It's Music Time
One of my earliest purchases for Abbie was a music collection. It’s a three-disc set of the finest children’s songs in the public domain including “The Alphabet Song,” “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” It also has some songs with educational value, like “Frere Jacques” to teach French, “Bluetail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn)” to teach underlying racism, and “The Yellow Rose of Texas” to ensure they’ll get the joke about Emily Dickinson’s poetry later in life.
I bought this collection when Abbie was a few months old. Back when I had the luxury of only keeping one child entertained, I heard from multiple sources that children love music. Nothing short of a bottle kept her happy at that point, so on one particularly harrowing afternoon, I loaded her into the car, drove to the nearby big box store, and searched for CD’s with a low ratio of cents-per-song. Most of the music I found cost too much because they frittered their budgets away on licensed characters and production values. The set I bought seemed to be the best choice, as decided by its $.10-per-song price point.
I took it home, popped disc 1 in the stereo, hit play, and waited for the joy to begin. Abbie was unimpressed. The music was okay; most of the songs lasted about a minute and were sung by children with appropriately happy musical accompaniment. I sung along to the few that I knew the words, but Abbie didn’t care and continued grumping. I shrugged and gave up on using music as an integral part of the day, though I did burn some of the better songs to a disc for listening in the car on the off chance that it might help her scream less.
As she matured, she seemed to enjoy the music more. I knew she was making progress when she started laughing at the progression of animal noises in “Old MacDonald.” A couple months ago, I put the discs back in the stereo to see what would happen. Those discs have been playing continuously ever since, as she’s on her way to knowing how to use our electronic equipment better than I can. She already knew how to operate the television, VCR, and DVD player on her own; adding those discs to the CD tray gave her the incentive to learn the stereo.
The first thing she does after every mealtime, regardless of the amount of yogurt remaining on her fingers, is turn the stereo on. She’s discovered that the IncrediBlock, along with several other toys, make an excellent stool for reaching the buttons. Even if I’m industrious enough to put her toys away before mealtime, she can still climb onto the entertainment center. Once the buttons are within reach of her grubby mitts, she pushes the “tray open” button, and pushes the tray shut, which automatically loads the CD into play mode. Seconds later, I’m hearing “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad” for the ninth time in the past 24 hours.
Of course she doesn’t know everything about the stereo operation. The most perplexing feature is the volume knob. I think she’s determined that it’s best not to touch it in spite of the inherent pleasure involved in turning knobs. She knows that if she turns it too much, the stereo doesn’t work, and she has to scream to convince me to stop feeding her brothers and fix it. She also knows that turning it too much can lead to the music playing too loud. I’m sure that in about ten years she’ll be testing the upper limits of her stereo speakers, but for now Volume Setting 50 is too loud for “Lucy Locket.” She screams, partly to get my attention, and partly because she’s terrified.
When she gets the stereo working, she can be fun to watch when she interacts with her music. When a song involves a dog barking (“How much is that doggie in the window…), she’ll bark back at the stereo. When a song involves clapping (There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o…), she’ll clap along. When a song involves poetry (“Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me…), she’ll recite it with the music, or at least I hope to teach her that last one.
I bought this collection when Abbie was a few months old. Back when I had the luxury of only keeping one child entertained, I heard from multiple sources that children love music. Nothing short of a bottle kept her happy at that point, so on one particularly harrowing afternoon, I loaded her into the car, drove to the nearby big box store, and searched for CD’s with a low ratio of cents-per-song. Most of the music I found cost too much because they frittered their budgets away on licensed characters and production values. The set I bought seemed to be the best choice, as decided by its $.10-per-song price point.
I took it home, popped disc 1 in the stereo, hit play, and waited for the joy to begin. Abbie was unimpressed. The music was okay; most of the songs lasted about a minute and were sung by children with appropriately happy musical accompaniment. I sung along to the few that I knew the words, but Abbie didn’t care and continued grumping. I shrugged and gave up on using music as an integral part of the day, though I did burn some of the better songs to a disc for listening in the car on the off chance that it might help her scream less.
As she matured, she seemed to enjoy the music more. I knew she was making progress when she started laughing at the progression of animal noises in “Old MacDonald.” A couple months ago, I put the discs back in the stereo to see what would happen. Those discs have been playing continuously ever since, as she’s on her way to knowing how to use our electronic equipment better than I can. She already knew how to operate the television, VCR, and DVD player on her own; adding those discs to the CD tray gave her the incentive to learn the stereo.
The first thing she does after every mealtime, regardless of the amount of yogurt remaining on her fingers, is turn the stereo on. She’s discovered that the IncrediBlock, along with several other toys, make an excellent stool for reaching the buttons. Even if I’m industrious enough to put her toys away before mealtime, she can still climb onto the entertainment center. Once the buttons are within reach of her grubby mitts, she pushes the “tray open” button, and pushes the tray shut, which automatically loads the CD into play mode. Seconds later, I’m hearing “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad” for the ninth time in the past 24 hours.
Of course she doesn’t know everything about the stereo operation. The most perplexing feature is the volume knob. I think she’s determined that it’s best not to touch it in spite of the inherent pleasure involved in turning knobs. She knows that if she turns it too much, the stereo doesn’t work, and she has to scream to convince me to stop feeding her brothers and fix it. She also knows that turning it too much can lead to the music playing too loud. I’m sure that in about ten years she’ll be testing the upper limits of her stereo speakers, but for now Volume Setting 50 is too loud for “Lucy Locket.” She screams, partly to get my attention, and partly because she’s terrified.
When she gets the stereo working, she can be fun to watch when she interacts with her music. When a song involves a dog barking (“How much is that doggie in the window…), she’ll bark back at the stereo. When a song involves clapping (There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o…), she’ll clap along. When a song involves poetry (“Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me…), she’ll recite it with the music, or at least I hope to teach her that last one.
posted by Matt at
11:45 PM
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