Babies are tuned into rhythm

A study from Cornell in 2005 provides some fascinating insight into the musical and rhythmic talents of infants. Please send me your comments and questions regarding this article or anything about babies and music.

Baby has the beat but quickly loses the ability to detect alien rhythms, studies find

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Babies have us beat when it comes to picking up languages and distinguishing faces from foreign cultures. But babies also have the beat: Researchers at Cornell University and the University of Toronto find that babies also can recognize unfamiliar musical rhythms far more readily than adults can.
According to two recent studies, six-month-old babies can detect subtle variations in the complex rhythm patterns of Balkan folkdance tunes as easily as can adult Bulgarian and Macedonian U.S. immigrants. But other Western adults find it exceedingly difficult, said Erin Hannon, who receives her Cornell Ph.D. this August before she heads to Harvard University as an assistant professor.

Loretta Falco, University of Toronto, Mississauga
Erin Hannon, right, asks a mother to wear headphones playing music so that she won't influence her baby's behavior. The baby watches a cartoon paired with music on two monitors (one not shown). Hannon measures how long the baby looks at the cartoon paired with each type of music.
"But by the time babies are 12 months old, they much more closely resemble adults who are more sensitive to rhythms in their own culture's music than to rhythms in a foreign musical culture," said Hannon.
Her studies on how infants learn foreign musical rhythms more readily than adults are co-authored with University of Toronto's Sandra Trehub. Their first study, published in Psychological Science (Vol. 16:1, 2005), tested how well first- and second-generation Bulgarian and Macedonian immigrants as well as North American adults and 6-month-olds can perceive complex rhythmic patterns in Western and Balkan music. Their most recent study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Online Early Edition (Aug. 15-19), added 12-month-olds to the analysis.
Just as babies learn to tune in to the particular sounds that have meaning in their cultures, Hannon suspects that the developmental trajectory for learning musical rhythm is similar to that of language and speech.
Hannon and Trehub assessed infants' ability to detect complex rhythms by monitoring how long the babies stared at a cartoon; the same cartoon was always paired with two different versions of a song -- one version maintained the basic rhythm of the original song (which the babies heard previously), while the other disrupted it.
"If the infants showed greater interest in one of the two versions, it's because they detected a difference between the two," said Hannon, explaining that infant looking time has proven to be a reliable method to assess infant perception.
She said that infant brains are more flexible in processing different word sounds and speech patterns from a variety of speakers, and her research suggests that they also are more flexible than adults in categorizing different types of musical structures. "But it isn't long before they settle on those that are most common and meaningful to their cultures," she added. The state of the brain in adults, however, is much more stable, making it difficult for them to learn foreign languages, recognize faces from unfamiliar racial groups and also, the researchers find, to perceive rhythmic patterns in music foreign to their cultures.
"We actually shape and tune our perceptual processes in a manner that is specific to the music of our culture," Hannon said. "We showed that young infants, who have much less experience listening to music, lack these perceptual biases and thus respond to rhythmic structures that are both familiar and foreign. Although we know that young infants perceive speech in a manner that is language-general, our findings are unique and important in suggesting that the same is true for perception of musical rhythms."
Just as in the case of language, it is adaptive to learn about the structures in your own culture -- it makes you a better and more efficient animal, Hannon said. "Adults become less sensitive to foreign rhythms because they become more efficient at processing familiar rhythmic structures of their own culture (Western) -- this is natural and adaptive." Aug. 15, 2005

Can Babies Un-Ravel Classical Music?

Recently a study was done that tested infants ability to understand and remember some very complex classical music. This story was found on CNN: Canadian researchers say babies can remember complex classical music, even after a two week delay. Their findings were detailed at a recent meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.
"We have this idea that babies are maybe poor listeners, but in fact, they're not," said Beatriz Ilari of McGill University in Montreal.
For her study, Ilari, a violinist, music teacher and doctoral candidate, chose the "Prelude" and "Forlane" from "Le Tombeau de Couperin" by Maurice Ravel.
"First, because it's unusual," said Ilari. "It is a beautiful piece of music, also a piece that, for people who are trained in classical music, we know it's considered very complex," she said.
Researchers gave a Ravel CD to parents, either the "Prelude" or "Forlane." Parents were told to play that piece to their seven- to eight-month-old infants three times a day, for 10 days. The CDs were then collected. After two weeks of not hearing that music, babies were tested at a McGill laboratory.

This drawing shows how the babies were tested.

The test consisted of listening to 20-second excerpts of music, eight from the familiar piece mixed with eight from the unfamiliar one. During testing, the baby was seated comfortably on a parent's lap in a three-wall pegboard booth.
A red light was mounted on each side of the booth, to the left and right of the baby. One light would blink to attract the baby's attention. Once the baby looked at the light, a musical excerpt would come on through a loudspeaker hidden behind the light.
The excerpt would keep playing until the baby turned its head away, in another direction. Listening times were recorded for each excerpt and added up for each piece.
The researchers found that babies listened 20-30 percent longer to the music piece they had heard at home, compared to an unfamiliar piece.
Ilari says she knows the babies learned, because the same tests on a control group of infants who hadn't heard either piece of music showed those babies had no preference for either music selection.
One reason for the study, said the McGill scientists, is the constant questioning by parents about what music is appropriate for infants and children.
"There's this frenzy that the parents want their babies to be so smart," said Ilari.
But there's a lot more to music appreciation than just trying to expose a baby to the most complicated pieces with hopes of creating a musical prodigy.

