“Where did that song come from?!”

STORY FROM A MOM

It’s been about a year since we played with “Here is the Beehive” in music class, but one three-year-old surprised her mom this summer and started chanting it in the backseat of the car. “Out of the blue, she started doing this,” her mom wrote to me in an email. Even though this preschooler’s parents do a lot of singing with their daughter, they’ve not chanted about those bees very much since last Fall; she simply unearthed it from her brain’s music archives all on her own. The music that children absorb early in life becomes a sort of “developmental playlist” that they can access when they’re ready — they spontaneously pull out songs from this list and sing/play with them to practice skills they’ve already mastered and explore new concepts that their developing brains are now ready to learn.

I see this in my own children, too. In my classes this Fall, as we do the Flute collection, we’ll be singing “Shake Those ‘Simmons Down.” That happens to be one song that my now-13-year-old has spontaneously sung over the years, often wondering out loud, “Where did that song come from?” Way back when he was a one-year-old, we did the Flute collection in our first semester of Music Together, so “Shake Those ‘Simmons…” was a song we listened to and sang over and over again. As a result, I like to think that he has a special section of his brain dedicated solely to this song (when he was about 7, he changed the words a bit and all of a sudden “Shake Those ‘Simmons…” became a gospel anthem).

You can help your child build her own playlist by exposing her to as much music as possible early in life — and while recorded music is lovely, it’s the live music that you make that will have the most impact (so go ahead and turn on your iPod…just sing along out loud!). One day, your child will pop out with a song seemingly from nowhere, and you’ll know that it’s been tucked away, waiting for that moment for your child to start making it her own.

“Me, me, me, me, little star…”

STORY FROM A MOM

This weekend I co-led a workshop on how children’s brains are wired to make music and how families can use music to deepen the bonds with their children. After the workshop, a mom pulled me aside to share this story: Her 3-1/2-year-old daughter just recently made up a singing game using “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” in which the daughter sings the first phrase on the syllable “me” (“Me, me, me, me, me, me, meeee”), then points at the mom, commanding her to sing the second phrase on another syllable (say, “La, la, la, la, la, la, laaaaa”), then the turn comes back to the daughter, who chooses a third syllable, and so on to the end of the song. The mom told me that they’ve been singing together as a family since her daughter was born, making up words to songs, inventing up goofy songs about diaper changing and dinner-making and the like. Given all the family music-making, it makes sense that this little girl comes up with her own ways of singing songs and, now that she’s getting older, her own song games. The mom was so happy to learn that she was instinctively doing “the right thing” musically with her daughter (and to hear me use the very grown-up word, “improvisation” to describe her child’s creative music-making–it’s a word that freaks out adults, but children do it all the time!).

TRY THIS AT HOME

Take any song that you know well (“Twinkle, Twinkle,” “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” “Happy Birthday”), drop the usual words, and put in your own syllables. Maybe you’ll sing “me” and “you,” or “yes” and “no,” or “hi” and “bye,” or just “la-la” or “dee-dee.” Oh sure, you’ll be modeling musical “improvisation,” but you’ll also be joining in your child’s way of learning by simply playing around with the music. One day, like the mom in this story, you’ll find your child taking the lead in her own music game, and you can play along knowing you’ve laid the groundwork for her independent music-making.

See the Molly Galloping, Galloping!

“See the Pony Galloping” is one of those all-time favorite Music Together songs that children will ask for again and again (and again!)…especially if you scoop your child onto your lap and bounce her up and down for the gallop, or if you gallop yourself around the living room while holding her in your arms. She’ll be having immense fun, and she’ll also be learning loads about music (if nothing else, this song is a waltz, so consider this early prep for the ballroom dancing lessons she’ll take before her wedding day).

TRY THIS AT HOME

Want to take this musical experience to the next level for your child? Swap out the word “pony” for her name (or his name, if you’ve got a boy, of course). “See the Molly galloping, galloping…,” or, “See Elizabeth galloping, galloping…,” or, “See the Mason galloping, galloping down the country lane.” And, if you’re lucky, they really will be all tired out at the end of the song (so you can take a much-needed break from all that galloping).

