When my baby thinks of music, he thinks of hitting the garage door, slamming Tupperware on the floor, shaking cinnamon sticks in it’s container, and listening to his voice when he puts different cups to his face. Music to my baby is sound. And that makes sense, because sound is music.
By definition (English Oxford Dictionary), music is “vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.” To Lukas Amichai (my baby), and every other baby I’m sure, every single sound is an expression of emotion. His smile is a full, mouth-open, ear-to-ear vibrance every time he hears sounds, and sounds are EVERYWHERE! Even in the most quiet of circumstances, we can find some sort of noise, and to Lukas, that noise is music.
Being a music teacher, I have all sorts of percussion and pitch-based instruments that are “baby friendly,” but to be honest, one of Lukas’s favorite music makers is a homemade shaker consisting of an empty sprinkles container and some white beans. The sound is different than his beloved egg shaker and his not-so-beloved rattles.
Another favorite of my dumpling’s is the exploration of his voice. He puts different cups, containers, boxes, and anything he can find, over his face, and listens to the differences in how his voice sounds. He does this in the bath, walking around the house, and sitting contently on the floor. This is one of my favorites to watch him do, and this is music! He is essentially experimenting with music, using different inflections, different phonemes, and different devices to discover, compare and contrast frequencies and vibrations.
Basically, to my baby, any and every sound that he stumbles upon or is introduced to, is music. And he absolutely loves it. So the next time you’re in the kitchen and your little one needs a distraction, give them a wooden spoon and let them get their Mozart on. Let them bang on everything and explore every surface! And after they’ve mastered the wooden spoon, come on over to planet e studios for our Mommy & Me Group Music Class.