The Desired Effect of Music On Child: Transform Him or Her Into
An Angel!
Posted by Joseph Browns
To get your kids to listen to child music is a powerful way to
enhance the time your kids play with toys. Perhaps you are
thinking of buying music to enhance your childs play space. You
might be asking: What music should I buy for my child? Hopefully
once youve read the following article, you can be much better
prepared to shop for your child. Not only will your money be
better spent, but youll see better results from your children
as well. We can look at this issue in three parts: 1) Music for
Young Child: The Why? 2) The Theory 3) The Practical
Application
1) Music for Young Child: The Why?
Imagine that your child has gone to the basement (or some play
room) to play with his or her toys. Often what the child will
hear is either silence or the noise of the toys An excellent way
to boost the quality of the play time of your child is to play
background music.
Anthropologist A. P. Merriam in his book The Anthropology of
Music says, "there is probably no other human cultural activity
which is so all-pervasive and which reaches into, shapes, and
often controls so much of human behavior.(*1)
What is he talking about here?
He is talking about the power of music on a person.
However, the effects of music on children are much more powerful
on children than for an adult. The reason is that children are
in their formative years, and therefore whatever music your
child is exposed to has a much more profound result than most
people would realize.
In todays world, we are bombarded by the media. Television,
movies, videos, and multimedia presentations are enhanced by
music. With music either as a main element or in the background,
the media know the power of music on people, including children.
You can never get silence anywhere nowadays, have you noticed?
-Bryan Ferry
So you can really shape a very big part of your childs world by
the music you play for him or her.
2) The Theory: How to select the Music for your child:
Theres been a lot of talk about the effect of music on
children. How to make children become smarter. How to make them
better listeners. How to get them to study better. And so on.
The music industry has turned this idea into a
multimillion-dollar industry, focusing the market on concerned
parents and educators who want the best for the children under
their wings.
The truth is that choosing good music for your child should not
be a rocket science. You dont have to rely on scientific
studies to justify your purchases. It boils down to
understanding some simply principles of music.
Lets take a closer, more fundamental look at music. In a very
basic sense, there are two parts to music:A) the notes and B)
the lyrics.
A) The Notes:
The musical note is defined here as found in dictionary.com: A
tone of definite pitch. Musical notes can be produced by
musical instruments, or any device that produces wordless sounds.
The effects of instrumental music (such as is found in classical
music) on children and their aptitudes and attitudes has been
under much study. Even back in the 1930s (Fendrick, 1937, as
cited in Koppelman & Imig, 1995)(*2), there were studies of the
effects of music on children. Recently, one of the better known
of these studies is the Mozart Effect. Much of the original
work was revealed in 1993, publicized by co-researcher Dr.
Gordon Shaw. It was a study on the effect of listening to music
that resulted in better exam scores. Other researchers, such as
Davidson and Powell (1986)(*3), showed the beneficial effects of
background music in classrooms.
But lets get one thing straight. Studies or no studies, it is
pretty clear that listening to music definitely does one thing
to a person: it affects the listener emotionally.
Music is the shorthand of emotion. -Leo Tolstoy
Go to any classical music or rock concert, and you will see
clearly that slow sad music will make a persons emotional state
turn towards the melancholy. Fast-paced happy music will bring a
person to a more cheerful state. So the formula would actually
be quite simple: state of music = state of mind. Children, being
the emotional sponges that they usually are, will pick up very
quickly on the state of the music being played to them.
B) The Lyrics:
The next thing to look at are the lyrics. Once again we can look
at the dictionary.com definition for our purposes: Of or
relating to a category of poetry that expresses subjective
thoughts and feelings, often in a songlike style or form. So
the lyrics are the words, and therefore most often than not the
message of the song. Words are very powerful in their effect on
listeners.
Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.
-Rita Dove
This goes right to the heart of what you want to expose your
kids to in the world of music. Ask yourself: what kind of
message do you want your kids to get? There are all kinds of
songs on the market.
There are songs about being good people, and that we should all
love one another. That we should learn to forgive and forget, to
treat your fellow neighbor kindly. That we should seek happiness
in healthy pursuits. That we should behave responsibly to one
another.....
There are also songs about cool (kid) pornography and sex,
hating your parents and teachers, or its cool to beat up other
kids. That its in to smoke dope, or experiment with this or
that drug. That its ok to cheat in school or on your
boyfriend/girlfriend......
What messages do you want your kids to have? So we can have
another formula here: nature of message = nature of
thinking/attitude. Once again, what do you want your kids to
have?
