Posts Categorized: Babies

What’s Happening in Babies’ Brains During Music Experiences? Big Things!

Music Lights Up the Brain

Babies can be puzzling. They are little, they are squishy, and they seem to need help doing everything. And yet we know that huge development is happening on the inside, as their brains grow at an astronomical rate. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “What’s going on in there?” you’re not alone. We can help with… Read more »

Music + Your Baby: Talking or Singing?

Mother Changing Baby

Parents are sometimes surprised to hear that they can start Music Together® classes with their babies as soon after birth as they’d like. That’s because all children are born music-makers. Yes, your baby’s cries, coos, and squeals are also their first attempts at singing! How do babies go from “aahh!” to “do, re, mi”? Like… Read more »

First Notes: How Your Baby Responds to Music

Babies noisily make their grand entrances into this world. At first, all of those cries might not sound like music, but they’re really the first signs of a baby’s innate musicality. Just as they have to babble to develop language, babies have to “babble” in music to learn to sing. Little ones are born with a natural capacity to make music, whether they’re cooing, squealing, crying, or, eventually, giggling and babbling. Read More…

Infant Learning and Music

As a new faculty member at Iowa State University in the ‘80s, Sister Lorna Zemke was an important influence for me. Sister taught at Silver Lake College and was a pioneer in prenatal music development. I was fascinated by her program, which involved singing to babies in utero. She observed that newborns recognized their parents’… Read more »

A Music Class for Babies?

When I first started teaching Music Together nearly twenty 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… Read more »

The Power of Lullabies

When my daughter (a recent University of Pennsylvania graduate!) was born, one of my greatest pleasures in being a new mother was singing to her. I sang often: to amuse her, to distract her, to comfort her, and, frankly, to keep my own spirits up as I went about caring for this mysterious, wonderful, yet… Read more »