Waaaaaay back in 1985, an article by D.J. Shetler appeared in the Music Educators Journal * which I did not see until today.
And I’m the one who is constantly looking for research about prenatal music and prenatal singing and its affects on the baby so that I can drill down the academic-speak for pregnant women and moms of all ages.
But this one slipped by me and it makes me wonder how many more are out there that need to be brought to light. It also makes me realize that my work will never be done, which is a good thing.
Anyhow, this is what I discovered.
Shetler wanted to find out what happened, if anything, to babies who were given what he called “systematic prenatal musical stimulation” before they were born. Basically, he wanted to see if there was any perceptible difference in music behaviors between the test group (pregnant women who used the prenatal music) and the control group (pregnant moms who did not use the prenatal music). His observation of these babies went on between birth and six years of age.
Here is what he did:
Worked with 16 babies and their parents
Some of the babies were given a rich diet of prenatal music stimulation and had a home environment that was also rich in music stimulation
The rest of the babies were not given the prenatal music but did have the rich musical home environment after birth
In short, one group got the music before and after birth and the other group got the music only after birth
Once the babies were born, the parents brought them to Shetler to observe, at least every 60 days for 6 years
After birth, the babies (apparently all the babies in both groups) were given certain live and recorded sounds to listen to and played with what he called “sound toys,” which I think probably means xylophones or bells or some sort of keyboard, wind or rhythm instrument
At age 3 and up, the children (apparently all of them) also sang or played the piano or other instruments
He discussed developmental growth with all the moms and sometimes other family members
I am simply going to quote him to tell you what he found:
“The infants who received systematic prenatal musical stimulation exhibit “remarkable attention behaviors, imitate accurately sounds made by adults (including nonfamily members), and appear to structure vocalization much earlier than infants who did not have prenatal musical stimulation”
Wow! 25 years ago (and probably before that too) we had data available about the effects of prenatal music on the baby. And we are just now starting to really get this thing, or at least in this country. I’ve recently seen something about prenatal music concerts for pregnant women in Hong Kong and so it just makes me shake my head at this point. I suppose that is why I keep typing away on this blog!
For now, I will just say that there is something very important going on here with the prenatal music and prenatal singing connection to language and music development.
And I do mean VERY IMPORTANT, so don’t wait to give your baby music until after they are born. Do it now!
And here is a perfect place to start.
“If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace. – Gaston Bachelard
You’re a homeschooler or the parent of a homeschooler. You want to learn more about singing but haven’t been able to find the resources that you need to do so. That’s why I’m here, so let me tell you a little about my own homeschool experiences and why you’ve come to the right place for homeschool resources for learning to improve your singing and speaking voice.
My log cabin in Alaska was an amazing school room from which to teach my 3 children. There weren’t as many resources available as there are now for homeschool families, but I was resourceful. Every year, the public school district where we lived got rid of their old text books and all sorts of other education resources. Even their old school desks were up for grabs at the annual auction.
So I used to take my children with me to find everything I could possibly find that could benefit them. I also purchased other curricula, but we relied heavily on what the school district either gave away or auctioned off. I have to say that I felt like a kid in a candy store because it was so much fun and my children had the time of their lives picking out books and other items that interested them.
Those homeschooling days were amazing and I will be forever grateful that I had so much quality time with my children, teaching them to read, to think, to dream.
While I was raising my children (all have graduated from college), I also taught private voice lessons in our community and many of my students were homeschoolers. Before I moved from Alaska to live in California, I was also hired to travel around the state to give workshops to homeschool parents on the impact of music in early childhood development.
My teaching experiences in Alaska made me realize that very few people who live outside of large cities have access to voice teachers and that the internet would someday be a way to provide voice training services to them and when it happened, I wanted to be a person who could offer that training to homeschool families and others who might live in places where there is no voice teacher available.
Of course, that day has arrived, and I’m diligently working to make the dream come true. As a start, I’ve provided free online video lesson tips through YouTube and have had nearly 100,000 views of those videos from people all over the world, including Ireland, China, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Brunei, Sweden and many other places and here’s what they say about the lessons! Additionally, I continue to add new pages and articles to this site on a regular basis so that you, as a homeschool student or parent, can make use of the resources I gather.
And so, I encourage you to explore this site and utilize every bit of help you can get from it.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them on my Questions Page.
