Raising Musical Children - Can You Teach Your Unborn Baby Music?
By: Kathy Johnston
Submitted: 2010-08-23 14:38:05 | Word Count: 698
I remember how I felt about this when I was expecting my first child. I wanted to raise a musical child if I could. Even though I had earned a university degree in music, I wanted answers to the same question. Can you teach your unborn baby music?
At the time, it was popular for all expectant mothers to attend childbirth classes of some kind. In class, and certainly from the mothers of many of my private piano students, I learned motherly wisdom. Though it sounded strange to me at first, as I reflect on it now, it all made sense. It is not so much teaching your unborn baby music, as it is creating an environment where they can hear many types of music before they are born.
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What mothers and experts said then was that the unborn child in the womb can hear sounds at about 5 months gestation, when its ears begin to develop in the uterus. So, those of us who were inclined to do so spent time listening to music that we wanted our child to get to know after its birth. I am classically trained and happen to really like Dixieland jazz, and my husband preferred lots of country music back then, so that is what our children listened to while I was expecting them.
If you include my piano students' lessons and recitals, then you can imagine that over time my children heard all sorts of musical sounds even before they were born. As a choir director and church organist, my children heard my church music as well. I didn't really plan any of it. There were no organized womb music lessons. In fact, medical experts suggest that you avoid putting loud music close to your stomach. But, I was aware that musical sounds in my environment were an important part of the time my children spent in the womb.
There is no proof that the baby in the womb enjoys the music. It may just be annoyed, or startled from sleeping. No one can know for certain. But, lovely music and lullabies are soothing to us, so experts feel that they may be soothing to unborn babies also.
I knew without a doubt the importance of all this when I attended a local community performance of Handel's Messiah the Sunday before my daughter was born. I was listening to this great work of music, and though I was quite uncomfortable by this time in my pregnancy, I was enjoying the singing. Then came the great burst of mass choir, trumpets and tympani for the first time in the work. After over 100 measures of resting the timpanist plays full force and the trumpets are challenged to reach their highest notes. At that moment, I felt robust kicking inside my bouncing stomach. Five days later, my daughter was born.
Ten years later, I took my daughter to her first performance of the Messiah. With typical childlike impatience, she continuously interrupted the first parts. I, with typical motherly frustration, asked her to listen. As soon as the choir stood up to sing, she was hooked. When the trumpets and tympani first played she was totally sold. It was as if she knew this music somehow, though impossible to prove.
As an adult, my daughter earned her degree in music from the Royal College of Music in London. She plays French horn professionally. I tried to teach her piano, but it wasn't her instrument. But it's okay, really. We now attend Messiah performances together most every year. We have listened, we have sung at a sing-along Messiah, and we discuss Messiah recordings, too. Much has come from those first demanding kicks inside the womb. I encourage expectant parents to listen to lots of good music, because I know that the time in the womb is one of the best times for babies to hear lovely music.
