Lullaby Project

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The Lullaby Project is a nonprofit organization that seeks to preserve as many lullabies as possible from around the world. So far, Gerlach and Place have recorded more than 600 lullabies from 85 cultures. The project's first compact disc of international lullabies features songs from Polynesia, Eastern Europe and China, to name a few. But Place said he and Gerlach have recorded tunes about changing diapers, punk-rock lullabies and American Indian songs that sound like the wind and have no words.
Place said he thought he would find a common theme in the world's lullabies when he started the project, but that isn't the case.
Lullabies come in all forms, Place said, and one woman told him she still thinks of Ghost Riders in the Sky by Johnny Cash as a lullaby because her dad used to sing it to her before she went to sleep. "The baby doesn't care or know what the song is about," he said. "The baby just knows it's getting one-onone attention from someone it loves." Place said people have told them that their lullaby CD has helped children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Alzheimer's patients and people with Down syndrome. One veterinarian told Place he uses the CD to calm animals before he operates on them.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/39722.html

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What about cowboys singin' to calm the cattle?

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Ah, dys, ".....sound like the wind and have no words...." That is calming in itself.

How interesting that Place found no common theme. Each culture has a different intonation, I guess.

Here's my evaluation. If the "rocker and singer" is at peace and getting into what they intone, chant, or sing, then the child will feel that.

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Interesting project. I like it that lullabies can soothe people with Alzheimer's.

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What a perfectly lovely project for everyone.

I loved some of the remarks about the lullabies:

Quote:

Lullabies come in all forms, Place said, and one woman told him she still thinks of Ghost Riders in the Sky by Johnny Cash as a lullaby because her dad used to sing it to her before she went to sleep. "The baby doesn't care or know what the song is about," he said. "The baby just knows it's getting one-onone attention from someone it loves."

And this, sort of awful, but none-the-less calming, lullaby:

Quote:

One lullaby they recorded tells the baby that the singer will poke the baby's eyes out if he doesn't go to sleep, Gerlach said.

I used to sing everything from Brahm's Lullaby to rock and folk songs. They all worked. The rocking chair was another important factor, both for my babies and for myself.

A calm, loving voice seems to be the only universal characteristic of lullabies.

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I can't carry a tune in a peach basket, but I can drone babies to sleep.

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LOL Noddy, that sounds like my kind of singing. I guess as long as it's mommy, they don't really mind.

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Diane--

As long as it is a tough old broad radiating serenity, babies don't mind the droning.

That statement prompted a thought. I wonder whether lullabies help mothers especially nervous, harried, first-time mothers to calm down when they sing?

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Noddy, when I was writing my first post, I was remembering how relaxing it was in the rocking chair with a little head totally relaxed on my shoulder. I'm sure that is a time equally important for mothers as will as babies.

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I was thinking something similar, Noddy.

When sozlet was tiny and I'd walk her around to sleep, I'd walk/ bounce in time to "Tell the Truth" by Otis Redding. I'm not sure if I hummed it aloud or not, but it is what was going through my head.

I've found that it's precisely in time with our breathing as we sleep, and I can make myself (or sozlet, if she's laying next to me) go to sleep just by replaying it in my mind and focusing on it until my breathing is in sync.

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Soz, that sounds perfect for you and the sozlet. A kind of Zen process. Also, it connects to the relaxation experienced by both mother and child.

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Aha, I just found a great site called Mudcat Cafe. Under lullabies, there was a Scottish lullaby with some Norse history included (in blue).

CAN YOU SEW CUSHIONS

O can ye sew Cushions, and can ye sew Sheets,
And can ye sing balluloo when the bairn greets?
And hee and baw birdie, and hee and baw lamb,
And hee and baw birdie, my bonnie wee lamb.
Hee O, wee O, what wou'd I do wi' you?
Black's the life that I lead wi' you;
Monny O you, little for to gie you,
Hee O, wee O, what would I do wi' you.

SMM V (1796), 456 (no. 444), with music; supplied by Burns
[punctuation added]. Stenhouse, in his notes (394)
gives a second verse:

I've placed my cradle on yon holly top,
And aye as the wind blew, my cradle did rock;
O hush a ba, baby, O ba lilly loo,
And hee and ba, birdie, my bonnie wee dow.
Hee O! wee O!
What will I do wi' you, &c.

See Lucy Broadwood in FSJ (JFSS) no. 19 (V.2), 1915, p. 243,
identifying the air as = Crodh Chailein; and further, the
tune and the words of the chorus recall another Highland
song, "Oran Tlaidh an Eich-Uisge" ("Lullaby of the Water-
Horse") noted by Frances Tolmie in Skye (FSJ no. 16 [IV.3],
1911, 160):

The neighing refrain "Hee-o, wee-o," etc. ["Heigh O,
heugh O" in MacLeod-Boulton, Songs of the North, I.14-
15], in the English text seems quite pointless; but,
when compared with the Gaelic original, the grafting
together of the two Highland lullabies becomes clear and
the chorus invested with some importance, seeing that in
the Highland "Water-Horse" we have an ancient Norse
survival, and that the poor "Kelpie," neighing his child
to sleep, was the lonely husband of "brown-haired Morag"
who, homesick, fled, to live on dry land once more;
regardless of the tender lamentations of her forsaken
merman.@Scots @lullaby
filename[ CUSHION2
MS

http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=1057

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