MT, Unplugged

Hurricane Sandy brought many challenges, including loss of power, loss of heat, and loss of sleep. But for some families, it also brought an opportunity to sing Music Together songs without the CD. I call it “MT, Unplugged” (sorry, MTV). Here are two of those stories.

STORY FROM A PIANO-PLAYING MOM

“Every night after dinner, we usually put on our Music Together CD and sing along–it helps fill those two ‘witching hours’ between dinner and bedtime. But with no power, we couldn’t play the CD. Then I realized, ‘I have the sheet music in the book!’ So, we lined candles along the piano (very dangerous!), and I played every song in the Fiddle book over and over again. We sang those songs for two hours every night, and it turned those hard evenings into happy family time.”

STORY FROM A MOM WHO DOESN’T PLAY PIANO!

“We have to play the Music Together CD multiple times every day–it’s the only thing that soothes my son when he’s cranky. When we lost power, I wondered what we were going to do! So then, I just started singing the songs. I’d look at the CD case and do the songs that I remembered (some of them, I couldn’t figure out from the title, so I just skipped those). We sang ‘Ram Sam Sam’ and ‘Sweet Potato’ and ‘Apples and Cherries’ over and over and over. My son loved it!”

The wonderful upshot is that the music means even more to these children now that their parents are singing the songs without the CD. The hurricane left a lot of disaster in its wake, so I’m grateful to have found some bits of silver lining that resulted in joy-filled moments and the rediscovery of home grown music-making. TRY THIS AT HOME: Don’t wait for a power outage–turn off the stereo, iPods, etc. and sing and dance to music on your own, unplugged!

“Shenandoah” vs. “Mad Men” (with a little Suzy Bogguss for good measure)

“Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you…” I’ve always wondered who the singer longed to see in this song. A person? A place? Some other kind of noun? It seems there’s no clear answer as to the intention of the song. Some say it’s about an Indian Chief’s daughter. Others say it’s about the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. What is certain is that by the 1880’s, “Shenandoah” had become a favorite song of river boatmen and sea-faring sailors around the world. Of course, each singer added his own set of lyrics and layers of meaning. (I say “his” because there weren’t too many women sailors knocking about in the 19th century.) In class, I love singing songs with this kind of rich history — it reminds me that music is something that connects us to generations past and future. In 30 years, our children will likely sing “Shenandoah” at some point, while the latest iPhone app or episodes of “Mad Men” will be long forgotten. (Hey, I love John Hamm, too, but I won’t remember in 30 years that he disappeared from his daughter’s birthday party on a cake run that lasted 5 hours. OK…maybe that’s a bad example.)

There are loads of singers and instrumentalists on YouTube giving “Shenandoah” a try, and it’s fun to poke around and see what’s out there. Here’s one I found by Suzy Bogguss (love that name) at this year’s South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin. She’s singing in a bar, accompanied by guitar, upright bass (with a bow!), and harmonica, while the unseen patrons talk and talk — at least until they get up and dance. Suzy’s singing is lovely and soulful, and you can clearly see and hear the instruments in action. I wonder what the two-year-olds out there will think of the harmonica? Let me know!

Roo-by, Ruby, Roo (or, A Song About a Dog)

STORY FROM A MOM

Today in class, a mom shared with me that she and her almost-three-year-old son have been singing their own version of the song “Sweet Potato” — about a dog named Ruby. “Roo-by, Ruby, Roo / Sing rooooo-by, ruby, roo-oo,” goes the chorus of the song, and during the verse they sing about what Ruby does. “Soon as Ruby eats all her dinner, all her dinner, all her dinner / Soon as Ruby eats all her dinner, she lies down on her bed.” Sometimes the mom makes up the words, and sometimes her son takes over. “I need to start writing down all the verses he invents,” she said. For now, they’re just having fun singing about Ruby and what she does and what she might be thinking. What a lucky dog.

TRY THIS AT HOME

You don’t have to have a Ruby in your life to make up your own words to this song. The verse on the CD is all about making and eating supper, but you could sing about going to the supermarket or brushing teeth, instead. “Soon as Mama buys eggs and sugar, eggs and sugar, eggs and sugar / Soon as Mama buys eggs and sugar, we can bake our cake!”  Or: “Soon as Molly gets out her toothbrush, out her toothbrush, out her toothbrush / Soon as Molly gets out her toothbrush, she can brush her teeth.” Let me know what you sing about at home!

