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The Desired Effect Of Music On Child
By Joseph Browns, Fri Dec 9th
To get your kids to listen to child music is a powerful way toenhance the time your kids play with toys. Perhaps you arethinking of buying music to enhance your child’s play space. Youmight be asking: What music should I buy for my child? Hopefullyonce you’ve read the following article, you can be much betterprepared to shop for your child. Not only will your money bebetter spent, but you’ll see better results from your childrenas well. We can look at this issue in three parts: 1) Music forYoung Child: The “Why?” 2) The Theory 3) The PracticalApplication 1) Music for Young Child: The “Why?” Imagine that your child has gone to the basement (or some playroom) to play with his or her toys. Often what the child willhear is either silence or the noise of the toys An excellent wayto boost the quality of the play time of your child is to playbackground music.
Anthropologist A. P. Merriam in his book The Anthropology ofMusic says, "there is probably no other human cultural activitywhich is so all-pervasive and which reaches into, shapes, andoften 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 powerfulon children than for an adult. The reason is that children arein their formative years, and therefore whatever music yourchild is exposed to has a much more profound result than mostpeople would realize. In today’s world, we are bombarded by the media. Television,movies, videos, and multimedia presentations are enhanced bymusic. 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 child’s world bythe music you play for him or her. 2) The Theory: How to select the Music for your child: There’s been a lot of talk about the effect of music onchildren. How to make children become smarter. How to make thembetter listeners. How to get them to study better. And so on.The music industry has turned this idea into amultimillion-dollar industry, focusing the market on concernedparents and educators who want the best for the children undertheir wings. The truth is that choosing good music for your child should notbe a rocket science. You don’t have to rely on scientificstudies to justify your purchases. It boils down tounderstanding some simply principles of music. Let’s take a closer, more fundamental look at music. In a verybasic 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: “Atone of definite pitch.” Musical notes can be produced bymusical instruments, or any device that produces wordless sounds. The effects of instrumental music (such as is found in classicalmusic) on children and their aptitudes and attitudes has beenunder much study. Even back in the 1930’s (Fendrick, 1937, ascited in Koppelman & Imig, 1995)(*2), there were studies of theeffects of music on children. Recently, one of the better knownof these studies is “the Mozart Effect”. Much of the originalwork was revealed in 1993, publicized by co-researcher Dr.Gordon Shaw. It was a study on the effect of listening to musicthat resulted in better exam scores. Other researchers, such asDavidson and Powell (1986)(*3), showed the beneficial effects ofbackground music in classrooms. But let’s get one thing straight. Studies or no studies, it ispretty clear that listening to music definitely does one thingto 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 seeclearly that slow sad music will make a person’s emotional stateturn towards the melancholy. Fast-paced happy music will bring aperson to a more cheerful state. So the formula would actuallybe quite simple: state of music = state of mind. Children, beingthe emotional “sponges” that they usually are, will pick up veryquickly 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 lookat the dictionary.com definition for our purposes: “Of orrelating to a category of poetry that expresses subjectivethoughts and feelings, often in a songlike style or form.” Sothe lyrics are the words, and therefore most often than not themessage of the song. Words are very powerful in their effect onlisteners. “Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”-Rita Dove This goes right to the heart of what you want to expose yourkids to in the world of music. Ask yourself: what kind ofmessage do you want your kids to get? There are all kinds ofsongs on the market. There are songs about being good people, and that we should alllove one another. That we should learn to forgive and forget, totreat your fellow neighbor kindly. That we should seek happinessin healthy pursuits. That we should behave responsibly to oneanother..... There are also songs about cool (kid) pornography and sex,hating your parents and teachers, or it’s cool to beat up otherkids. That it’s “in” to smoke dope, or experiment with this orthat drug. That it’s “ok” to cheat in school or on yourboyfriend/girlfriend...... What messages do you want your kids to have? So we can haveanother formula here: nature of message = nature ofthinking/attitude. Once again,
