What sounds make your little person laugh? For H-Bear, it’s Busby shouting “Come here you stinky scoundrel!” and chasing him around the house. It’s pushing the bedroom door open, me saying “Good morning little bear” and cuddles and kisses first thing. It’s the sound of the front door opening when Nick arrives home from work… the sprinting into his arms and laughing at tummy raspberries.
From such a poorly, sad baby, H-Bear has transformed into a happy little chap who loves to laugh! Dancing and spinning to music is a favourite for him; he puts so much determination into this activity, which usually ends with him plonking on his bottom and giggling.
Busby is trying to teach him how to bounce on the bed at the moment – which is both amusing to watch, but can also result in heart in-mouth moments when they get too close to the edge… Shrieks of “Be careful!” while they both giggle and start wrestling.
C&G baby club, with the help of Grammy-award winning musician Imogen Heap, have created a beautiful new song called The Happy Song. Imogen and a team of psychologists from Goldsmiths University have been researching the noises that make babies laugh and smile.
Parents across the UK were asked to the name the noises that make their little ones cheerful so they could be added to the track, which is released today on Spotify and SoundCloud. Top sounds include “Boo” (66%), raspberry (57%), sneezing (51%), animal sounds (23%) and baby laughter (28%), which are all featured in The Happy Song.
Imogen and the team created four test tracks to start – and the first person to hear these was Imogen’s 18 month old daughter, Scout. These test tracks explored different tempos, chord ranges and patterns, pitches, rhythms, performance cues and musical devices. However, more opinions were needed. The Goldsmiths team then carried out a three-month testing process at their infant laboratory during which they identified the ingredients to create the ultimate happy song for little ones. They monitored more than 50 babies’ reactions to the tracks, including monitoring movements, facial expressions, heart rate and vocalisations to see which parts of the song created a positive mood.
After three months of testing to create a final track most favoured by the babies, Imogen added the finishing touches and prepared the track for release. You can watch the composition process below in this rather adorable video:
And you can listen to the song here: www.soundofhappy.com
