BebéPlimPlim: A contribution to shared listening experiences

“BebéPlimPlim” is currently a part of the project “GermInArte – Artistic Transformation for Social and Human Development since Infancy”, supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Along with three other works from the project (“Colos de Música”, “Raps&Rimas” and “Super-Sonics”), it is designed as a transformative transitive training in the field of arts for infants for early childhood professionals, musicians and other artists. Transformative because it is build upon individual needs and motivations, shaping the capacity to express the art within each one and transitive because is always in process. Its main idea evolves around singing and movement as being born in the mother’s lap, the cradle of the first communicative interactions of a human being. “BebéPlimPlim” is therefore grounded in the concept of communicative musicality developed by Stephen Malloch and Colwyn Trevarthen, highlighting that Music is part of our communication matrix and it can also be present in musical artistic creations. The repertoire from “BebéPlimPlim” is inspired by different sound landscapes, from Johann Sebastian Bach, Meredith Monk, Kurt Schwiters and Hugo Balla to Portuguese folk music and Javanese gamelan. Its wide-ranging influences intend to contribute to the enrichment of listening experiences since infancy. The main goals of this training are to explore communicative resources using the body and the voice, to be able to use the repertoire in different educational settings, to share meaningful moments of musical interaction, and to contact with professionals who work in different early childhood contexts. The demonstration aims to share one possible experience built upon this specific musical repertoire. The activities are centred in listening, movement, vocal landscapes and human interaction. The implications to this work are to offer complementary educational and artistic perspectives not yet provided in our higher education training programmes for teachers and artists, and to develop processes of autonomy, initiative and reflexion within the context of musical creation for children. This work emphasises listening as a different possibility of connecting to music, and draws attention to sharing listening experiences as the basis of being human.