what do you want your kids tohave? 3) The Practical Application: The Notes and Lyrics, and theDecision-Making Process Having this in mind, it can become pretty clear how you can makeyour decisions, as a parent, what kind of music do you want yourchild to listen to. Based on what we’ve been looking at above,we can look at the two fundamental questions that you can ask ofyour own dear child: Looking at musical notes: what state of mind do you want yourchild to be in? To help you with your answers here are somesuggestions: happy, active: fast-paced, cheerful music (e.g.lots of drums, cymbals) calm, focused: slower, more basso-basedmusic (e.g. pianos and cellos) sleepy: very slow, long, lyricalmusic. (e.g. soft wind instruments such as flutes) Looking at lyrics: what messages do you want your children toreceive? It would do well for you to do a bit of research andfind out what is being said by the singers or narratorsthroughout the songs you are interested in buying for yourchildren. Here are some questions you can ask yourself: arethere any lyrical indications of: aggression or violence? (thereare many who say even one moment in an hour-long song is toomuch) peace, love and sharing? the correct level of emotionalmaturity for the child? (e.g. a song about the pains of divorcemight be too hard and confusing for a child of a happily marriedcouple) Little 6-year-old Eddy loved that song. Over and over again helistened to that song about the Eagles of Red Tree. It was afascinating song about Good Eagles and Bad Eagles, and how thethe Good Eagles fought against the Bad Eagles and tried to savethe world. Eddy loved the story, the songs, and the narratives.But the part he remembered the most is when Dark Eagle came downand swooped and took beautiful Anisella away, and killed her. Ittroubled him somehow, but there was something mystical andappealing about this. What Dark Eagle did, perhaps it’s justpart of life, perhaps not. Little Eddy wanted to be like DarkEagle, wouldn’t that be so cool...? And the scary thing about little Eddy is that unless he toldsomeone, NO ONE would have any clue as to what was going on inhis head. So you must ask yourself: what kind of role model do you wantfor your child? Setting up your child with good role models arethe best investment a parent can make. And on the other side,badly made decisions based on short-term impulsive thinking canhave disastrous effects on children over the long term. Bear in mind that because of today’s technology, songs can beplayed over and over again. The effect, naturally, is thatanything that enters the child’s mind will have a profoundeffect on his or her thinking and attitudes. In other words,children can easily be “brainwashed” by what they hear over andover again. Parents and educators need to consider the profoundeffects that even one phrase or piece within in a song can haveon a child. Even more so entire songs with all their messagesneed to be taken into consideration. In making decisions on what kind of music to buy for your child,wouldn’t the two elements, the notes and the lyrics, whenproperly thought out, help you make the right decisions for yourchild for a very long time? So as a conclusion, let’s summarize the steps needed to help buythe right music for your child’s play time: 1) visualize the ideal scenario that you want for your child’splay time. Factor in mainly their energy levels and the time ofday. Some examples are: a) It’s just before bedtime, and you want your kids to calm downand relax (soft melodious tunes) b) It’s before supper, and yourchildren are tired. You want to give them a bit of an energybooster to last them until later in the evening when it is theirbedtime. (lively upbeat tunes) c) It’s 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 comeout of their suffering in honorable ways ) c) Religious orbelief-in-higher-power themes (e.g. faith and belief in God, NewAge) 3) Do you want your children to choose the music from aselection that you have preslected for them? (The answer to thisis according to the degree of independence that the parent wantsto give to the child). So.....before you buy any music for your child, listen to it.Read the lyrics. Don’t 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 intoangels.... Warmly, Joseph Browns, President Home Educational Toys Devoted to Bringing Parents and Children Closer Together...InThe 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 onChildren's Writing Content. University of Virginia,Charlottesville, VA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED383 002). *3) Davidson, C.W., & Powell, L.A. (1986). Effects ofeasy-listening background music on the on-task-performance offifth-grade children. Journal of Educational Research, 80(1),29-33.
About the author:Joseph Browns (http://www.home-educational-toys.com) wants toshare his experiences and expertise in how parents can findvaluable opportunities for quality time with children to acquirepriceless family memories. A total environment approach istaken, dealing with issues like educational toys, parent-childrelationships, environmental + interior design, health,communication skills, and child education.
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