Lay your sleeping head!!!

If we dig deep the origin of diverse genres of music, we will observe that each of it stalked out from a certain situation. Game music which is the talk of the day is based on this situational music. From the times of Super Mario to the now trend Counterstrike –all use music in interactive settings. Music played in the health spas, poojas, marriages have specific variants to suit the situation and ambience. Daniel J Levitin, the musicologist and author of “This is your brain on Music” quotes that the foremost origin of music dates back to Darwin himself who believed that Music had been the situational mode of communiqué in all human and paleohuman mating rituals.
Situational music makes use of the context of space or event to define characteristics of music and how people relate to it. Some musical works are created to allow contemplation and long periods of sustained listening. A classic exemplar to this simple criterion of situational music is Lullaby. It was originally designed as a composition intended to respite a child. A typical mind’s eye portrayal of the nativity of lullaby genre would be a person holding and swaying a baby, cajoling it in a sweet gentle tone; more of a monotone and mechanical than attention gathering.

Be it the telugu laali paatalu, tamizh thaalatu, kannada jojo haadu, hindi loriyan, the English versions of “Brahms’ Lullaby” all dole out the same rationale.
Ever wondered why lullabies quiet infants to sleep? Their constitution holds the key.
These musical pieces are constructed repetitive in nature. Since they form recurring rhyming patters, the brain will not have to exert much to recognize the sound and assimilate the pattern. The brain tunes to the lullaby track. The brain is convinced on its part that it is aware of what is being played at the milieu and this could probably induce nap since the brain is at rest. It is best proven by playing a song repeatedly, neednt be essentially of lullaby-nature to a child (preferably at bed time). The familiarity to the song affirms the above said logic and puts the baby to sleep.
“lu lu” “la la” “laa li” “jo jo” form the rich text of the lullaby vocabulary, the two syllable sounds which infacts can easily relate to. The use of this kind of music is so demanding that almost every mother across the prefectures would have composed/ learnt at least one lullaby for her child. The intention behind lullabies to lull child to slumber demands soothing gentle ragas, softly paced and are usual sung with many melismas.
Indian lullabies in ragas like Nelambari ,senchuruti have been scientifically proven to have received conditioned response .The swaras in these ragas are structured beautifully with melismatic techniques to induce a hypnotic trance in the listener. So the above said concept of repetitive nature alone doesn’t suffice, but a soothing tune/tone in lullaby is preferred to promote sleep over hard rock and tough beats.
Lullaby has many other benefits to offer too .At the age of infancy the innocent minds cannot capture and appreciate the libretto of the lullaby. But as familiarity breeds, the little minds would seek to get deep into the niceties of the music they are acquainted with. This is where lullaby works as a civilizing interface between the veteran parents and the naive children. One can instill their cultural values, narrate the child traditional stories through lullabies. Also through this simple music genre, sound recognition in children develops well.

At the end of the day, the question still remains unanswered .Though we have happily coined out the term “situational music”-It still remains an unsolved mystery “Did situation define music, or did music transform the situation?