L. Trainor and colleagues showed infants as young as 6 months could be musically enculturated
Dr. musacchia's paper on how music shapes our brain's response to speech

definitions and links

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Gabriella Musacchia Ph.D.


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report on music as a major vehicle for cultural understanding 
United nations report on music as the international language
enculturatioN: learning the values and content of a culture
neuronal oscillations or "brain rhythms" are periodic like sound, and are driven by attention to rhythmic beats

Necessity is the mother of invention


Dr. Musacchia graduated from the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory in the Communication Sciences Department of Nortwestern University. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Audiology at University of the Pacific and a Research Scholar in the Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at Stanford University. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Save the Music Foundation and has published numerous peer reviewed publications on brain development, speech and music. Selected publication are to the right and Dr. Musacchia's Publons page is here.


In 2010, Dr. Gabriella Musacchia went on a search for an early music program for her infant son. Her own research experience with music neuroscience and a series of amazing articles on early music learning showed that infants as young as 6 months of age can be "enculturated"  to rhythms they heard most often.  Knowing this, she wanted to expose her baby to complex rhythms from different cultures to provide him a broad base of rhythmic experience. Music transmits culture in ways that other nonverbal arts can only partially do.  As we are becoming increasingly globalized, early exposure to other cultures can form the basis for enjoying cultural differences. While several music programs were available, none of them incorporated complex rhythms and interactive play to the degree that Dr. Musacchia was looking for.


So, in June of 2010, Dr. Musacchia started Baby Rhythms out of her home in Washington Heights, NY with a group of very special new moms from Jessica Shapley's mommy group. From there Dr. Musacchia conducted private sessions in New York and New Jersey by word of mouth for groups of parents and continued to develop the program. Currently, Baby Rhythms is at one of the premiere Culltural Institutions in New York, the 92 Street Y.  We at Baby Rhythms are delighted to bring our special brand of music education to the 92 Street Y families and be part of the incredibly talented staff and developers there. Featured below, is more on the science of early music.

usic expresses in transcendental ways what other nonverbal art forms can do only partially - See more at: http://www.unspecial.org/UNS707/t41.html#sthash.pnnKjxvx.dpuf
music expresses in transcendental ways what other nonverbal art forms can do only partially - See more at: http://www.unspecial.org/UNS707/t41.html#sthash.pnnKjxvx.dpuf


Scientifically, our brain rhythms have a unique set of harmonics that can be driven by rhythmic stimuli. Each of our brain areas "oscillate" at a particular rhythm. When we hear sound, it "resets" our brain according to the rhythmic beat of the sound.  Speech and language have a very complex rhythmic pattern.  Although you can't always clap your hands to it, the "rhythm" of speech hovers around 3 Hz, but has many complex rhythmic permutations.  Dr. Musacchia designed Baby Rhythms with this knowledge in mind, selecting songs from different cultures that engage complex neural oscillations in order to pave the way for learning the complex rhythm of language.