Are Lullabies Universal?
Marie Baeta: We know that babies are listening before they're born, and they pay attention to the rise and fall of speech patterns that they hear. But what about music? Singing to infants is universal in cultures around the world. Right? Caregivers do this for their babies. They might sing a lullaby to soothe their baby to sleep or to relax them. They might use play songs and more energetic songs to entertain them or distract them or singing rhymes with them to help them know what's happening next or entertain them, or help them wait during bathing or eating or diaper changes.
Amelia Bachleda: Totally. Yeah. There's something that just really feels right about singing to infants. When my kiddo was born, it was like this unconscious mode switch that happened. All of a sudden, I was singing all the time. Maybe it was to keep myself sane. Maybe it was to soothe them. But as it turns out, there may be a reason for this.
There's actually some evidence to suggest that infants prefer music, generally, over speech. There was a research study that's really interesting that looked at 6-to-9-month-old infants, and they played either speech sounds or music from a language that was unfamiliar to them. In this case, it was Turkish. What they found is that babies that were listening to the music, the Turkish song, remained calm in their parent's arms for an average of about nine minutes, which, if you're thinking about a little baby, that is a really long time.
The babies that were just listening to speech – about half as long, 4 or 5 minutes. This study really gives some credit to these practices that we have long known. I'm sure anyone who works with infants and babies knows that music really does soothe infants.
Marie: We know that around the world, people of all cultures sing with their babies. But how similar are these songs? Would you know that a lullaby from another language or culture that you don't know is meant for a baby? Researchers at Yale University were curious to know how well people could tell what kind of song they were listening to from a culture they didn't share. Right now, we're going to have a little fun quiz.
We're going to play some audio clips from music around the world, and you get to guess. Do you think it's (a) expressing love, (b) healing the sick, (c) a dancing song, or (d) a lullaby song? We're going to listen to an audio clip. There won’t be any visuals – the screen will go blank and you’ll hear the audio clip and then we will launch a poll and see what you have to think about it.
OK, we’re going to listen to our first clip. Stay tuned.
[Audio begins]
[Woman sings in language other than English]
[Audio ends]
OK. What do you think you just listened to? Was it a love song, a healing song, a dance song, a lullaby? Our results are coming in, it usually takes a minute for all of our respondees to come in. OK, let’s see. What do you all think?
So the majority of people think it’s a healing song, followed by a lullaby song, a little bit of love, maybe, and a dance song. Actually, the song is a lullaby. Congratulations to that 32 percent. It's a Samoan lullaby that you just listened to. OK, now we're going to listen to song number two. Keep these options in mind. Here we go.
[Audio begins]
[Men singing in language other than English]
[Rhythmic percussion plays]
[Audio ends]
OK, here comes the question: love song, healing song, dance song, lullaby song? What do you think?
Someone in the Q&A says “healing song.” Many people say healing. Some say lullaby. There we go. OK, about half of you all think healing song, and many of you say dance song.
But this is actually a love song from the Iwaidja people, indigenous to Northern Australia. We might be throwing you off a little bit here! We have one more music example to listen to, song number three.
[Audio begins]
[Woman singing in language other than English]
[Audio ends]
OK. Song number three – what do you think? What category does that feel like to you?
Some folks say healing, some folks are saying dance, we have a couple folks submitting. OK, let’s see what it says. Most folks think healing song, and then we’re kind of an even spread between love, dance, and lullaby.
That song is actually a lullaby from the Nyangatom people, a cultural group of Ethiopia and South Sudan.
It's kind of interesting when we hear and listen to music from other cultures that sometimes you're able to discern lullabies from other songs, and there might be qualities that we share between lullaby songs, even if it's from a culture you don't understand. If you'd like to listen to more examples and play this quiz, you should visit Dr. Mehr's website. It's themusiclab.org. It’s also included in your viewer’s guide as well. It's a really fun quiz to get your brain thinking and turning about how we recognize songs from different cultures.
¿Son universales las canciones de cuna? Escuche canciones de todas partes del mundo y trate de identificar qué canciones fueron compuestas para bebés. ¡Las respuestas podrán sorprenderlos! (video en inglés).
