Abstract
Listening preferences for two pieces, Prelude and Forlane from Le tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), were assessed in two experiments conducted with 8-month-old infants, using the Headturn Preference Procedure (HPP). Experiment 1 showed that infants, who have never heard the pieces, could clearly make a distinction between the Prelude and Forlane when the latter are played in multiple (i.e. orchestral) but not single (i.e. piano) timbres. In Experiment 2 infants were exposed repeatedly to one of the two piano pieces over a 10-day period. Concurrent with previous studies, results suggested that babies can recognize a familiar piece after a 2-week delay. Implications for early childhood music education are outlined at the end of the article.
Highlights
The world that surrounds the young infant is rich in sounds
We explored how infants respond to music that is a bit more sophisticated than the everyday repertoire that is commonly presented to young babies
Listening time scores were analyzed in a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Timbre (Piano vs. Orchestra) as a between-subjects variable and Piece (Forlane vs. Prelude) as a within-subjects variable
Summary
The world that surrounds the young infant is rich in sounds. The fetus responds to external auditory stimuli through body movement and changes in heartbeat (see Woodward et al, 1992). From the affective sounds of parental speech to the loving melodies of infant-directed singing, the young baby quickly learns to orient towards sound sources (see Trainor & Trehub, 1990) and to modulate his or her behavior to the melodic contours of parental speech (Fernald, 1989; Trainor, Austin, & Desjardins, 2000) and sung musical selections (Rock, Trainor, & Addison, 1998). It is clear that both music and language play important roles in early auditory development
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