I am prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt.
The double Grammy and 2010 Ivor Novello Award winner Imogen Heap has collaborated with others on producing a song designed and crafted to make babies, well, just happy.
‘The Happy Song’as it is aptly titled includes audio elements and sounds measured to produce happiness in infants and something about it must have struck a chord as just this week it has reached first place in the iTunes Children’s Music Song Charts.
The Happy Song is the first-ever song scientifically tested to makes babies happy.
BETC London an advertising agency, Goldsmiths psychologists Caspar Addyman and Lauren Stewart, and Felt Music all collaborated with Heap to produce the song.
The song was designed to be jolly, and thus, bring babies happiness.
1,000 parents also signed up to work on The Happy Song project. They named noises in a Cow & Gate baby club survey that made their own babies cheerful. As a result, only the most popular noises made it onto the track. Sneezing was first with 51%, baby laughter was second with 28%, and animal sounds took third at 23%. Strangely, aeroplane noises were also nominated and one of my personal favourites, the good old "boo" also made it into the mix.
As is to be expected and given my own parental experience of the short attention span of babies the Happy Song is not lengthy. It is in fact short, roughly around 2-and-a-half minutes in duration.
The idea is that it takes babies on a melodic journey of cute lyrics and funny sounds. They include going to the sky ,down to the ocean, on a bike, submarine, and even on a rocket.
In addition, the song also features a 4/4 tempo, chosen due to its immense popularity. Heap took the decision to compose the song in E flat as this was the first note her two-year old daughter, Scout, sang during the first studio session.
Here is the science bit.
The psychologists advised on the need to balance simplicity to create anticipation and surprise, making recommendations on melody and rhythmic flow as well as tempo, chords and pitch to prioritise elements that would put babies in the most positive mood.
One of the advertising agency Press Releases states that "the Sound of Happy project is one of the ways that the Cow and Gate Baby Club are exploring the world of happiness"
Music has been a strong theme of previous C&G work, notably the TV campaign featuring 90 toddlers in a Supergroup playing the classic Dexy's track of "Come on Eileen" .
The project was specifically designed to produce a song that felt like the best way to engage with parents. It has obviously helped that the campaign are giving the song out for free to make it even more accessible.
All I can say from my own parenting is that this may mark the sad end for Marmite sandwiches, a sandpit and Led Zeppelin's Greatest Hits in the lives of future generations of toddlers.
Sorry, but I can't be bothered to provide a link to the baby song.
No comments:
Post a Comment