1 week Ago By Nell Frizzell
Your child does not have good taste in music . And if you think they do then, I’m afraid, you’re lying to yourself. As if to prove this point, my two month old daughter has become absolutely entranced by YouTube looped recordings of 1990s dial-up modems.
After trying out some beautifully-named “brown noise” on her during a particularly heady bout of PURPLE crying (Peak, Unexpected, Resisting soothing, Pain-like face, Long-lasting and in the Evening), the algorithm decided to serve me up a fuzzy, squawking, beepy slice of internet noise nostalgia. As the sounds of my 1998 family computer accessing BT internet blared out across our bedroom, this baby not only stopped crying but actually started to laugh. Those big, gurgling, musical laughs that pour gold into your soul.
Of course, I could have pretended that the same effect was achieved by Glenn Gould’s The Goldberg Variations , 1970s Al Green or Aphex Twin. But the truth is that my baby has no more hip appetite for noise than a Hoover. In fact, she would probably quite enjoy the sound of a Hoover, if I ever got round to using one.
Of course, music is a valuable layer in the great lasagne of childhood development and, by the by, one that has given my life some of its most passionate, inspiring and profound moments. According to Carlota Nelson, director of the documentary Brain Matters , writing for UNICEF : “Music makes a big difference to the baby brain.” She continues: “One study from the Institute of Learning and Brain Sciences detected that after babies listen to music, their auditory and prefrontal cortexes look different.
These are the regions of the brains in charge of processing both music and speech.” So, all that Bill Withers and Mozart and LCD Soundsystem I’ve been playing while my baby kicks away under some toys I’ve strung up between two chairs, may actually lead to a Pulitzer one day. Great news.
But my argument isn’t that music isn’t good for children – anything that combines the mathematical structures of pattern and form, with emotional expression and the fine motor function of playing instruments and dancing is obviously good for all bodies, including disabled and small ones. No, what I want to pick up on are those parents who try to pretend that their offspring have a genetic disposition towards good taste. Sorry friends, they don’t.
You’re kidding yourself. Children do not have good taste in music just as they don’t have good taste in food, clothes or films. All they have, perhaps, is an adult in their life who restricts what they consume.
A full-time domestic curator of content, if you will. The person who decides if their toys should be wooden or plastic; if their bedrooms should be greige or orange; if they should listen to Roald Dahl in the bath or Razorlight; if they should watch Bluey or online videos of people unwrapping mass-produced, single-use plastic toys with names like Brix or MegaDeathRodz; if they should eat peppers or Peperamis. Moving in the circles that I do, I have obviously known people who gave birth to the sound of Brian Eno, or who swear blind that their toddlers love Chaka Khan , and perhaps they do.
But when someone gleefully starts to tell me about their child’s love of precisely the same comics, bands, comedians and colours that they themselves enjoy, I can’t help but wonder if they’ve slipped into seeing that child as an adjunct to their personality rather than an individual unto themselves. My children will, no doubt, love many of the things I hate and hate many of the things I love until I am no longer able to fight my corner. That is their right and my privilege.
In a funny way, I’m sort of excited to see what further godawful shit they bring into my life. It reminds me of the summer holiday my friend Alice spent being driven round Ireland by her lovely, Christian, peaceful parents as Doggystyle by Snoop Dogg played out over the car stereo, at the insistence of their four children. What a brilliant and beautiful image.
What an act of love. Anyway, as well as the 1990s modem soundtrack, my son has spent this week playing “Hot Cross Buns” on the recorder. So bring on the sweet relief of tinnitus and spare a thought for my neighbours.
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