Raymond Scott / SOOTHING SOUNDS FOR BABY – VOL 1- 3

Sounds for Baby in 1963 using electronic devices such as the Ondioline, homemade rhythm and tone generators, and tape echo. This series of “aural toys” was designed for babies in three age groups (1-6 months, 6-12 months, and 12-18 months). The simple rhythms and melodies were intended to be pleasantly stimulating, while providing a quieting atmosphere of relaxation, warmth, and contentment. When Scott recorded Soothing Sounds for Baby in 1963, it was intended for infants—but history has endowed these deceptively simple works with broader significance. SSFB was intended to serve as an “aural toy” during the “feeding, teething, play, sleep and fretful periods” of infants in three age groups (to 18 months). SSFB was “pleasantly stimulating” and provided a “quieting” atmosphere of relaxation, warmth, and contentment. These same qualities were embodied in a music genre that emerged in the 1970s—the “Ambient” movement, for which Brian Eno’s Discreet Music (1975) is often cited as the cornerstone. Eno wrote that Ambient Music sought “to induce calm and a space to think. [It] must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular.” These concepts later mixed with dance beats, spawning ambient house, trance, techno, and trip-hop. Soothing Sounds for Baby pre-dated Discreet Music by over a decade.