Klarinet Archive - Posting 000201.txt from 2005/06
From: Tony Pay <tony_pay@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Bounced babies
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 04:22:09 -0400
--- Ormondtoby Montoya <ormo2ndtoby@-----.net> wrote:
> In classical performance, at least, toe tapping is discouraged. But I
> noticed a news item about a medical study which compared babies whose
> mothers 'bounced' their babies while singing to them vs. mothers who
> didn't. According to the study, the bounced babies developed a better
> sense of rhythm and stronger response to music. Presumably this is
> because multi-sensory is more effective.
Well, it wasn't quite that, was it?
What they did was play music with an ambiguous rhythm -- it could have been
thought of as a march or as a waltz -- and had the mothers bounce their babies
to it, either in 'march' rhythm or in 'waltz' rhythm.
Then they played the music again, and disambiguated it by adding either march
or waltz rhythms *in the music*. The listening babies were seen to pay more
attention (as judged by head movements towards different loudspeakers) to the
version that corresponded to the rhythm in which they had been bounced.
Crucially, this effect wasn't observed if the babies simply *saw* someone
moving in march or waltz rhythm instead of being bounced themselves in the
first part of the experiment.
So it's not just multisensory -- after all, vision is another sense. It shows
that there is a kinaesthetic component to rhythm perception.
But notice, not necessarily a *movement* component to rhythm perception. The
babies didn't tap their toes. Nor do we know from the experiment that their
later musical abilities were increased by the experience, though that's
obviously at least a plausible hypothesis.
> The usual statement is that adult brains lose most of their plasticity,
> and therefore toe-tapping has no permanent effect on an adult. But I
> wonder? Certainly I feel better about my own playing when I tap, but
> perhaps this is a deficiency on my part.
It may be that there is a 'time window' in early experience for very efficient
learning of rhythm, just as there is a time window for very efficient learning
of language. But adults can learn new languages, and presumably also therefore
rhythmic patterns, which are after all much simpler. That learning might even
be facilitated by being 'bounced', or some acceptable adult equivalent:-) -- it
would be interesting to try this out with adults whose sense of rhythm is
underdeveloped.
But there is in all of this no implication that you have to make the movements
yourself when you listen to or play the music.
Tony
Please reply to tony.p@-----.
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