Parents should sing and talk to even the youngest infants,
because the auditory stimulation is crucial to how well a
child develops thinking and language skills.
Listening to music helps children develop emotional
sensitivity, develop an ear for music, and to feel and
express music rhythmically. Recent research indicates that
listening to music also helps a child learn to detect and
relate to sequences of auditory patterns which is an
important basis for math skills.
Singing does even more. Singing helps develop the brain,
self expression, correct tempo, rhythm, and pitch, musical
creativity, and a sense of harmony. Children also learn from
the messages given in the lyrics of a song and when they
sing the song themselves, they learn the message even
better.
Children also develop memory, vocabulary and listening
skills, because in order for a child to learn the new words
in a song, he must listen carefully and remember all the
words in their correct sequence and how they blend in with
the tune.
"Nonsense" songs, though they might seem trivial to adults,
nevertheless, are important exercises in relating to the
sounds of letter/vowel combinations. Children enjoy them not
because they are listening to the words but because they
enjoy hearing and repeating the unusual colorations of
sounds produced by the "nonsense" words.
When children sing together as a choir, they also develop
ear training and multi-tasking skills because as well as
learning to hear oneself, each singer needs to also listen
to the other members of the choir, and, if there are any,
the musical instruments and perhaps also to look at the
conductor and follow his guidance.
Music also develops important social skills, because when
someone sings in a chorus, he needs to blend in with other
people, adapt to their tempo, and subjugate himself to the
role he is playing in the choir.
It also develops the power and courage to express feeling
while with others, thus contributing to the emotional health
of the individual.
Singing has always played an important part in our serving
Hashem and through it, a person can access levels of
spirituality which are very hard to attain through any other
means.
[R' Zobin did not address himself to recorded music as
background, and here we would like to encourage the lower
decibel range so that it is subliminal rather than
obtrusive. Also -- sometimes just a Quiet Interlude can be
music to the ears. Also, singing always enhances a Shabbos
table.
Next week: More on Burn-Out]
