Rhythm… Some people have it and some people don’t, but why? Research suggests that your parents may be to blame, or thank, depending on which end of the spectrum you ended up.

In an article published by the Associated Press, research revealing that babies develop rhythm when they are bounced. The same went for singing to a child – researchers found that babies have the ability to already recognize melodies when they only a few months old.

Laurel Trainer was the first to study this relationship between movement and music using 16 seven month old infants to test her theories. Half of the infants in the study were bounced on beats two and four while the other half were bounced on beats one and three. The study found that the babies developed preferences for music with the patterns that they were bounced to.

Further study also showed that babies did not pick up rhythm by merely watching someone else – they had to be moved.

So what do you think? Do we develop our basic sense of rhythm and melody during our infancy?

[template id=”182″]

Published by Shannon Kennedy

Shannon Kennedy is a vocalist and saxophonist living in Southern California. She is author of "The Album Checklist" and the founder of Teen Jazz. She has been contributing articles to music magaizines and websites since 2004.