Transmisión cultural a través de la música

Cultural Transmission through Music

Marie Baeta: What is interesting is that not only does it help soothe infants, but it's also been shown that music reduces adult stress at the same time. Everyone can really enjoy these benefits. Singing with infants helps parents connect socially with their infants before they can even talk or interact back. It also reduces stress hormones, which is wonderful, and it triggers those feel-good chemicals known as "endorphins" for adults, which can be a really great tool to use for those challenging toddler behaviors.

Try singing. This works for caregivers too, anyone that's interacting with infants. Try a song. It probably won't make it worse. We can say that at least. [Laughs] These calming benefits extend to the infant, as well. Research looked at two groups of preterm infants. One group had experienced this live music and singing therapy with their parent, and the other group didn't receive this music therapy.

What they found is that the groups of infants that had this early music therapy, they saw all of these amazing effects. Their breathing rate stabilized, their oxygen saturation (how much oxygen they had in their blood) increased, and, overall, music had this relaxing and stabilizing effect on their behavior, their sleep patterns, and their vital signs, which is so helpful and powerful, especially for these little baby preterm infants. The research here is stacking up and stacking up how much music helps young children and helps us. Infants are also calmed more quickly with song than speech, especially to songs that they already know. Music is just this powerful tool for so, so, so many reasons.

Amelia Bachleda: In addition to all of these wonderful, magical effects of music on infants and toddlers, music and singing also plays an essential role in transmitting culture. Music and songs are part of every culture around the world, and singing with infants and toddlers is one important way that they can connect with the language and culture that they were born into.

Music plays an important role in creating that sense of community and connection with each other. Music brings together people in many ways. It could be active music engagement, like dancing, singing, drumming, and across societies, music is even associated with magical powers, medicine, and healing. Because many of these important roles play a role in our cultural identities, the transmission of songs from the older generations to younger generation is a foundational cultural practice.

Songs can often express wishes, desires, values, hopes, humor, and life lessons that are central to traditions and practices, as well. We're going to watch a short video here. This video is from the Blackfeet Early Childhood Head Start Center. As we watch this video, just pay attention to their interaction.

[Video begins]

Educator: [Singing in foreign language] You feel that? Hm? Yeah. Okay. Again. [Singing in foreign language] [Laughter] She's trying to ...

[Video ends] 

Amelia: We’d love to hear if you noticed anything between those interactions. There is so much that we were able to see here. You can really notice these – the nonverbal interaction between the caregiver and the child. The baby was bouncing along. She was really engaged with this caregiver. There was a rhythmic beat that they were sharing. They were engaged. In fact, the baby wanted to hear more. This caregiver, this elder sang the song again. Right, I’m seeing other things too, there. Continuing to sing. It's really calming. Baby was so engaged and calm. I think the baby knew that this was a really important song and experience and was really enjoying it and engaged.

This is just one example of why it's so important to connect with the families you serve and to learn what songs they sing to infants and toddlers and find ways to include those songs. Whether you collect a playlist of songs to play during group socializations, or you could think about having them record themselves, maybe even come in if they're able to, or talk to families during home visits – just find out what are the songs that they're already singing and the music that they love and find ways to incorporate those songs into your learning environment. 

Incorporating music is such an important way to support learning and children's culture and identity, as well. If you're wondering where to start, when you're talking with parents, you can think about asking them what their experience was like growing up and what might they want their child to know through or about music. This can really help you start to understand how music has played a role in their lives and how you can use music to help support their child’s learning and their goals for their child. Sharing music with infants and toddlers can also really be a wonderful way to help children learn the important languages in their lives.