- Lie flat on your back with your legs uncrossed and hands at your sides
- Focus on a point out in front of you, on the ceiling if possible
- Take a deep breath, fully expanding your belly and keeping your shoulders from tensing upwards
- Purse your lips like a fish and let out your breath with an "sss" sound directed towards the point in front of you, like it's coming from a slow leaky tire. Repeat 3-5 times
- Take a deep breath and as you let it out, make a VERY GENTLE "mmm" sound as though you're tasting something delicious, then spin the sound up and down as long as your breath lasts
- Do this 3-5 times (or more) before you get up and enjoy your day!
Friday, November 09, 2007
Morning Voice
To make your day go better, do this simple activity before getting out of bed.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Britain's Got Talent and Babies
"Britain's Got Talent" 2007 winner, Paul Potts, restored my faith in mankind!
Why?
This mobile phone salesman, whom Simon Cowell called "the underdog" of the competition, sang "Nessun Dorma" and won.
What's "Nessun Dorma?"
Opera, plain, simple and powerful! It's one of the Puccini arias that Pavarotti made famous during his celebrated career. (read about the Puccini Effect)
Even though the competition took place in June, I didn't hear about it until today when I watched a brief Oprah YouTube promotional video on which he briefly appeared. On YouTube alone, the videos of his audition and final competition triumphs have been seen well over 20,000,000 (yes, that's 20 million) times! More than Pavarotti's YouTube of the same aria, I might add.
Potts sang opera and Britain's pop music fans went wild!
But what does this have to do with babies?
As you already know from my previous post, Song in Your Womb, and according to research from academic circles, voice (singing and speech) training starts in the womb and continues throughout life.
The trouble is that most of the academic research never makes it to the general public, which is where it will do the most good.
One of my jobs with SingBabySing™ is to point out the research that can inspire and motivate parents (especially moms), childcare educators and providers to enhance the work they do in raising the babies of the world.
For example, on Friday I had lunch with Dr. Sheila Woodward, a wonderful researcher. You'll remember her from Song in Your Womb. She's the Interim Chair for the Early Childhood Music Education Department at the University of Southern California and sits on the board of the International Society of Music Education, amongst the many other things she does.
She's also the person who recorded sounds that babies hear inside their mothers' wombs and from those recordings discovered important information about language acquisition before birth. With her permission, I would like to quote from her article, "Musical Origins:"
Meanwhile, sing to your baby today, whether inside your womb or out!
You are the most important talent he/she will ever hear so...
let us help you give your baby your best!
Why?
This mobile phone salesman, whom Simon Cowell called "the underdog" of the competition, sang "Nessun Dorma" and won.
What's "Nessun Dorma?"
Opera, plain, simple and powerful! It's one of the Puccini arias that Pavarotti made famous during his celebrated career. (read about the Puccini Effect)
Even though the competition took place in June, I didn't hear about it until today when I watched a brief Oprah YouTube promotional video on which he briefly appeared. On YouTube alone, the videos of his audition and final competition triumphs have been seen well over 20,000,000 (yes, that's 20 million) times! More than Pavarotti's YouTube of the same aria, I might add.
Potts sang opera and Britain's pop music fans went wild!
But what does this have to do with babies?
As you already know from my previous post, Song in Your Womb, and according to research from academic circles, voice (singing and speech) training starts in the womb and continues throughout life.
The trouble is that most of the academic research never makes it to the general public, which is where it will do the most good.
One of my jobs with SingBabySing™ is to point out the research that can inspire and motivate parents (especially moms), childcare educators and providers to enhance the work they do in raising the babies of the world.
For example, on Friday I had lunch with Dr. Sheila Woodward, a wonderful researcher. You'll remember her from Song in Your Womb. She's the Interim Chair for the Early Childhood Music Education Department at the University of Southern California and sits on the board of the International Society of Music Education, amongst the many other things she does.
She's also the person who recorded sounds that babies hear inside their mothers' wombs and from those recordings discovered important information about language acquisition before birth. With her permission, I would like to quote from her article, "Musical Origins:"
"The acquisition of music and language skills requires the same cognitive auditory processes essential for speech development...the evidence of auditory discrimination, memory and learning which occurs from the fetal stage indicates the vital role which parents, caregivers and society should play in the provision of optimal sound environments from before birth."
"What a baby hears inside the womb will directly affect the way it speaks or sings later in life, so parents, educators and others should expose babies to the best possible sounds before birth."
Meanwhile, sing to your baby today, whether inside your womb or out!
You are the most important talent he/she will ever hear so...
let us help you give your baby your best!
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Song in Your Womb
I listened to a music education presentation at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles on Monday, October 29th and was totally blown away when Soili Perkiö, the Head of the Music Education Department at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, played a recording called "Womb Sounds" by Dr. Sheila Woodward from South Africa, who now teaches at the USC's Thornton School of Music.
In 1992, as part of her doctoral thesis, Dr. Woodward placed hydrophones (miniature microphones that work in liquids) inside the wombs of several pregnant women (with their permission, naturally) and recorded the sounds that babies hear inside that watery world.
Guess what those sounds are?
If a baby hears her mom's voice around 4-5 months during development inside the womb, and other research shows that this mommy voice highly impacts the baby's later language development (it does), then how much more important is it that moms everywhere be given the opportunity to learn how to use their voices to their fullest beauty and power so that their babies will get the best possible leg up in life!
Another amazing story that came from that conference was the story of El Sistema, the phenomenal music education program in Venezuela!
But more on that another time.
For now, I simply finish by saying that music and language education start in the womb, not (WOW!) after birth (WOW again!)
In 1992, as part of her doctoral thesis, Dr. Woodward placed hydrophones (miniature microphones that work in liquids) inside the wombs of several pregnant women (with their permission, naturally) and recorded the sounds that babies hear inside that watery world.
Guess what those sounds are?
- Mom's heartbeat
- Mom's voice
- Music that Mom plays
If a baby hears her mom's voice around 4-5 months during development inside the womb, and other research shows that this mommy voice highly impacts the baby's later language development (it does), then how much more important is it that moms everywhere be given the opportunity to learn how to use their voices to their fullest beauty and power so that their babies will get the best possible leg up in life!
Another amazing story that came from that conference was the story of El Sistema, the phenomenal music education program in Venezuela!
But more on that another time.
For now, I simply finish by saying that music and language education start in the womb, not (WOW!) after birth (WOW again!)
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