Something I take very seriously, is giving my kids a good musical education. I want them to know their stuff, right from the start. It would be cruel to have them get to primary school without having heard anything but kids cd's.After some deliberation I decided that a good starting point was the 1950's, just a few years before The Beatles. The start of rock n' roll.
Little e is now pretty well versed on the 1950's -- Little Richard, The Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins etc. Her two stand out tracks thus far, the ones she requests the most, are these two little gems:
1. 'Kansas City' by Wilbert Harrison. Dorothy comes from Kansas. Therefore this song must be great.
2. 'Come Go With Me' by The Del-Vikings. Or, 'Dumb be Dumb', as Little e calls it.
Two fantastic songs. She has very good taste.
From there, we've been easing into The Beatles and The Beach Boys. She is pretty fond of The Beatles, and particularly likes 'Hey Jude' (partly because there's a Jude at church. So she can relate.)
I'm not sure where we are going to go next. I will need to consult my notes, and do some prep.
9 comments:
Love this post! Sam is determined to do the same for our kid. He has also been putting me through an 80s/90s rock education in preparation (compiled a CD for me). It's going pretty well...I think I've got Midnight Oil, G&R, Metallica and the like well under my belt.
Not sure what I'm going to do when our bub is no longer a newborn, because (and I have gotten into major trouble for saying this before, but here goes) I don't like kids music and...here it is...wait for it...I don't like Colin B.
But people tell me when you see your kids happy and dancing to the music, your affinity for the CD grows because its lovely to see them enjoy themselves. I'm hoping that's the case!!
But people tell me when you see your kids happy and dancing to the music, your affinity for the CD grows because its lovely to see them enjoy themselves.
Don't count on it Soph:)
I'm pretty much with you on kids music. It's slowly killing my soul.
oh no! don't tell me that! :)
I do have memories, though, of asking mum and dad to constantly replay this rather annoying kids CD my brothers and I were addicted to that featured a singing worm (that's all I remember). Those car trips must have been painful for my parents. Maybe this is payback!
Yeah, lots of parenthood seems to be payback!
I reckon a good idea (that I'm about to try)is to get all the kids cd's together, go through each song to seperate the wheat from the chaff. Then put the gooduns onto one or two cds.
A blank cd is 70 mins, so you can listen for a long time before hearing the same song. I've found kids cd's to be notoriously short-- you drive to the shops and get to hear the album thru 4 times!
Don't forget the classics. Our 10 y.o. had some going-to-sleep issues last year and we used orchestral music to great effect!
Our family is glad to be of service. :)
If you'd like our family to provide you with further inspiration, when singing "Hey Jude", we also often sing "Goodbye Charlie". A song written in the 60's performed by several artists - but Bobby Darin is particularly fun...
Not sure how good it is for sibling rivalry to sing both these songs. But right now Charlie thinks it's fun!
Wendy- Yeah, she's getting some classical input too, or what she calls her 'ballet music'.
mq2-It's all fun and games until Charlie realises the chilling overtones- that you're saying 'hey' to his brother and saying 'goodbye' to him. Ouch!
As a sax player I approve of the Dell-Vikings one. :-)
Hmm...I wonder if the Deltones were inspired in their name by these guys.
onlinesoph - I'm wondering either how old you are or where you were in the 80's and 90's.
Yeah that's a great little solo. I'm not a sax fan (sorry), but the way it was played in 50's rock n roll is great.
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