(some excerpts from Music and Your Child: A Guide for Parents and Caregivers)

This month’s blog entry features comments by Lili M. Levinowitz, Ph.D., Director of Research for Music Together. Along with her work at Music Together, Dr. Levinowitz is also a Professor of Music Education at Rowan University in New Jersey. She is an authority on early childhood music and teaches very young children as well as graduate students. Dr. Levinowitz’s articles appear frequently in professional journals and widely-circulated publications.

For a child “play begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” Children are born experts at it, and this magical process is absolutely necessary for them to teach themselves what they need to know about their world.

There are several important characteristics that qualify an activity as “play”:

• The activity is freely chosen.
• The child controls its flow and duration.
• It is intrinsically rewarding or done for its own sake.
• The activity is relatively free of externally imposed rules (in contrast to games).
• It needs to be moderately challenging in order to sustain interest, but not so hard as to cause frustration.
• It thrives best when undertaken in a relaxed setting.
• Most important of all, the activity must be fun!!!

Although children do take pride in the products of their play, the process or experience of play is the most important factor. That is, the main goal of play—simply having fun—does not require the presence of a product in the end.

The substance of play in very young children is usually made up of the environmental objects and experiences to which they have been exposed. In music play, the child teaches himself about the music of his culture by experimenting with the information he has gathered from his music environment. That is why the Music Together model interfaces so well with this wonderful learning process!

The class itself is a safe place where every child (and parent) is exposed to a rich music environment. Also built into every class is a continuous and even richer spiral of exposure to new musical elements, plus many opportunities for playful experimentation. In Music Together, the songs , chants, and class activities are purposefully chosen to challenge the child’s (and parents’) audiation (musical thinking process) and provide a rich “ear-food buffet” to act on in—and out!—of class. Research has shown a direct correspondence between the quality, quantity, and diversity of music stimulation and the extent to which a child’s audiation develops.

Although the Music Together class process supports safe playful interactions with the music and the class community, it is imperative that children take their experiences home and act on the information that has been gathered from the class music environment. Play that CD at home or in the car—share it with your whole family! How wonderful it is to see your child playing with parts of class by singing familiar songs or creating his own short songs. Celebrate when you hear her recite familiar chants or make up new ones about her play objects or experiences.  Join in when you see rhythmic movements that may resemble some of the movements from class. Get out that songbook and page through it while singing or dancing.

All the while you’ll be enhancing  your child’s musical development by supporting their playful interactions with the Music Together repertoire and processes. You might rediscover your delight in music making—if you haven’t found it already.

Lyn Ransom, D.M.A., is the recently-retired Director of Program Development at Music Together LLC and coauthor of Music Together Preschool. She helped to develop Music Together’s Babies Program in 1999 and was a curriculum writer for all of the Music Together song collections. In addition to 25 years’ experience teaching adults and young people to sing, Dr. Ransom developed the music program for High/Scope Foundation and served as a teacher trainer for Head Start and Follow Through. Author of Children as Music-makers, she has served on the music faculties at several universities, including Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Iowa State University, and Westminster Conservatory of Music at Rider University.

Last month, Dr. Ransom shared how she uses music to have beautiful days with her grandson. Now she’s back with some ideas for how you might decipher and support the musical sounds that your baby makes every day.

What is vocal development for an infant? What does vocal development look like? We all know the sound babies make—they cry. But actually, there’s a lot to notice about how your baby cries. Parents and caregivers can tell if the child wants attention, wants food, is hurt, is “play-acting,” or is bored.

If you’d enjoy some at-home research, you might try noticing if your baby cries around a certain pitch or cries higher or lower at particular times. You might even go try to match the pitch (note) of his or her cry to an instrument—a keyboard, xylophone, or guitar—just to give the crying pitch a name.

You can also notice whether the other types of crying and squealing are similar to or different from the hunger cry. My grandson Jackson shocks me with his high-pitched squeals—way up in high soprano land—but his basic cry is the E above middle C.

Beyond the dramatic sounds of almost crying and really crying, there is a huge repertoire to observe. 

• Crying when hungry
• Sound-making for pleasure: random and experimental at first, just like learning to grasp  *Sustained vowel sounds [aaah, eeee, or ooooo]
• Punctuations or staccato notes: short, accented sounds, not a sustained cry [ah!]
• Sustained dipthong: multiple vowels shifting from one to another  [aaaauuuu—eeee!]
• Squeals and swoops, most often from high pitch to low 
• Spit gurgles, usually when the baby is on his/her back
• Consonant-vowel combinations, a favorite personal “vocable”

Pitched sounds:

• Coos: long note on one or two sounds
• Giggles and giggle-singing: a huge gamut of high to low notes
• Resting tone after or during a song sung by caregivers (watch for this at 2 months)
• Pitches related to the resting tone: 5th note above it, 3rd note above it (2–3 months)
• Nonstop babble, with occasional sustained singing (often 8 months or later)

Your baby may make some of these sounds and others unique to him or her as well. Jackson has a unique sound when he starts to get hungry. He whines on a pitch and if I whine with him, he’s surprised and distracted and he likes the duet. I can buy myself a minute or two to get his bottle ready! If I don’t hurry, though, it turns into full-fledged crying, very loud—on that “E” pitch!

