IZZY JUDD ON THE IMPORTANCE OF MUSIC
Music
has played a vital part in shaping the life of Izzy Judd. She studied violin at both Manchester’s Chetham’s School of Music and London’s Royal Academy of Music before joining electric string quartet Escala, who rose to fame when they reached the final of Britain’s Got Talent in 2008.
The 37-year-old mum of Lola, five, and Kit, four this month, is expecting her third child, a boy, in October – and says that music is equally important in her children’s lives.
“I’m teaching Lola the piano; she’s learning at school and she’s doing really well. I think she naturally likes to dance and move to music,” Izzy tells hello!.
“With Kit, I feel music has been the thing that kind of calms him down. He just loves music; I feel like it really runs through his blood. So I think it will be interesting to see what happens when they grow up. I’ll certainly encourage and do my best to give them the opportunities.”
It’s been widely suggested that listening to music during pregnancy can not only have a soothing, uplifting effect on the mother, it can also have a positive influence on the unborn baby.
Izzy says she loved playing a specific song
(Aurora’s cover of Oasis track Half the World Away) to the unborn Lola – a song that she then recognised after her birth.
“There was a song I used to play Lola a lot when I was pregnant with her. I remember this night when she was really crying after she was born – and I put on this music and she absolutely recognised it as it calmed her down. Even now she’ll ask me to sing the song.”
NOTEWORTHY BENEFITS
Izzy, whose husband Harry is the drummer in pop band McFly, believes music is very important for a child’s development.
“If you go into a career of music – or [even if] you don’t – it teaches you so many skills. Also, the foundation, whether that is discipline; knowing that if you work at something then you get results.
“There’s also this social element of playing with other people, making music with people and being able to work as a team. It’s more what music brings to a person that I want to give to my children.
“I would practise my violin before school – it was just as normal to me as brushing my teeth. I had never really felt pushed or made to do it; it was just a part of our family.”
There’s also no denying that music can have a beneficial effect on relaxation and stress management. “I think when you are playing music or making music, you are bringing in mindfulness,” she says. “You’re completely present in the moment of what you’re doing. Mindfulness is a technique to help with mental health and music can allow you that moment to just be focused and totally taken away into this different world.
“I was speaking to a neuroscientist who was saying that we’re of a generation now where we’re much more likely to consume music, and we listen to music, but we don’t necessarily make music as a family.
“Whereas traditionally in times gone by, we wouldn’t really worry about what your voice sounded like – you’d just sit around a piano and play music as a family.
“That’s really important for a child’s brain development and generally just for bonding within a family.
“Everyone is going to be faced with that scenario of needing to do something that makes us nervous or takes us out of that comfort zone. If you’re performing music as a child, it’s going to then develop those skills when you’re an adult, and give you confidence.”