Mad Tv Music Videos

I was invited to sing at Sally Potter's Second Annual Singing Festival in East Lansing, Michigan this year. It is an unusual affair for American concert-goers in that it is the audience who performs. The singers are merely vehicles for the songs. We (the "performers") were all instructed months in advance of the event to send lyrics to exactly the songs we intended to lead, songs that the audience would either be familiar with or that they would be able to pick up easily. Now, most of us independent-minded folk singers are loath to commit to a specific roster of songs months before any given performance. What we choose to sing, we proudly state, depends on our audience and what they ate for supper that night, the mood they are in, their age, gender and serial numbers. So, imagine my grumbling as I e-mailed lyrics to songs I love, but didn't know if I would love in six months.

Fast forward to February to one of the most satisfying concert experiences I have ever had, one which I hope is contagious and spreads like wild fire to the East and the West. When Joel Mabus, Pat Madden Roth, Robert Jones and I marched on stage, we encountered a Friday night crowd chomping at the bit to sing. They all had their programs, replete with lyrics to those songs we had each begrudgingly sent that we had to remind ourselves we must sing. I was afraid they would sit there, heads in their programs, reading along. I should have remembered that this was a crowd trained at the Ten Pound Fiddle Coffeehouse in the land of Elderly Instruments. Even so, I was surprised and overwhelmingly pleased to open my mouth and be immediately drowned out by the harmonies soaring in waves over the stage from the seats below. And this feeling of overwhelming well-being continued throughout the weekend, as we were caressed with song from the audience. We, the performers, were only the choosers of the material; the concert was conducted by the audience.

So, what does this have to do with children's music and children's voices? Everything. When you look at the songs we chose to sing, many of them were songs from our childhood. Most were traditional songs that have already stood the test of time. And our audience (which was mostly of our generation with a few teens and school kids thrown in for very good measure) shared in the knowledge of that body of material. We had a common "hymnal" from which to sing.

I fear that today's children are rapidly losing the opportunity to know those fine melodies and stories in song. With Barney usurping classics such as "This Old Man" and turning it into a preachy song that is so sappy that children are embarrassed to admit they know it by the time they enter kindergarten, and with Disney creations becoming the songs that are sold to our children as "real music," rather than the old ones learned on our grandparents' knees, our children are losing their cultural heritage at an alarming rate. When I see kindergartners in my music classroom, most have never heard "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain" or "The Farmer in the Dell" and certainly have no idea there are games associated with them that they and their friends can play in their free time on the playground, without the help of a teacher like me or any other grown-up, thank you very much! And most of the children that I see at ages three, four and five seem to have no inkling that they have a singing voice that is theirs to use and cherish. It has already been stolen from them and sold back in the form of non-participatory CDs, videos and TV shows. It's terrifying to a singer and educator such as myself.

So, what's to be done? The good news is that more and more parents are trying to relearn the songs that seem to have skipped a generation or two. They go to music classes with their children when they are mere babes in arms, hoping that by early exposure to music their little ones will be better readers, have higher math scores and will be better able to compete in this dog-cat-dog world. In fact, if they learn to dandle wee ones on their knee, look them in the eyes and share a moment singing "Trot, Trot to Boston" together, they have already given their children several huge gifts, none having to do with Mozart or higher test scores:

1. The gift of a song from our culture.

2. The huge gill of one-on-one time with a parent whose full attention is on the child.

3. Time away from any of the mechanical and electronic gimmicks that steal our children away from us and sell them a packaged mind and a voice that causes them to lose their own.

While it is sad that we have to take our children to classes to re-learn something that is a birthright, at least some parents (who can afford it) are seeing the necessity for live music from their own mouths in their children's lives. Kids don't care if their parents sing like Pavarotti or like a wild cat on the fence. They just want to hear their parents' voices as close to them as possible and as much as possible.

I believe music educators and classroom teachers are also key in preserving our heritage of song. Writer and educator John Anthony Scott has just put back into print his musical history book The Ballad of America, which includes many of the songs made by the people who built our country: the miners, sailors, soldiers, wives and mothers. While a teacher at Fieldston School in the Bronx, he taught history through these songs, many of which I grew up knowing and which can still be sting without fear and to great effect in today's classrooms. Scott built entire historical productions around these songs and his students walked away not only singing but with a deep understanding of the working people that made the nation.

