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September 2007 | Vol. VI - No. 9

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Music With a Message

CDs Get Kids Moving to New Kinds of Tunes

By: Julie L. Jones
9/1/2007

“If we can teach kids to care now, that sense of caring will follow through and support initiatives working toward a cleaner, healthier environment.” — Lorraine Pond, Bobolo Productions

There’s a lot more to a children's CD than just the music itself. As several musicians recently told TDmonthly Magazine, it’s also about having a story and a cause, and getting kids involved.

TELLING A TALE

“The Ballad of Phineas McBoof,” which chronicles the formation of a band, is full of characters whose stories “encourage kids to follow their muse.”

It will soon be joined by a book and is the first album for former high school music teacher Cory Cullinan, aka Doctor Noize, who believes children find more meaning in something when it’s attached to a figure they care about.

“Every single character on the CD … is somebody who decided to do his own thing despite the fact that people don't understand,” he said.

SINGING PRAISES FOR CONSERVATION

Although Bobs & Lolo of Bobolo Productions don’t follow one story in their newest CD, “Musical Adventures,” they’ve realized through performing some 200 live shows a year that “songs really need to have a hook,” Lorraine Pond, aka “Lolo,” told TDmonthly. And she wasn’t just talking about the music.

For Bobolo, that hook is “connecting kids to the natural world,” Pond continued. “Our philosophy is … conservation equals caring. If we can teach kids to care now, that sense of caring will follow through and support initiatives working toward a cleaner, healthier environment.”

ONE STYLE’S NOT ENOUGH

To convey that message, the pair uses songs influenced by jazz, rock, blues, pop and swing, Pond said, because children 10 and under “are still developing their tastes and interests, and parents have different interests, too.”

Lead singer Audra Tsanos of AudraRox recognizes the value of variety in the band’s newly-released “I Can Do It By Myself!” The “power pop” album, as some describe it, features everything from disco to indie rock to jazz.

Oren Pfeffermann of Oren and the Hiccups described “Turn Around the Sun,” released last fall, as “taking rock-and-roll roots and plugging it into kids' music.” It brings back styles from the 1970s and 1980s, as well as an indie-rock spin-off of “Lollipop Tree” from the 1940s, he told TDmonthly.

The acoustic-based “If You Ever See an Owl,” in contrast, reflects the relationship between children’s music and American folk music, according to lead Matt Pryor, formerly of The Get Up Kids. “The instrumentation seems to work well for kids,” he said.

DANCE TO THE MUSIC

Although Pryor has toured for the last 10 years, he admitted he had to “tweak” performances for children by engaging the audience more, doing some call-and-response singing and giving them opportunities to move.

AudraRox is also planning to facilitate dancing with an album tentatively scheduled for release next spring.

WHAT KIDS WANT

“Being a teacher and seeing a real community of kids… gave me a deep understanding of kids and what they relate to,” Tsanos said of her eight years of leading children’s music classes in Brooklyn. Two- and 3-year-olds, she said, really understand a song on her album called “Don’t Wake the Baby,” for example.

Music for Aardvarks Creator David Weinstone especially knows how to reach 3-year-olds, she added: “All the people in my band were parents in my class. We’re definitely students of his music.”

According to psychologist Martin Seligman’s research, connecting with others and having deeper meaning in life make people happy, Pfeffermann said, and that’s what his album tries to accomplish by involving listeners in a story and creating meaningful songs.

See these and other albums for children below:

The Terrible Twos: If You Ever See an Owl... by POQUITO RECORDS

Other products from POQUITO RECORDS

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