Archive for the ‘music for babies free’ tag
ECE Brain Research receives Grammy Funding
So did Bruce Springsteen, Count Basie and k.d. lang.
Now Laurel Trainor has a Grammy award, too.
Hers is not the traditional, gold-plated, miniature gramophone, but a cheque in the amount of $39,800. And she didn’t have to produce a movie soundtrack or sing an outstanding song to get it.
The director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind is one of only 22 successful applicants for a 2008 grant from the Grammy Foundation in California, which received 102 applications for a share of $600,000 in disbursements.
She and her research team will use the money to finance a study of how — or whether — babies benefit from early music education. The project is unique because it involves a younger than usual study group — six-month-old infants — and their parents, and will not be conducted in the precisely controlled environment of Mac’s auditory labs.
Starting in the fall, Trainor’s team, which includes research partner and PhD student David Gerry, will recruit 80 babies from the Wesley Ontario Early Years Centre and Today’s Family Ontario Early Years Centre, which serve the city’s west and Mountain ridings respectively.
After a round of pre-testing, they will start taking weekly classes at their centres with a Suzuki early childhood education teacher. When the babies reach the ripe old age of one, the lessons will end and the “students” will be retested.
Trainor hopes to establish that exposing them to Suzuki ECE music lessons can improve their perceptual, cognitive and social development.
There are no expectations of baby virtuosos tinkling the ivories or tootling the flute.
The Suzuki ECE program, developed 15 years ago by Canadian Dorothy Jones, uses percussion instruments, nursery rhymes, finger play, action songs and storytelling to help little people develop such skills as rhythm, pitch, memory, observation, listening, fine and gross motor co-ordination.
“The younger children don’t play violins,” smiles Trainor, a professor in Mac’s department of psychology, neuroscience and behaviour. “There’s a lot of singing, clapping, xylophones.”
The project began when Today’s Family staff contacted the Music and the Mind institute for advice on setting up music programs for their young charges.
Trainor and Gerry saw a perfect opportunity for testing the theory that music training at a very early age could have long-lasting benefits. Although that hypothesis in itself is not news, the researchers wanted to reach a population that wouldn’t ordinarily be exposed to music lessons, especially expensive classes such as Suzuki.
After six months, Trainor’s team will use a variety of methods to measure the difference between infants who were in the study and those who weren’t.
While all of the teaching and some of the testing will be conducted in the class environment, babies will have to attend Trainor’s lab at Mac for an electroencephalogram (EEG). They’ll be outfitted with a fetching net bonnet consisting of 128 electrodes, which are attached to the scalp to record brain activity.
The results will show whether the babies have developed an aesthetic response that allows them to distinguish pleasant musical sounds from discordant ones, and melodies played with no expression from those with variations in pitch, timing and expression.
Trainor plans to gauge the infants’ cognitive development by looking at their early language skills.
“I suspect that language development will be accelerated in kids with music training,” says Trainor, who plays principal flute with Symphony Hamilton. “Studies show that music training increases cognitive development in all other areas and also trains the attentional system.”
She’ll also look at the social interactions of the babies and how they are taking cues from each other, observing the structure of activities, and attempting to mimic behaviour.
Laurel Brydges, of Today’s Child, says the centre is “totally excited” about the partnership with Trainor’s researchers. The Ontario Early Years Centres are all about providing children with the best opportunities for life, she says, and the Suzuki training will only enhance their healthy development.
“The more assets a child has, the more they stay out of trouble,” says Brydges. “It’s going to be interesting.”
Brydges says she expects the project will show there is a big difference when an infant receives live music training from a professional instructor as opposed to just listening to a tape.
If the findings support Trainor’s hypothesis, she will try to get ongoing government and private support to keep the project going, ideally expanding it to older children and poor neighbourhoods.
The Grammy Foundation, part of whose mandate is music education, “is a perfect fit,” says Trainor, but $40,000 is the maximum grant it bestows.
“We sure could have used more, but we’ll manage. If we find (the results) quite beneficial, we will look for donors to keep it going independent of research.”
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Music for babies
Since the dawn of the age of the walkman, there have been studies on the effect of music on babies in the womb. Will it make him or her smarter? More musical perhaps? Although these studies are, excuse the pun, still in their infancy, playing music to your baby is a simple and easy way to form a prenatal bond.
Although your baby’s ears don’t completely develop until the fifth month, fetuses respond to noise before that, which has led some researchers to believe there’s more to hearing that the ears.
There has been no proof supporting claims that listening to music in the womb will increase your child’s intelligence, but an interesting UK study has shown that it will increase memory. Babies that listen to music in the uterus respond to the music played for up to a year after birth. This shows that the fetus is capable of creating memories will still in the womb.
Using prenatal stimulation helps to connect you to your child before birth, so that the baby will be able to communicate. Playing familiar and soothing sounds, or even singing a simple lullaby will put your child at ease, and provide a grounding point after birth.
Amniotic fluid is a great sound conductor, so your baby will be able to hear you and your music just fine. Turning up the sound too much can disturb the fetus, so try leaving your stereo as background noise, or turning the volume down on the headphones if you’re planning on placing them on the belly. It’s not yet the time for sleepless nights; try not to over stimulate the baby with too much noise.
When choosing music for your baby to listen to, keep in mind that repetition is key. Choose anything you enjoy listening to, as your baby will benefit from the hormones you produce when you’re happy. Beethoven and Mozart are always favorites, but you can listen to anything from Madonna to traditional African drumbeat music, as long as there’s enough repetition to increase the chances of memory production. Mixing up the types of music helps diversify your baby’s tastes, and activates different areas of the brain. Baby Einstein offers a line of classical music CDs that you and your baby can enjoy together.
Singing a lullaby to your baby is a great opportunity to make a lasting connection. The baby will sense your mood, and respond accordingly.
Additionally, the baby will learn to recognize your voice, which will increase your bond after birth. It has been proven that babies can recognize their parent’s voices, which creates a sense of familiarity postpartum. Babies that have been sung to in utero frequently sleep easier than babies with no prenatal stimulation, as the parent’s voice is comforting.
Use moderation when stimulating your baby. You can overwhelm the fetus by playing music too frequently. Take your own feelings into consideration.
If you’re tired of hearing the same song over and over, your baby might be tired of it too. Make bonding a special time for you and your baby.
About the Author:
Sounds of a traditional drumbeat can be soothing for a mother and her baby. X8 Drums offers a collection of drum rhythm cd’s ranging from beats of the cajon drum, conga drum, bongos and the djembe.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Music For Babies in the Womb
Dolphins Chillout – (music for babies-pregnancy)
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