Many research studies point to the link between music and cognitive development in babies from the time they are still in the womb to two years of age, when listening-based learning is at its peak. Newly launched music immersion program Nuryl (www.Nuryl.com) is the first and only customized music app designed to jump-start a baby’s cognitive development during this critical time of heightened brain plasticity. Classically-trained musician, music producer and former professor, Rick Beato created the program when his wife became pregnant with their first child, Dylan.
The Nuryl curriculum applies scientific insights about the power of music and its link to advanced math skills, foreign language aptitude, memory, and focus, to stimulate a baby’s brain development starting at the 5th month of pregnancy to the second year. The complex, unpredictable and melodic music immersion program offers original and carefully curated High Information Music, designed to simultaneously activate multiple regions of a baby’s brain to boost cognition. In addition to the musical complexity and unpredictable structure, parent-child interaction is key to the increased effectiveness of Nuryl and differentiates it from other programs. For example, bouncing, holding and tapping out the beat with baby is critical to the success of this one-of-a-kind platform.
One recent research study from the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) adds weight to the claim that playing music makes babies smarter. The study shows that a series of play sessions with music improved baby’s brain processing of both music and new speech sounds.
Beato, Nuryl’s co-founder and CEO, is a classically-trained musician, music producer and former professor who also happens to be a dad. When Rick’s wife, Nina, became pregnant with their first child, Rick wanted to play music for the baby. “I didn’t want to play just any music,” says Beato. “I wanted to expose Dylan to music that was highly complex, unpredictable, and melodic to see if it would sound normal to him. So, I created playlists of this very specific type of original music and played it for my yet-to-be-born baby every day. We kept doing it every day after Dylan was born until he was about two.”
At three, Dylan had perfect pitch, which only 1 in 10,000 people have. His hearing is so acute that he can identify notes in even the most complex chords. At four, he was playing Bach on the piano. At five, Dylan had memorized Pi to over 500 digits. Currently age nine, Dylan speaks three languages (including Mandarin and German). In addition to his foreign language aptitude, Dylan has highly advanced mathematical skills and exceptional memory capacity. In fact, Dylan has achieved social media fame with more than 40 million collective views of his viral videos and he is now known as the “World’s Greatest Ear.”