The Music One-to-One project is developing ways of using music with parents/carers and their under-two-year-olds with particular emphasis on playful, communicative activities.
Listening to recorded music on CD or cassette with a baby can be enhanced by gentle movement of soft fabrics such as lengths of sari or nylon curtaining. If the fabric is transparent and light, the adults' faces can be seen through it and they can speak to their babies, which is reassuring for them. At first babies may have different reactions to lying on their backs with the fabric rising and falling above their faces. But with reassurance through a familiar song or a piece of music, it becomes both exciting and relaxing.
Tracey, a music One-to-One practitioner, suggested mothers laid their babies next to each other in a circle then put on a CD of new age, relaxing music. Holding the piece of transparent fabric, the mothers wafted it up and down together, above the babies. You can see a video clip of this activity in action if you visit the Music One-to-One website: www.education. ex.ac.uk/music-one2one.
Practitioners also give out smaller pieces of see-through fabric, or nylon scarves to use for games of Beepo! Here is a rhyme to recite, or perhaps you could sing to a made-up tune.
Where is Jason? I don't know, Pull the scarf down . . . BEEPO!
The parents and carers are encouraged to play the game several times, sometimes pulling the scarf off quickly with a surprise, others slowly, building up anticipation. Some babies and toddlers enjoy it on their own faces, some enjoy their mothers hiding their faces in the scarf.
