said to be the most common activity that we as parents engage with our babies musically. This has been down as “infant-directed singing” (IDS).
Personally, I have been singing to Dodo ever since I was expecting. Sometimes, I make up songs and hum to him; other times I simply sing traditional nursery rhymes that we all know. More recently, as he has grown to become a competent, independent and assertive toddler who knows his likes and dislikes, we have been listening to even more of these traditional nursery rhymes, classics, as well as theme songs of Studio Ghilbi movies such as “Totoro” and “Ponyo”.
His father and I continue to make up songs that illustrate his daily life. Do watch this space as I hope to be able to finish editing some of these videos soon to present them to you via this platform!
And this is the very reason why this project began, to seek other parents and their stories of playsongs and/or lullabies they sing to their babies. If you have something to share, please do contact me!
Stay tune to part II of this blog as well, as I seek to answer, so, “why do we sing to/with our babies”, apart from the fact that they are keen listeners?
References
Abrams, R.M., Griffiths, S.K., Huang, X., Sain, J., Langford, G., & Gerhardt, K.J. (1998). Fetal music perception: The role of sound transmission. Music Perception, 15(3), 307–317.
Custodero, L., & Johnson-Green, E. (2002, April). Passing the cultural torch: Musical experience and musical parenting of infants. Paper presented at the Music Educators’ National Conference, Nashville, TN.
DeCasper, A.J., & Fifer, W. (1980, June 6). Of human bonding: Newborns prefer their mothers’ voices. Science, 208, 1174–1176.
Ilari, B. (2002). Music and babies: A review of research with implications for music educators. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education/, /21/(2), 17-26.
Snow, M. (1998). Infant development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Standley, J., & Madsen, C. (1990). Comparison of infant preferences and responses to auditory stimuli: Music, mother and other female voice. Journal of Music Therapy, 27(2), 54-97.
Trainor, L.J., & Zacharias, C.A. (1998). Infants’ prefer higher-pitched singing. Infant Behavior and Development, 21(4), 799–806.
Trehub, S.E., Unyk, A.M., & Trainor, L.J. (1993). Maternal singing in cross-cultural perspective. Infant Behavior and Development, 16(3), 285–295.
Trehub, S.E., & Schellenberg, E.G. (1995). Music: Its relevance to infants. Annals of Child Development, 11, 1–24.