The order in which your baby experiments with these things is not important. That your baby PLAYS and experiments vocally is important. How can you help? Babble, coo, and giggle-sing with your baby. Try it and, before long, you might find you’re having as much fun as your infant.

The other way you can help is by providing a lot of music data for reception. You are the ones who can create an environment full of interesting sounds: singing, chanting, learning guitar, dancing to old favorites. You are the ones who provide the raw material for your child to hear, remember, categorize, and create with. You are the ones who let the child know that dancing, singing, reading, swimming, cooking, science, and nature are good and fun. Respond to your baby for any sound he makes—greet him with a similar sound, smile, look at his eyes, do something that you know your baby likes. (Jackson likes the bottoms of his feet rubbed.)

In Music Together class, you may have heard your teacher talk about reception and expression—two terms from the psychology of learning which can help us understand what’s involved as your child becomes a confident, competent music maker. Reception means receiving information and organizing it, integrating it with other information your child already knows. If you sing a familiar song like “Tingalayo” to her in a slightly different way, she’ll receive that information and add it to what she already knows about “Tingalayo.” Watch her eyes, legs, arms, eyebrows, etc., for her response to the song. At some point she may express to you her version of “Tingalayo,” which will let you peek into her musical memory as well as her sense of musical play.

I ran across a term in an old book, the New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, Mispronounced Words. The term was ear-minded:  being more aware or responsive to sound than sight, smell, etc. How perfect for babies! I hope you enjoy singing and moving with your ear-minded infant as he or she develops other life skills. What joy to have made it through your own childhood, then experience it anew through the eyes of your baby.

Lyn Ransom, D.M.A., is the recently-retired Director of Program Development at Music Together LLC and coauthor of Music Together Preschool. She helped to develop Music Together’s Babies Program in 1999 and was a curriculum writer for all of the Music Together song collections. In addition to 25 years’ experience teaching adults and young people to sing, Dr. Ransom developed the music program for High/Scope Foundation and served as a teacher trainer for Head Start and Follow Through. Author of Children as Music-makers, she has served on the music faculties at several universities, including Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Iowa State University, and Westminster Conservatory of Music at Rider University.

Four months ago, I became a grandmother and I was so thrilled that I offered to babysit Jackson Daniel one day a week. The first day, I got up early, drove an hour, and felt a little uneasy, but happy. It all went well until around 2:00; he still hadn’t fallen asleep and now he was crying—well, actually, howling. I tried feeding him, dancing with him, and rocking him, but he still howled. Finally, I decided to try out the Music Together precept of “accept and include,” so I went to the piano and found his crying pitch—the E above middle C. I tried singing with my mouth in the shape of his—making an “aaaaauugh” sound. Holding him in my right arm, I started playing some chords with my left hand and sang “aaugh.” In 30 seconds he was asleep. And he slept for two hours!

The next week when he squirmed and fussed, I tried the “Left-handed Lullaby” again for his afternoon nap, this time without the piano. I just rocked him and sang the “aaugh” tune with some simple words and he fell fast asleep:

Jackson will sleep, Jackson now sleep,
Jackson, Jackson, Oh Jackson go to sleep—
So Mommy can sleep, and Daddy can sleep . . . Jackson, go to sleep.

It was great fun visiting every week, because every week Jackson was different. At three months, he began looking in my direction when I sang, and glimmers of smiles began to break out on his face. When I sang peppy songs to him, his legs would flail up and down! When I stopped singing, his legs dropped down limply. I sang again and his feet beat the air! We had a half-hour singing conversation on “aaugh,” punctuated by happy legs.

Now at four months, Jackson’s legs still kick, and he has a full repertoire of facial expressions. He knits his eyebrows when I change songs—for example, from “Ride-O” to “Betty Martin.” One of his favorites is the “Green and Blue” chant: his eyes almost always brighten on “smells so green and skies so blue,” and he smiles on the “boing, boing” part, especially when I bounce my hand up and down on his body.

Jackson also seems to want to sing with me and talk to me. He imitates the shape of my mouth, he tenses up his body, he takes a big breath in, he screws up his face, and he acts like he’s going to make a sound—but nothing comes out. Then he gathers more energy, moves his mouth and face around, and suddenly—a sound comes out, then a string of sounds, and we have another song conversation! This trial-and-error approach is amazing to observe. Jackson’s motivation is so high, and his development is clearly in process. I can almost see his neural pathways being formed!

I’ve found that music helps me have a truly beautiful day with Jackson. Creating a song-filled day doesn’t take much planning, and it can turn a hectic moment into something special. To see a few more things I do that your baby or grandchild may also enjoy, see “Creating Beautiful Days with Your Baby” in the For Enrolled Families section of our website. And be sure to share your stories and ideas with us, too!

