music your baby likes?

[kalidasa]

DS is six months old. I confess I was pretty sceptical about all the "every baby is naturally musical" stuff you hear but evidently I was wrong. Both DH and I are really taken aback by how much he loves listening to music, how carefully he attends to it and the way he (hilariously) "comments" at the end of each piece. All you parents who've been through this stage already, what did your baby particularly like listening to? I am moderately musical and we have a pretty average sort of couple-in-their-30s music collection, about half classical half not, but I am enthused now to try new stuff with him. We have had a difficult start (terrible pregnancy, bad PND) so I am really trying to focus on stuff we can enjoy together. Very grateful for any suggestions.

Mendelssohn's 'Songs Without Words' for piano. One very fast one was very popular with my DD at that age.

We have a lovely CD of Julian Lloyd Webber playing cello pieces accompanied by piano called 'Cradle Time' (many are lullabies)

Music by Handel and Vivaldi might go down well with their very regular metre and satisfying rhythms eg 'Arrival of the Queen of Sheba'.

Mozart's Piano Sonata in C, the 'facile'.

Don't know about enjoying this together as we got a bit sick of it, but my dd1 loved this song from about 6 months, we played it to her as part of her bedtime routine.

Ooh thank you both. Your list is great chocoluvva especially as I don't think we own any of these at the moment apart from some Handel and the Mozart.

I love the video squidgeberry. Definitely going to try that on him tonight.

I think babies like anything they hear again and again. So our babies liked Beastie Boys, Rufus Wainright, Radiohead...

You're definitely right. He loves the theme tune to "In the Night Garden"! (But I admit I rather like it too.) What surprises me is how interested he seems to be by new music as well. Good idea though to keep repeating things.

'In the Hall of the Mountain King' from the 'Peer Gynt Suite' by Greig.

Lots of the Hungarian Dances by Brahms are great to jump around to. Also similar by Dvorak. Orchestral/gypsy violin

Big band music is very accessible eg Glen Miller (In the Mood) springs to mind.

Villa-Lobos.

'The Elephant' from Carnival of the Animals is jolly and amusing (double bass).

Thank you chocoluvva. You are directly responsible for considerable expenditure on Amazon this morning!

Ashamed to say I don't think I have ever listened to any Villa-Lobos. Do you have any particular recommendations? I'm going to learn a lot anyway!

Assuming you have Tubby the Tuba, and Peter & the Wolf.
Perfect starting places .....

my dd loves guns n roses, the sex pistols and weirdly that dirty rascal "dirty stinking bass" song. she jiggles about on her bum and laughs everytime it comes on.

DS' favourite at that age was Ravel's Bolero. It is very special to me and by complete coincidence it was playing on hospital radio as he was born, and my dad bought me the CD after - I used to play it a lot and pat his back in time to the rhythm. :)

Both DCs like mostly classical really, partly due to having classic FM on a lot these days, partly due to DVDs like Little Einsteins, Barbie and the Nutcracker and Fantasia.

When I was pregnant with DD we went to a classical concert, she was kicking like mad during the William Tell Overture :o

My DD likes horror punk