The training of music teachers has improved dramatically in the 20 years since 1 went to school. The addition of the teaching of elemental music through the philosophies of Carl Orff and Zoltan Kodaly can only improve both the content and flavor of what children learn in music classes. Most of the music advocated in these approaches is based on the traditional music of many cultures. Well-taught children experience songs with their hearts, minds and bodies and carry them into adulthood. We need to support music education in our schools if that is where the culture is being passed on. If your school doesn't have a music program: demand one. Organize to fund it, and don't lay down your sword until you have one. It is a battle worth fighting if we want to preserve the voices (both literally and figuratively) of our children. My fellow members of the Children's Music Network (<www.cmnonline.org>) are quick to say that we performers are the bearers of the culture these days. Through us, children experience live music presented with passion and humor. And it is our duty to pass on the old songs in addition to our latest creations.

Music literacy has been a hot topic for the past few months on CMN's online listserv. This is not music literacy in the sense of learning to read music, but in the sense of what body of song material should children know by the time they are, say, ten years-old. So in the interest of completing the circle on this topic of our common cultural hymnal, I have taken up the challenge to make a draft list of 100 songs that I think kids should know and that we parents, teachers and performers should be teaching them. It is only a draft and it is sorely lacking in modern songs penned by writers in the last 30 years. However, it does include songs that many Sing Out! readers would consider such old chestnuts as to be pointless to include. But, I'm telling you that children do not know these songs by the time they get to my classroom in kindergarten. So I've included even the most mundane songs on my list, because they are the songs and melodies that inform my writing and musical thought and have done so for composers since before Mozart's time. Your comments and additions are welcomed. You'll find many of these songs in Rise Up Singing.

So, back to the concert ... If our children are to have a common hymnal from which to sing, who is going to introduce them to it? It must be the parents and the teachers and the performers and ... you know, we might just all be singing if we do our jobs right!

Sally Rogers is a folksinger, songwriter and elementary-school educator based in Pomfret, Connecticutt. If you would like to contact Sally, you can e-mail her at <kidbeat@singout.org> or write c/o Sing Out!

ANGLO AMERICAN SONG LIST

This is my first draft of a list of 100+ songs that I feel kids should know in the Anglo American Culture. They are mostly songs from my own childhood that have served me well through the years. They are in no particular order, except that rounds are listed together. I would be interested in knowing a list from other cultures, particularly Puerto Rican, Mexican and Jewish. Send your thoughts to <kidsbeat@singout.org>.

Oh, Susanna On Top of Old Smoky Over the River and Through the Woods Skip to My Lou Bingo Happy Wanderer Motherless Child Study War No More Tumbalalaika Allouette Every Time I Feel the Spirit Wayfaring Stranger Hush Little Baby, Don't Say a Word All the Pretty Little Horses We Shall Overcome Des Colores Amazing Grace Waltzing Matilda The Ash Grove Star Spangled Banner This Land Is Your Land America America, the Beautiful This Old Man I Gave My Love a Cherry (The Riddle Song) The Water Is Wide Get On Board, Little Children One More River Go Tell Aunt Rhody Golden Slippers White Coral Bells Frere Jacques Row, Row, Row Your Boat Canoe Round Peace Round Make New Friends Music Alone Shall Live Oh, How Lovely, Is the Evening Kookaburra Why Shouldn't My Goose Benjie Saw the Bear Come, Follow, Follow Hey, Ho Nobody Home Make New Friends May There Always Be Sunshine Scarborough Fair Simple Gifts Oats, Peas, Beans Leavin' Ol' Texas Tell Me Why There Was a Man and He Was Mad Jenny Jenkins Hiney Ma Tov Go Down, Moses Head and Shoulder, Knees and Toes Hokey Pokey Pick a Bale of Cotton Jimmy Crack Corn I Ride an Old Paint Bicycle Built Jot Two Take Me Out to the Ballgame You Are My Sunshine Noble Duke of York He's Got the Whole World in His Hands Kumbayah Magic Penny A Ram Sam Sam This Little Light of Mine All Through the Night Billy Boy Clementine Battle Hymn of the Republic Farmer in the Dell London Bridge Mary Had a Little Lamb Vine and Fig Tree Shalom Chaverim Who Did Swallow Jonah? Drill Ye Tarriers Boll Weevil Sarasponda Zum Gali Gali Erie Canal Eensie Weensie Spider Yankee Doodle Do Your Ears Hang Low Ten in a Bed Miss Mary Mack Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night Green Grass Grows All Around There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea Down by the Bay There's a Hole in the Bucket Going on a Bear Hunt Home on the Range Wade in the Water Get on Board, Children Swing Low, Sweet Chariot Rocka My Soul When the Saints Go Marching In Cape Cod Girls Drunken Sailor Follow the Drinking Gourd Paddy Works the Railway My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean Michael Row the Boat Ashore Paw Pan, Patch Baby Dandling Songs (i.e. Trot to Boston) All Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes

COPYRIGHT 2004 Sing Out Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Get Skiing &Snowboarding Packages. - Sponsored Link
Ad - View Package Specials &Book Now!