This month’s blog features comments from Carol Ann Blank. A board-certified music therapist and Level 1 Certified Music Together teacher, Carol Ann is responsible for developing training materials for implementing the Music Together program models for those teachers, center directors, and preschool program providers who work with children with special needs. In addition, she coordinates research for Music Together LLC and chairs the Special Needs Program Development Workgroup.

Carol Ann teaches Music Together classes for children with special needs in the Trenton, NJ, school district as well as at the Music Together Princeton Lab School. She is the Government Relations Chair for the Mid-Atlantic Region chapter of the American Music Therapy Association, is past-president of the New Jersey Association for Music Therapy, and owns Music Therapy Services of Central New Jersey. Contact Carol Ann at cblank@musictogether.com.

As a board-certified music therapist, I have worked with many families affected by autism. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects one in 110 children. But to say that it affects just the children is a misnomer. ASD affects whole families, often impacting how these families can relate to other families in their community.

Through my work as a music therapist, I have the unique opportunity to address children’s non-music goals through music therapy interventions that are specifically chosen with each child’s and family’s needs in mind. In addition, my work as a Music Together teacher has shown me that community-based music and movement experiences also serve a very important role in the lives of families of children with autism, as well as families of children with other types of special needs. It brings me such satisfaction to witness the joy and relief on a mom’s face when she hears her non-verbal child sing a song from start to finish for the first time, or sees her child playing a drum or dancing with scarves. These types of participatory, musical responses signify that music therapy is a wonderful way of reaching children who are non-verbal or who are typically withdrawn. 

One music therapy experience that I’ll never forget involved a little girl with autism named “Carly” (not her real name). Carly was so anxious, she did not speak to anyone outside of her immediate family. Knowing that she loved music and songs, Carly’s mother brought her to the Music Together Princeton Lab School for individual music therapy sessions with me. I used the current semester’s Music Together collection in our sessions so that we could sing familiar songs together. As soon as we started playing and singing, Carly’s anxiety lessened. The first time I heard her sing, I caught her mother’s eye and we both smiled. Carly had found her voice again! 

Recent brain research suggests that actively participating in music experiences benefits activity in all areas of the brain. In short, music learning supports all learning. While the types of music experiences that cause a child with autism to “light up” vary greatly from child to child, engaging in a discussion with therapists and families about the inclusive nature of community music-making is a first step.

Finding a community that accepts and includes all children in a family can be very challenging. I encourage everyone to be an advocate for active music-making environments that accept and include all children and adults, regardless of their developmental level or perceived musical ability. I further encourage everyone to be an advocate for awareness of autism and other developmental challenges and to be empathetic to the struggles inherent in raising and teaching children with disabilities.

For further information on treatments for ASD, see links on nutrition, occupational therapy, speech therapy, music therapy, applied behavior analysis, and Floortime.

This month’s blog entry features comments from Susan Darrow, Director of Educational Services at Music Together LLC. In this role and as a Teacher Trainer, Susan trains new Music Together teachers and develops and leads ongoing professional development workshops nationwide. She has been teaching Music Together classes for over fifteen years and was the founder of Music Together of Montclair, NJ. Susan holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Penn State University, an MA in Child Development from Bank Street College in New York, and Music Together Certification Level II.

When I first started teaching Music Together sixteen years ago, I remember trying to explain to my grandmother what my new job was. She seemed to grasp the general concept of a parent-child class that encourages family music-making, where participants learn new songs, play with percussion instruments, and carry on the music at home. But when she realized that I was talking about classes with infants and toddlers, she became clearly puzzled. How on earth do you teach music to a baby? 

Well, in truth, you can’t really “teach” music to a baby. But Music Together classes do offer young children the opportunity to absorb and “learn” music in much the same way they learn language. If you think about it, babies are not born with the ability to speak—they are born with the potential to speak. And it is only through prolonged exposure to language and opportunities for experimentation with sound-making that a child will acquire basic competence in language. The same is true for music-learning. When children are given varied and rich music experiences, they will develop what we call Basic Music Competence—the ability to sing in tune and move with accurate rhythm.

It’s particularly important for the parents and caregivers of infants to understand their role in supporting their baby’s music development in the same kinds of ways as they instinctively know how to support language development. When a baby first says “da-da,” a parent or caregiver typically reacts with lots of positive feedback and immediately echoes back “da-da!” This response reinforces the baby’s first attempts at speaking. Over time, through listening to people speak and trying to repeat what they hear (babbling), a baby will become fluent in language.

When a baby first “sings,” however, most parents don’t recognize it as singing—they mistake it for random cooing. And because of this, a baby’s first attempts at singing often occur without any reinforcement from the parent. In Music Together classes, parents and caregivers are taught to recognize and listen for these first attempts at singing, and they are then encouraged to echo those “noises,” whether or not they sound like real “singing.” Just as children naturally acquire fluency in language, they can also become fluent in music-making—naturally!

Through the encouragement and participation of parents and caregivers, even the youngest children can become active music-makers. Music Together classes simply provide the environment and support they need in order to learn. 

So, a music class for babies? You betcha!