subject: How Listening To Music And Singing Benefit Your Baby [print this page] Hearing and feeling music at different tempo helps Baby develop a sense of timing and learn to comprehend language and music at different speeds.
Audiation is the ability to hear music when no musical sound is present. When you auditate you have internalized music and are "thinking" music. This activity has an invitation to audiate when the "tra la la" section is left out of the song. As the song becomes familiar, some babies may spontaneously fill in the blank. Regardless of the response, this is an opportunity to engage Baby's listening skills.
Singing new words to a familiar song is sometimes referred to as creating a "piggback" version of the song. Piggback songs can adopt almost any task or mode of play into a singing activity. One very popular piggyback tune, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, is also sung with the words to the Mother Goose rhyme, Baa, Baa, Blakc Sheep and the Alphabet Song. As Baby grows into a toddler you might have fun singing nonsense words, and as your toddle becomes a preschooler you can enjoy making up comical lyrics. Your use of piggyback songs will support Baby's musical exploration and language development.
Baby is first exposed to rhythm in the womb. She hears her mother's heartbeat and then, after birth, her own. African and Indian music traditions have brought syncopation and other rhythmic complexities to our ears, weaving these rhythms into current Western culture. Exposing Baby to this variety will develop her abilities to listen and produce these rhythms more easily as she grows.
In a round, one singer of group begins to sing a melody which is composed to harmonize with itself during upcoming phrases. At a designated point, a second singer or group begins to sing, starting at the beginning of the song and so on until all parts have entered. Each group will continue to sing their part, repeating the song numerous times, until the first singer or group ceases singing ending the song at an agreed number of repetitions. The next groups will consecutively end in the order in which they began.
