I remember it like it was yesterday -- the moment our son was born into the world, the doctor's hands placing him on my chest, stroking his warm little body, hearing the operatic yet driving beat of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy".... Yeah, that's right: my baby was born in the summer of 2006. We were listening to a playlist my husband had made in preparation for labor and delivery, and when we got to "Crazy" toward the end of my pushing phase I made him repeat it a few times; it filled me with the perfect blend of energy and joy and goofiness to power through. The doctor and nurse both commented that a lot of women brought in music more along the New Age and power ballad lines; I'm not sure what they thought of Gnarls, but I know it was the right choice for me.
We didn't pick it so it would be our child's first song, however. Apparently, though, that's what a lot of parents do, at least according to a recent story on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. In the piece, new parents talk about the thought they put into first introducing a song to their newborns; some of the choices featured include John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" and Bach's "Art of Fugue." All of which made me feel, upon reflection, pretty lowbrow. Should I have put my own love of modern, studio-produced, ecstatically referential pop music on hold and instead played pieces from the jazz and classical canon as my son was born?
Reading one of the articles that inspired the NPR piece put my mind to rest, at least a bit. Writing in the Boston Globe, Jeremy Eichler chronicles a year-long quest to understand the relationship between music and the infant mind. He starts by debunking the "Baby Mozart" idea that early and regular exposure to classical music somehow makes kids smarter; it turns out that any sounds that make us happy -- classical music, pop music, a mother singing -- can boost test performance. Claims that have more solid scientific backing are, not surprisingly, less overblown but more useful. It turns out, for instance, that babies are born with the aptitude to recognize and respond to more complex musical rhythms than are found in any one culture's music, and then lose the skill as they become accustomed to the more limited rhythmical possibilities of the music native to wherever they are raised. So frequent exposure to a variety of rhythm schemes is one way to keep a child's mind fresh and open to understanding rhythmical complexity. Overall, though, variety in and of itself is good -- a child raised on a mixed diet of musical styles will grow up to appreciate a wider range of music as an adult. Whether she'll admit to it when she's 13 is another matter.
What song or songs did you listen to while giving birth? Did you consciously prepare early musical selections for your baby? Have you seen any results (a taste for chamber music while his peers prefer Barney, for instance)?
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