THOUGHTS ON LULLABIES
by Hugh Blumenfeld

Kinds and Uses of Lullabies

On becoming a father recently, I was struck by how few parents seem to sing to their infants and young children. In the hospital for two weeks, I didn't hear a single parent or nurse singing to a baby. It was strange, since our baby seemed to respond instantaneously to music, calming down as soon as I started singing to him. One night, walking the hall of the maternity ward at 1am, I finally heard singing. I followed the sound of the voice, a woman, softly singing in Spanish. As I passed the open door of her room, noticing the light was on, I couldn't help glancing in. It turned out to be the laundry room, and an aide was singing to the towels as she folded them.

Infants respond to music from the first hour they're born. Before they can see, they can hear and so, in a very real way, the rhythms of music give their world structure, the shapes of melody give it form. The sound of your voice makes you present, and your voice singing makes your presence continuous to them. Just as your hands hold their body, your voice holds their mind, gives the tiny hand of their attention something to grasp onto.

Lullabies are not just for putting babies to sleep. They are indispensable at the changing table or while giving medication. They help calm or distract a baby in distress, whether it's caused by pain, fear or just that vague anxiety that makes you say, over and over, "What's wrong, honey? What's the matter...?" Lullabies also help the singer. They can cure boredom during those long hours of feeding, they make the time pass. They even ease a parent's anxiety and fear. Anyone who's ever held a baby who's screaming and squirming and trying to throw it's head back in suicidal fury for no discernable reason knows the rising urge to call the doctor at 2AM or rush to the emergency room. If singing can mend parents' frayed nerves or help them wait out a crying jag without panicking, it will also calm babies who respond to our moods with unerring intuition.

During many late nights in the nursury, I found a whole treasury of lullabies in unexpected places. It turns out that many popular love songs are simply lullabies. You can find them among your favorite Tin Pan Alley classics, movie and Broadway musicals, and pop/rock songs. From James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James" and "Close Your Eyes" to Sting's "Fields of Gold," pop music is filled with songs that can calm children and help them sleep. These songs also have the advantage of not being cloying confections made for children. I've started a very short list below.

Almost any song, especially a love song, can be a lullaby if it's sung as one. Everyone knows that lullabies are soft and slow, but even The Who's "Pinball Wizard" and Nirvana's "All Apologies" can be sung this way. What's less obvious is how many lullabies are melancholy and sad. Many of the traditional songs used to put babies to sleep are set in minor keys and contemplate loss or tragedy. The classic example is "Rock-a-bye Baby," with it's "When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall/And down will come baby, cradle and all." Others, like "Motherless Child," are downright tragic. This trend of sadness in lullabies at first seems mysterious, but there are several explanations. For one thing, there seems to be something very natural about singing the minor third, the interval that defines the minor scale. Babies seem to gravitate to it instinctively when they start to vocalize. Being a half step smaller than a major third, it's easier to slide up and down to, perhaps contributing to the sense of relaxedness that lullabies give us. But the sad songs also acknowledge the sadness that both crying baby and comforter may be feeling. Like the blues, a sad lullaby gives us permission to feel sad. Maybe the honesty of it allows a deeper level of emotional connection. The connection between singer and child is, of course, part of the magic of singing lullabies. The singing takes both baby and singer outside, beyond themselves. Most lullaby lyrics are of the I/You variety; the singer of the song speaks directly to the listener. This is why so many love songs work as lullabies. This is also why prayers work as well.

Lullabies also often have melodies that themselves lilt and rock. They often rise quickly and slowly descend, like "Over the Rainbow" or "Someone to Watch Over Me." Others, like "Mockingbird," rise and fall with the regularity of breathing - or the ocean. Classical melodies, which you can hum, create more complicated surfaces. But as long as there's a surface, a continuous fabric of melody, then there's an imaginative landscape for you and a baby to escape to.

In the end, any song that makes you feel comfortable and safe will make the baby feel that way too. My wife, for instance, sings college songs like "On Wisconsin." A friend of mine sings his boys to sleep with Black Sabbath. If you can sing it a capella and fill in the gaps of the guitar solos with humming or nonsense words, it'll work.

How to Sing Lullabies

I think the thing that stops most people from singing is a self-consciousness about their voice. Too many have been told they have terrible voices; others simply think or claim their voices are bad. It's one of the saddest things I know about our culture. We measure ourselves against professional singers whose silver tones invade us through tv, radio, CD, even computer. Their professionally trained, electronically compiled and massaged voices easily convince us to let them do the singing. But having worked with children and adults in singing and songwriting workshops, I think that the fear of having a bad voice is only an excuse, a cover-up of the real reason, which is that singing makes us feel vulnerable. It uncovers and reveals our emotional state more completely than words alone ever can. But this is exactly why singing works to calm and comfort babies and children. The baby does not care how good your voice is. The only important thing is that it's your voice, that it's continuous, and that it's the truest, deepest you there is. Singing a lullaby is an act of unconditional love. For the duration of the song, there is no time, no space - no barrier between You and I. The world stops and narrows until it contains only you and the baby. Each of you is the other's universe (see Martin Buber's I/Thou). It is a spell that lasts as long as there is music to sustain it.

