Born musical: babies and young children

We are born as fully embodied musical beings. An infant’s first words are rhythmic. Bub bub bub bub bub. Dad dad dad dad dad.

A toddler’s first sing songy tune is renowned, (and funnily enough for the ones here with Western musical training, their tune is almost always a minor third sung on repeat).

Sing to yourself ‘nah na na nah na, you can’t catch me’. Or ‘I’m the king of the castle, you’re the dirty rascal’. When you read these words, I know you sang them in your head. I know we both sang the same tune. Not because that tune (a series of minor thirds on repeat) is taught to us, but because all children around the world sing that very tune when they play and sing.

It’s a tune that defies cultural bounds and language bounds - it’s a human tune, and we all sing it.

The truth is that our brain just loves a minor third on repeat. And without us ever having had to learn that fact, or even understand what it means, we still believe it because when we read “I’m the king of the castle”, we sang it in the universal tune.

New born babies are born with the capacity to analyse and enjoy music. Enjoying music from birth seems obvious, I mean, of course. But analysing music? From birth!

Usually anything to do with analysis is an executive function, but not so when it comes to music. A new born is fully equipped to know how a simple tune will move, how it will end. And then the good feeling comes from the dopamine we experience because the tune sounded the way it was meant to.

Cleverly we have sung these simple tunes to babies forever. We call them nursery rhymes, but these songs existed long before the words ‘nursery rhyme’ did.

When we sing a phrase like ‘twinkle twinkle little star’, our brain and our babies’ brain can make sense of how that melody moves, how it resolves, how it feels complete and good. It’s pleasing, it’s safe.

We would never sing a nursery rhyme to a baby at triple speed, with a surprise pitch in there that alters the direction of the melody and with a key change and a surprise ending. No. We always follow the unwritten rules of nursery rhyme when we sing to our little ones.

We always sing gently, repetitively, in a nursery rhyme style tune, at the pace of our resting heart rate. Always.

Brains love simple, repetitive melody the most. It requires no analysis because it just sounds right. It just makes sense.

Hot cross buns, hot cross buns. Three blind mice, see how they run.

There’s something about nursery rhymes that we can predict. They make sense. They always end in the way we predict they should end. And that means utter joy to a brain. Safety. Enjoyment. Connection between baby and singer. Everything good.

When our children are a little older, they sing to themselves, freely sing Happy Birthday or Christmas carols or funny kids songs. They’ll play any instrument they see. If there’s a piano in reach, they’ll play, likewise for a drum or a stringed instrument, despite ‘not knowing how to play’. They play!

This is one of the most potent and beautiful reminders that you do not need to know how to play an instrument to be musical. Playing it, is musical. Regardless of ‘knowing how to’ or not.

Then one day, at a certain age, most likely during their primary school era, children will come to a natural conclusion about whether they’re musical or not. This conclusion is based solely on what they have learnt from their culture around what ‘being musical’ means.

It comes from us.

Comments we’ve made, times we’ve restricted our own musical expression because we’re ‘no good at it’, music education that focuses on improvement rather than engagement, talent shows that humiliate singers for ‘being terrible’, comparisons, judgements and self denigration of our own musical capacities.

All of this messaging (and more) leads our young children to decide whether they are musical or not. All of a sudden they will go from fully embodied musical beings to either ‘musical’ or ‘not musical’.

Once we’ve categorised ourselves in either of these boxes, our musicality loses a little of its freedom. We are either destined to show up musically in a way that consistently meets external expectations and standards, or we are destined to not show up musically at all.

Neither option is ideal. One is constantly seeking, one is never seeking.

The true musical embodiment that we are born with is a wonder and a gift, and is inherent, and therefore requires no seeking. It just is. It’s beautiful and magical. Let’s honour little ones for the musicality they bring and nurture that for as long as we possibly can.

And also, can we just bear witness to those little ones and take lead from the way they music? Can we tinker on a piano when we walk past one? Can we dance when the music comes on, no matter where we are or who’s around us? Can we sing with confidence without a single thought to our pitch or quality of sound?

Maybe we can’t, maybe we can. But we can definitely try. Because the ‘trying’ is what our children will see, and that reshapes their culture, which changes everything about their own sense of musicality.

In fact, our trying will change their world.