My Music Baby

There is something unique about Tennyson when it comes to music. She always has music around her, whether I’m singing a good morning song, or playing a children’s CD (my husband’s fave!) in the car, or going to Kindermusik classes . . . she’s always been around it. We sing when we change diapers or get dressed, we sing when she gets a bath, or when she’s drinking a bottle. The more I think about it, I sing a lot to her. It’s something that is calming to her and she always seems to smile when we sing. Her favorite song for a long time has been, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”.

I can’t take any credit for what you are about to see, though, because she doesn’t do this when I sing! {Thank goodness!!}

We first noticed this around the time she was 15 months old. It was Christmas time and there was a Susan Boyle song on. Out of nowhere she started to cry. She was inconsolable. It was bazaar. She had never acted like that. It took us a few minutes to figure out why she was crying, but we eventually turned the music off and she stopped crying. We turned the music back on and she started crying again. We turned it off and she stopped. We sang the same song to her and she began crying again. We were really confused why Susan Boyle had made our daughter so emotional. And there always seems to be a lingering effect and if Tennyson hears a small piece of the song, hours later, she immediately returns to the emotional state she was in. {I also found it interesting that Susan Boyle endured a lack of sufficient oxygen during her birth as well.}

For awhile it was only Susan Boyle that could make her cry. Soon, it was commercials, American Idol singers (like Pia – the ballad singer, was a sure bet for tears), and most recently Adele. We showed our family and for the most part, she repeated what we had seen. But isn’t it “Baby Law” to make little liars out of parents when they want a baby to do something on command for someone else? Tennyson can get very excited when she hears songs like “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas and sad when she hears “Someone Like You” by Adele.

Some family members wanted to see a video of it, so my husband took this video:

After watching that video, some thought she had been swayed by my husband’s voice, so he took another video while Tennyson’s Nana was visiting. In order to show that no provoking of emotion had occurred, there was no talking allowed.

Here is the second video:

We mention it to doctors from time to time to see if they have any interest or can offer more information, but so far nobody seems to have any explanation. We have yet to meet anyone else who has a child that reacts in such an emotional way to music. Thought you all might find it interesting as well!

From our own research, we know that music can stimulate emotions in the brain. The Book “Musicophilia” by Oliver Sacks (a neurologist) was recommended to us when we mentioned this to an EEG technician while she was in the hospital for her seizures. It is a book all about music and the brain. Sacks writes, “While music can affect all of us – calm us, animate us, comfort us, thrill us, or serve to organize and synchronize us at work or play – it may be especially powerful and have great therapeutic potential for patients with a variety of neurological conditions.”

One thing you might find particularly interesting if you have a loved one who has dementia or Alzheimer’s is that, “the response to music is preserved, even when dementia is very advanced. Musical perception, musical sensibility, musical emotion, and musical memory can survive long after other forms of memory have disappeared. Music of the right kind can serve to orient and anchor a patient when almost nothing else can (Sacks, 2007).”

I would be interested to know if anyone reading has had similar sad emotional reactions with their child and music. Although we do not fully know Tennyson’s capabilities and limitations, we do know she responds to music differently than most children her age. She has really good taste and connects to emotional singers quickly. Whether she will be able to sing well or play music in the future is something we will have to wait and see (or hear).

E-mail me at tennsense@gmail.com with feedback or questions.

Amy