So, one of the first things to remember about singing lullabies - once you've gotten over your shyness about singing - is not to stop. You are weaving a spell, so whatever you do, don't let it end. When you get to the end of the song, begin again, or hum it, or begin another song. If you've reached the end of your repertoire - or your rope - just start making up words or songs. More how to do this later.

Another trick to singing lullabies is to alter the tempo. You can slow down the tempo of a fast song, but even slow songs can be gradually slowed, more and more, slower and slower..... One thing you can do is to try to match the baby's breathing. Leave space, start again when the baby inhales, trail off with an exhalation, wait, begin another line. Once your breathing is entrained together, then you can use your voice to modulate the baby's breathing, helping to make it regular, slowing it little by little. It's like biofeedback - as you match the baby, the baby senses this; then the baby matches you. You can also try to match the pitch of the baby's voice, whether it's crying, babbling or simply breathing. Another thing I've noticed is that it's often futile to try to calm a baby who's frantic by singing slowly and calmly; sometimes, you have to start in at the fast tempo and high energy of their wailing in order to get their attention, in order, perhaps, to acknowledge where they are. Once the mental-emotional link has been established, your voice alone can take the baby where you want to go. You can sing them down by singing some lines quickly with bounce (literally!) before slowing and calming; sometimes you have to repeat this, like tapping the brakes of a skidding car, or pulling up on the reins of a runaway horse until a new speed comes, and with it a new rhythm. This synching up and shifting down can be a subtle thing - but even if you're completely imagining it, it makes you more attuned to the baby's vital signs.

Making Up Lullabies - Why and How to do it.

One of the greatest - and most overlooked - pleasures of lullabies is making them up. There are plenty of good reasons to try to do it. First, it's a good way to keep going when you've run through every song you know and have sung each as many times as you can stand. Even if you have a repertoire of hundreds of songs, there are times when, with a sigh, you realize you are excruciatingly bored with every single song you know. It's also a good way to stay awake when you are exhausted and the baby is not. Making up words and melody keeps you alert, forces the gears to turn. It's also a way to communicate with your baby, to speak to her in a way she'll understand, even before the age of speech.

Anyone can make up lullabies. You don't have to be a musician or have any musical or poetic skill.

Here are a few techniques to try:

1. Make up new verses to a song you know. You can start with something easy like changing just a word or two. New outlandish verses to "Old MacDonald," sung very slowly, can work. Another easy method is to use analogs. Instead of "Twinkle twinkle little star," try "Sparkle sparkle big old moon..." You can also just use the melody.

2. Take a phrase you said spontaneously to the child as you were trying to calm them and start singing it. "Go to sleep now honey," "Baby, don't cry..." "Why you gonna make your daddy stay up all night?" Perhaps you're at your wit's end and you say "Will you cry and cry forever?" That would also work beautifully.

3. Sing books, especially books written in verse. If you read a lot to your baby, you'll find you know a frightening number of them by heart...

4. Sing nonsense. Complete and utter. I learned this technique streetsinging in Europe. It didn't matter what I sang, since no one in Barcelona or Munich or Delft understood a word I was saying. Neither does a baby. And often, as in a poem like Jabberwocky, or the Beatles' Obla-di, Obla-da, there's a divine sense in nonsense.

5. Sing the here and now. Look around the room and sing about what you see and hear. Sing about a toy, the view out the window, the adventures of two dolls, the history of the quilt.

6. Sing to babies about themselves. Their hands and fingers and eyes and toes. What they did today, how they got here, where they'll go tomorrow...

7. Travel in your mind. Sing about places you'd like to be, things you'd like to be doing. Take them on a trip.

8. Tell them things you know you won't be able to tell them later when they're old enough to understand and ignore you or be embarassed. You have a captive audience.

Techniques
1. Repetition: repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat....
2. Rhyme. Songs don't have to rhyme, they can simply wind and bend to your thoughts. Don't hem your imagination in. On the other hand, rhyme can be your friend. Singing "Sparkle sparkle big old moon...." forces you to come up with your next thought - may even help slow you down - "Why you have to go so soon?" "I will sing this little tune" "Like a yellow bass bassoon..." And so...
3. Embrace nonsense. Follow your stream of consciousness. Sleep and dreams are often compared to a river.
4. Melody. Singing is simply taking words or sounds and extending them with your breath, taking time and measuring it out. Even singing on one note is singing. If you're not sure what to do, sing on one note. Go up and then down. Go down and then up. Follow the movement of your rocking or dandling. Imagine shapes in your head, or trace them in the air with your hand, and then imitate them with your voice.

Sing. Whenever you're stumped, don't think: Sing.

I am available for workshops and presentations with parents and children throughout the Northeast.
mail@hughblumenfeld.com

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