The Everyday Musician

I recently read an article about a PBS special entitled The Music Instinct: Science & Song.    The article was written by Chuck Colson, and reads in part:

The footage was part of a recent PBS special, The Music Instinct: Science & Song. The program was an exploration of, among other things, music’s “biological, emotional and psychological impact on humans.”

Part of this “exploration” included how music affects babies. If we are, as some scientists believe, “wired for music,” then babies are ideal test subjects since their reactions are, by definition, instinctual.

Part of this research involved the effect of music on fetuses. While we knew that mothers often sing to their unborn children, we weren’t sure that the unborn child could hear them.

We are now. A segment of The Music Instinct featured Sheila C. Woodward of the University of Southern California, who has studied fetal responses to music. A camera and a microphone designed for underwater use were inserted into the uterus of a pregnant woman. And then Woodward sang.

The hydrophone picked up two sounds: the “whooshing” of the uterine artery and the unmistakable sound of a woman singing a lullaby.

Then something extraordinary happened. Upon hearing the woman’s voice, the unborn child smiled.

It was one of those moments that makes you catch your breath. The full humanity of the fetus could not have been clearer if he had turned to the camera and winked.

This finding correlates well with my own pregnancy experience.  I took up playing electric bass when I was pregnant with my son Thomas.  At that time I was playing a semi-hollow viola bass which resonates quite fully.  That little gem sat squarely on my tummy, where Baby (we didn’t know he was a “he” at the time) was always (so it seemed) in motion.  At about 7-8 months, I noticed a distinct “groove” to his movements when I would play my bass.  When I told my daughter Mahala and son Aaron (ages 2 and 1 respectively), they immediately tested my assertion by tapping on my tummy.  Much to their delight, Baby tapped back.  It was amazing to see and feel these responses to music from such a very, very young musician.  He still has very good rhythm and pitch.

We adopted three of our children, and we’ve heard stories from other adoptive parents who could only soothe their fussy newborns by playing music that the babies were exposed to in utero.  In this way, some of those families came to appreciate genres of music that they had not been exposed to before.  We did not have that particular experience ourselves (we played a lot of music for our babies as well), but it also points out the power of music, even passively attended to.  Simply amazing.

ttfn,

Sherry