Teacher Dawn Bell plays for a group of eight month olds at the Creme de la Creme day care center in Atlanta.

Parents are usually the first music educators a child has, and the bonding experience of listening together is at least as important as the type of music they choose. Whether it's Tchaikovsky or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," when parents enjoy something and they play it for their children, they make it more pleasant for the children, said Ilari.
She says she and her colleagues learned a lot more from the study than just the amount of time the babies spent listening to the classical selections.
"We had a lot of parents, many unfamiliar with classical music, say that they really liked Ravel," said Ilari. "They asked to keep it after the study, because it was helpful in putting their baby to sleep, or calming the baby at feeding time," she said.
Some parents who introduced music to their kids at very early ages say there are a wide range of benefits. Victor and Adele Ronchetti's ten year old son Victor picked up a violin at age four and hasn't put it down. He's now in a young artists program at the Juilliard School in New York.
"Listening to music is great," said Adele Ronchetti. "I think playing an instrument is terrific. It keeps you away from the television set. You never hear about anybody who plays the violin building a bomb in their basement. I mean, I think it keeps you on the right track socially, it builds your self esteem. I think it's good for so many things," she said.

Excellent Book on Music Therapy with Premature Infants

This week I ordered a book that looks great and is chock-full
of helpful and important information for the parent or friend of a Preemie or a Newborn.
The book is called "Music Therapy for Premature and Newborn Infants" and the author is Monika Nocker-Ribaupierre. Publisher is Barcelona publishers and I got it from Amazon.com. If you go to my site, www.HealingMusicEnterprises.com/amazon.html you can go directly to Amazon and search for this book which will come up immediately. I paid almost $25.00 for the book, but like I say, it is chock-full or helpful info.

Enjoy!

Alice

The "Baby-Whisperer" in Boston

In the city of Boston, Mass, lives a woman known as the "baby whisperer." Enny Wiederhold , an 81-year-old with curly brown hair and a confident gait, is a highly-valued volunteer and Brigham and Women's Hospital. The Boston Globe reports "Three times a week, she drives from her home in Winchester to the hospital, where she stays for hours, stroking and holding prematurely born babies so fragile they sometimes stay in the hospital for months after their birth. Her job is to lull babies to sleep when their parents cannot be there, because they work, have other children, or live far from the hospital.
It is a job Wiederhold took on more than 15 years ago, when she came to the hospital bored with retirement and eager to use the skills she honed over 15 years as a nurse, even if it meant working as a volunteer.
Doctors have long known that quieting and stroking a crying baby has powerful benefits for their health. When babies, especially premature ones, cry, they waste energy that otherwise can be used to build their young bodies. Cradling babies comforts them and helps quiet and lull them."

Add a lullaby to this and you have one happy, serene baby!

Lullabies for Animals??

The saga continues with the two stranded whales being led back to their home in the ocean. These creatures somehow got into a shipping lane in San Francisco Bay and have been hurt because of bumping into ships and boats. Scientists have tried playing recordings of whales feeding, mating, and even lullabies that they sing to their young. So far, no luck, but the work continues!

There is a theory that when babies are played music or sung to with the same melodies or tunes over and over, they become conditioned to feeling love and nurturance when they hear this music. All humans and probably most animals need to sing to their young and create this powerful association between sound and music with love, caring and nurturance!

Music in the NICU

When I was in NYC last week speaking to a hospital OB/GYN Grand Rounds, there was some discussion of the various ways music can be used in the NICU. Much of the research that has benn done in this area comes from FSU in Tallahassee and it appears that individual speakers or music delivery into each isolette is the norm. The smaller and frailer the infant, the more sensitive their ears are apt to be so the volume level and type of music must be chosen on an individual basis and then the staff must observe the infant's immediate and long-term reaction very carefully for any sign of discomfort or pain. That's the last thing we want to subject our tiniest patients to.

We also talked about the musical pacifier that plays ten seconds of a lullaby when the least amount of pressure is exerted on the nipple. This motivates the infant to suck more and harder, thus enabling them to suck better and gain weight faster. Very ingenious!

Generally speaking, lullabies or the mother softly singing is best. Stay tuned for my new ebook on "Music with Preemies" which should be coming out in the next few weeks! Have a great week-end!

Dr. Cash Speaks to OB-GYN Staff in NYC

Today I had the great pleasure of speaking at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. The staff there was warm and welcoming to me and received the information on music with pregnancy, preemies and newborns enthusiastically! My topic was "The Importance of Music with Pregnancy, Preemies, and Newborns." The residents, nurses, doctors, and guests asked great questions and shared personal stories that greatly enhanced the hour. I talked a little more than I expected to about the work of Jayne Standley and her musical pacifier which plays music when a preemie sucks on it, thus reinforcing the baby's desire to suck and resulting in faster weight gain and faster discharge from the NICU.

I'll write more about this in the days to come. Please feel free to write in your questions!