Mothers and infants and communicative musicality

Abstract

Using music as a model, mother/infant vocalisations are examined using computer-based acoustic analysis. Past research is summarised which demonstrates the importance of both parties in the mother-infant dyad. Methods are then introduced for analysing pulse, quality and narrative in mother/infant vocalisations. These three elements comprise “communicative musicality”: those attributes of human communication, which are particularly exploited in music, that allow co-ordinated companionship to arise. The analysis of pulse is based on spectrographic analysis, and regular timing intervals are discovered that serve to co-ordinate the mother's and infant's joint vocalisations. Quality consists of both the pitch-contour of the vocalisations, and their timbre. Pitch plots are derived using software developed for this project using a constant Q spectral transform. I examine how the infant and mother structure their joint exploration of pitch space on the small and large scale. Timbre is measured with a variety of acoustic measures — tristimulus values, sharpness, roughness and width. It is found that the mother's voice changes its quality in response to the infant's. Narrative combines pulse and quality — it allows two persons to share a sense of passing time — and the musical companionship is examined that is created between a mother and her baby as she chants a nursery rhyme. It is concluded that communicative musicality is vital for companionable parent/infant communication.