From Doug: Baby's First Playlist

We've discovered that our baby will be able to hear sounds while he's in the womb and that this starts around the 16th week of pregnancy. That puts this milestone in our little munchkin's development at right around the end of this month! When the little guy starts moving around and kicking his mama's belly, that will be great of course, but for me this one is even more special. I've heard that there is some evidence that supports that certain songs that become familiar to the baby while still in utero can be especially soothing in the early months after birth, and so I'll want to choose baby's first play list with some care because I may end up needing to play some music for him a lot in the next year!

I hope you are excited to see some pictures of Jenny with some earphones around her belly, because I certainly am. But since its a bit early in the game for that, this video will have to do. I'll have to work on this lick some, its a bit more funky than I can manage right now.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7uIG8KYhg&w=560&h=315]

After some thought, here are a few first songs and other pieces of music that I'll play for the little guy:

1. "Blue In Green" from Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. This is a slow, beautiful piece that was one of my first favorites and made me want to play the trumpet.


2. Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6. This is a bit of a long piece, so I don't know if Jenny would be willing to sit there long enough with the headphones on her belly to really make this one happen, but this is another personal favorite of mine. Tchaikovsky wrote lots of music that has become famous, including his most famous work, The Nutcracker. This whole symphony is just so sad that it makes me almost cry every time I hear it, and I'm not a big crier. (On that subject, Jenny has been getting a bit more hormonal recently--she cried at the end of a movie that I would have to say was about a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of sad movie endings. Yeah, it was sad, but it wasn't that sad.) This was the first piece of classical music I heard that really made me start writing and playing classical music. On top of that, I first heard this piece played by a youth orchestra, and the impression it made was even deeper because it was kids my age or just a bit older that were playing this incredible music.


3. One last pick. I want this little guy to hear some of the roots music that I love as well. Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene" is a favorite of mine. Leadbelly is famous for his haunting renditions of many American folks songs, but he was also a great singer of children's songs. I think its an appropriate children's song, after all, it only mentions suicide in one verse. : )


So, there's my list. Jenny says she'll take care of the "real music that real people really listen to" part of baby's education, which is just fine with me.