“Share It Maybe?”

I love this.

Goofy, Messy Music

I don’t think there’s any goofier song in Music Together than “A Ram Sam Sam.” We’re singing goofy “words.” We’re making goofy hand motions. We’re “messing up” all over the place. And that’s just why this song is such a perfect teaching tool. We have way too many opportunities for our children to see and hear people making flawless music (much of the time with the help of machinery and computers to remove any flaws that make it out of the rehearsal studio). But that’s not the kind of music our children make–they make messy music that most of the time doesn’t even look to adults like music at all. So, imagine how thrilling it is for our children to see us making musical messes, too!

TRY THIS AT HOME

The next time you’re singing with your child, make as much of a musical mess as you can stand. (Hey, it’s a lot less work than making a mess in the kitchen, or with finger paints.) Turn on the radio and dance like a loon around the house, flailing your arms and waggling your tongue. Sing a song using a fake opera voice or an imitation cowboy twang. Make up wacky words to a song (“Sprinkle, sprinkle, little shoe; Sprinkly, jinkly, minkly, moo”). Pick up a ukulele and play it backwards, with the strings to your belly. Your child might laugh, might stare at you in disbelief, or might correct you, but the message that they’re getting loud and clear is that it’s OK to play around with music. And, since that’s exactly how children learn–through play–you’re communicating that their way of learning is A-OK.

Let me know what happens when you make your musical mess!

Singing With Others – The Key to a Long, Happy Life

Recently I caught an installment of “This I Believe” on the radio, and I discovered what experimental musician/producer Brian Eno holds to be his truth: that singing–especially singing with others–is the key to long and happy life. In his words:

Well, there are physiological benefits, obviously: You use your lungs in a way that you probably don’t for the rest of your day, breathing deeply and openly. And there are psychological benefits, too: Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness. And then there are what I would call “civilizational benefits.” When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because [group singing] is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings—to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

It’s no surprise that I agree! I also believe that singing (and music-making in general) is an essential part of life. What I especially appreciate in Brian Eno’s words is his focus on the power of making music together. I see it all the time in class–adults who never met before this semester share a laugh, a moment, an awareness of one another that they would not have discovered if their children had merely played together at the park. Music connects us in a way that other interactions simply cannot.

Eno declares that the world would be a better place if singing were included in the core of school curricula, and I heartily agree. But even if that were to happen, those of us over 18 would still have to find our own opportunities for group music-making. Thankfully, we sing together all the time in my house, and I know my children will do the same with their children, and so on. I hold the deep hope that families in my classes are doing the same–establishing a lifelong routine (and legacy) of singing together. If Brian Eno is right, we’ll all be smarter, healthier, and just plain happier for it.

To read the transcript of Brian Eno’s “This I Believe,” follow this link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97320958. And, don’t miss his paragraph that begins, “I believe that singing is the key…” Hot stuff!

The Washing Machine Dance

STORY FROM A MOM

What happens when a Music Together two-year-old helps out with the laundry? Here’s one family’s story (“S” is the daughter, “J” is the dad):

S. went to the basement to help Daddy with the laundry. J. told me she was bopping rhythmically and S. said, “I’m dancing to the music.” “What music?” he asked. “The washing machine,” she said.

One of my goals in teaching Music Together is that families get a lot of opportunity to make music without official musical instruments–we tap our laps, we stomp our feet, we snap, we clap, we buzz, we zoom, and, of course, we sing. Making music without stuff (including recorded music most of the time) means that we leave room for the music that emerges–the music we make ourselves and the “music” that always surrounds us (like my neighbor’s air conditioner’s note that I find myself humming from time to time). I hope that this is what happened with S.’s Washing Machine Dance. Maybe her ears are used to finding the beats and tones that bubble up around her, so hearing the washing machine’s rhythm and hum as music came naturally.

Next time you’ve got laundry to do, why not bring your children along and find the music in your machine? I’ve got a load washing right now, myself. Maybe it’s time to do a little dance.