3) The Practical Application: The Notes and Lyrics, and the
Decision-Making Process
Having this in mind, it can become pretty clear how you can make
your decisions, as a parent, what kind of music do you want your
child to listen to. Based on what weve been looking at above,
we can look at the two fundamental questions that you can ask of
your own dear child:
Looking at musical notes: what state of mind do you want your
child to be in? To help you with your answers here are some
suggestions: happy, active: fast-paced, cheerful music (e.g.
lots of drums, cymbals) calm, focused: slower, more basso-based
music (e.g. pianos and cellos) sleepy: very slow, long, lyrical
music. (e.g. soft wind instruments such as flutes)
Looking at lyrics: what messages do you want your children to
receive? It would do well for you to do a bit of research and
find out what is being said by the singers or narrators
throughout the songs you are interested in buying for your
children. Here are some questions you can ask yourself: are
there any lyrical indications of: aggression or violence? (there
are many who say even one moment in an hour-long song is too
much) peace, love and sharing? the correct level of emotional
maturity for the child? (e.g. a song about the pains of divorce
might be too hard and confusing for a child of a happily married
couple)
Little 6-year-old Eddy loved that song. Over and over again he
listened to that song about the Eagles of Red Tree. It was a
fascinating song about Good Eagles and Bad Eagles, and how the
the Good Eagles fought against the Bad Eagles and tried to save
the world. Eddy loved the story, the songs, and the narratives.
But the part he remembered the most is when Dark Eagle came down
and swooped and took beautiful Anisella away, and killed her. It
troubled him somehow, but there was something mystical and
appealing about this. What Dark Eagle did, perhaps its just
part of life, perhaps not. Little Eddy wanted to be like Dark
Eagle, wouldnt that be so cool...?
And the scary thing about little Eddy is that unless he told
someone, NO ONE would have any clue as to what was going on in
his head.
So you must ask yourself: what kind of role model do you want
for your child? Setting up your child with good role models are
the best investment a parent can make. And on the other side,
badly made decisions based on short-term impulsive thinking can
have disastrous effects on children over the long term.
Bear in mind that because of todays technology, songs can be
played over and over again. The effect, naturally, is that
anything that enters the childs mind will have a profound
effect on his or her thinking and attitudes. In other words,
children can easily be brainwashed by what they hear over and
over again. Parents and educators need to consider the profound
effects that even one phrase or piece within in a song can have
on a child. Even more so entire songs with all their messages
need to be taken into consideration.
In making decisions on what kind of music to buy for your child,
wouldnt the two elements, the notes and the lyrics, when
properly thought out, help you make the right decisions for your
child for a very long time?
So as a conclusion, lets summarize the steps needed to help buy
the right music for your childs play time:
1) visualize the ideal scenario that you want for your childs
play time. Factor in mainly their energy levels and the time of
day. Some examples are:
a) Its just before bedtime, and you want your kids to calm down
and relax (soft melodious tunes) b) Its before supper, and your
children are tired. You want to give them a bit of an energy
booster to last them until later in the evening when it is their
bedtime. (lively upbeat tunes) c) Its the middle of the day,
and you want to grab their attention. (snappy fast-paced tunes)
2) What kid of messages do you want to expose to your child?
Examples:
a) Interpersonal relationships (e.g. love, sharing, etc.) b)
Coping strategies (e.g. how people have suffered, and then come
out of their suffering in honorable ways ) c) Religious or
belief-in-higher-power themes (e.g. faith and belief in God, New
Age)
3) Do you want your children to choose the music from a
selection that you have preslected for them? (The answer to this
is according to the degree of independence that the parent wants
to give to the child).
So.....before you buy any music for your child, listen to it.
Read the lyrics. Dont be afraid to explore. Go on the internet.
Often you can download free samples of music, to get an idea.
And then buy the music, and watch your children turn into
angels....
Warmly,
Joseph Browns, President Home Educational Toys
Devoted to Bringing Parents and Children Closer Together...In
The Home!
Footnotes: *1) A. P. Merriam, The Anthropology of Music
(Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1964), p. 218.
*2) Koppelman, D., & Imig, S. (1995). The Effect of Music on
Children's Writing Content. University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, VA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED
383 002).
*3) Davidson, C.W., & Powell, L.A. (1986). Effects of
easy-listening background music on the on-task-performance of
fifth-grade children. Journal of Educational Research, 80(1),
29-33.
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