THE MINI-MOZART EFFECT
First discovered in 1993, psychologists found that playing Mozart to their subjects increased their spatial-temporal reasoning. Recent research has also shown that it may help increase weight-gain in premature babies. Today Mozart's music is used in a variety of non-musical applications from healing clinics to the classroom.
Early musical stimulation is said to have benefits for infants pre-natally and within the first months of life. During the first three years, Babies who are held, talked to, sung to and exposed to music and stories form stronger neural connections in their brains, making them more able to handle higher-level thinking skills later in life.
The brain holds incredible tenacity of musical memory - we retain a great deal of the music we are exposed to in our Early Years.
The Lancashire Sinfonietta believes that if the music our babies hear is going to be "engraved" in their memory for the rest of their lives, it should be of the highest quality, performed by professional musicians from their own communities.
There is extensive evidence that very young children’s exposure to song and other types of music can help increase their vocabulary, achieve perfect pitch and, most importantly, nurture a closer relationship to their parents.
Read our latest Early Years article, featured in EYE.
