A Singing Infant

Anna and I attended the Sunday worship service today in a church, close to our home. It was a recently renovated church with architectural elegance and creative design. It provided  a phenomenal acoustic quality to singing. There was much participation from the laity including women and the ambience was very conducive to worship. We felt inspired and touched by the service and returned home talking about this pleasant discovery of a congregation that we can belong to. 

Let me confess about a distraction that engaged me during the service. It was an infant, resting on his  mother's shoulder, staying silent without a whimper through out the 90 minutes of  the worship service . What was most fascinating was the movement of his head with the rhythm and tune of the music. There were five hymns sung during the service, out of which three of them had a fast beat. His mother was singing loud and hearing this he would turn to his mother's face, or to the organ or the choir stall in turn. When ever the chorus of the song was sung, his head movements and the swinging of his body corresponding to the tune was even more visible. He was absorbed in the music and looked alert and attentive. It was evident that his mother must be a natural singer as she did not need a hymn book to assist her. In all probability, he was used to listening to his mother singing to him. 

Infants are attentive to music and quieten themselves when they hear music or singing. This happens from the fourth month of age. This infant looked at least six months in age. The infants can appreciate rhythm, tune, and sound and to musical instruments. The hearing is mature by this age and the central processing of songs takes place at the parietal cortex, temporal cortex and frontal cortex. The ability to respond to music by clapping or moving the body in resonance to the the tune or show facial expressions can be noticed in some infants from the age of six months or earlier.

What was special about this baby was that he was quiet even during the rest of the service, when announcements were made or the message was preached. This suggests that he was a comforted child, who felt secure in his mother's arms.

Let me suggest that singing is perhaps the greatest service we can offer to any infant.  This facilitates development of attention, sound appreciation, stimulation of different parts of the cortex, processing and integration of tunes, sounds and rhythm, all required in producing speech. A baby is calmed by singing. The mother's voice in a song is reassuring to an infant. This makes the infant more temperamentally stable and adjusting. There is a bonding which music brings between a mother and her child as the infant can appreciate the smile, gladness and joy a mother communicates  while singing. I felt that this infant reflected all of these.

The presence of this infant added richness to our worship. Out of babes, God brings forth joy, peace and gladness. God of love was resident in his life. It would not have been appropriate to take a photograph during a worship service. So you have to imagine the scene.

M.C.Mathew.