Wayfarer

I actually just called my mother to get the answer to this, expecting to hear that I power-slid out of the womb to "Children of The Revolution".

Apparently I was a huge fan of Barney's "Apples and Bananas".

VEGANGELICA

Cute image: power-sliding out of the womb!

Thanks for answering my question. See, this supports my hypothesis that most kids need to be younger than five to really appreciate children's music. (When my child was under 5, I actively avoided the Teletubbies and Barney on TV because I didn't want him to become a fan such that I'd have to listen to them!)

So *now* I'm curious what sort of music you did hear before age five and if you can draw any correlation between those musical experiences and your current appreciation of '80s pop?

(BTW, my parents forbid me from watching TV for a year when I was around 10. They had good intentions, but I ended up just hanging out at the mall to watch the TVs at Sears!)

* * *

Perhaps we should say that you caught the Beatle beetle from your Mom, Liz.

I *do* like "The Please and Thank You" song more than Barney's "I Love You" song. The two things that I, as an adult, don't like about Barney's songs are (1) his voice and (2) the didactic nature of some of the songs. For example, with the "Please and Thank You" song, although I agree it is nice that children learn about the reasons for being polite, I have almost never *told* my child to say please or thank you. Instead, I assumed he'd learn about please and thank you by observing me as I was saying them. I guessed (correctly) that he would figure out for himself why I am saying please and thank you, just like kids figure out the meanings of hundreds of other words without being taught them or when to use them.

Thinking back again to when I was little (under 5), I remember liking the song, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands," and I loved Brahm's "Lullaby and Goodnight."

Also, my mom used to amuse me by singing the song, "Do your ears hang low," and I have fun memories of singing this song with her and making up our own verses using our different body parts ( Do Your Ears Hang Low? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). My mom sang many songs to me when I was little: children's songs, folk songs, and songs that were popular when *she* was a child back in the '40s (think, "Yes, We Have No Bananas.")

When my child was a baby, I sang him lullabies, hoping he'd have nice memories of songs and music like I did from my childhood. Now he says he always hated those songs when I sang to him! (I think he didn't mind them when he was a baby, though.)

Below is one of my favorite lullabies that I sang to my child until he was around 4, by which time he started to dislike it. I must say that my child never seemed to gravitate toward children's songs, which is too bad (for me!) because I kept wanting to sing to him! He's almost 10 now and loves electronic dance pop music.

"The Moment I Saw You" by Nicolette Larson and Graham Nash
from Larson's album "Sleep Baby Sleep" that someone gave me as a baby gift:


Lullaby: The Moment I Saw You - Nicolette Larson/Graham Nash - YouTube

* * *

Here's some Kermit disco for you, Howard, and for Liz: another contender for...The Muppet Wars!!!!!!!!!

Kermit - "Disco Frog"
Enjoy those floppy little frog legs as Kermit goes wild on the dance bog floor!

EDIT: I just asked my child what he thinks of this song, and he authorized me to quote him here on MusicBanter. He said, and I quote: "This sounds like Frankenstein. This sounds like ****. This sounds like a walking talking pile of ****! I don't hate Kermit, but this sounds annoying. This sounds like a zombie is singing it. LOL."


Sesame Street: Kermit Sings Disco Frog - YouTube

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Trollheart

I'm not sure you're quite getting the whole idea of children's music. It's supposed to be silly, nonsense, fun. Sure, some of it is to teach you things like ABC or be nice to each other --- nothing wrong with that --- but other than that generally I see children's music as fulfilling one of three roles: it can be a way for kids to interact, dance, clap together etc; it can be a way for a parent and child to strengthen their bond, whether through singing "I love you" style songs or lullabies; it can be in the form of a nursery rhyme, to either make learning fun or push across a very subtle subtext that will only become apparent later as the child grows up, but which they will remember from their early enjoyment of the song.

No-one is ever going to award Grammys to kids' songs, no-one is expected to critique them ---- this lyric is generic/the playing is very basic/the rhythm, chord structure or melody does nothing new --- it's not the actual makeup of the music that matter, them musicianship or vocal talent, but the fact that kids enjoy it. That's really all that matters. Some of them of course are quite clever, but let's be honest: you're not going to get a complicated time signature change or a three-minute guitar solo in a childen's song. They're not supposed to be taken as "serious" songs, just fun to listen to.

GAAAHH! BARNEY! Must. wash. eyes!
Sorry, I always hated that purple little, eh, dinosaur! Once in town there was a guy dressed up in a Barney suit and for a few seconds I seriously thought of giving him a kick up the arse. I'm not proud of the thought, but it can't be un-thought....

We manage to smile most days, thanks: there's always something we can laugh or smile at. Luckily we share a common (often warped) sense of humour, and we've watched the same series (Red Dwarf, Black Adder, Bottom, Fawlty Towers etc) so we know when we're quoting from that and how to respond, eg "Mister Flibble is very cross!" She says I make her laugh, and it relaxes her, especially at, um, embarrassing moments. I always like to use a bit of humour, helps cover up any feelings of shame or unease.
Kermit for president!!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

VEGANGELICA

The point is that some young kids *don't* like children's music very much, while many (probably most) do.

So the question that is being asked in this thread is the following: do adults' musical preferences correlate in any way with whether or not they liked children's songs when they were little kids?

The issue of this thread is not whether people get the idea behind children's music, but whether people *liked* children's songs when they were children and if that preference relates to the sort of music to which they gravitate as adults.

For example, Trollheart, consider your hatred of Barney. Now imagine a three-year-old who has that same reaction to Barney songs because he finds their simplicity and almost maniacal happiness to be disturbing or irritating. In other words, some kids have a more "adult" perspective of children's songs. What might that portend about the sort of music they'd gravitate to as adults?

Like I mentioned, my own child quite quickly (by age 5 or 6) started to dislike children's songs. He felt the children's songs and TV shows he once enjoyed when he was 3 were embarrassingly childish. I can understand how a precocious child of age 5 might not like children's songs because they often paint an overly happy, one-sided, simplistic image of the world and usually don't prepare kids for the reality of it or match the reality they experience. Some kids may catch onto that earlier than others, and perhaps that is why they don't like children's songs much. Or maybe they just don't like the simplicity of the sound of many children's songs. Maybe these kids don't like the songs because they sound childish and the kids want to grow up and not feel like they are being confined to children's things.

When my child hears the Timmy Time song as part of a public television advertisement now on TV, for example, he cringes...

Timmy Time
A children's song that my child hates (I think he doesn't want to be considered a baby by his peers, because that risks his being teased when he wants to be liked, and so he has developed negative feelings about children's songs)


Timmy Time - Sing Along - YouTube


I was looking online at research into the development of music preferences to try to learn more about young children's preferences, and I see that it is quite a big and interesting area of study with a lot of unknowns still ( Musical Identities - The Development of Musical Preferences in Childhood and Adolescence ). The cause of people's music preferences is difficult to figure out since there is an innate component (different innate personality tendencies exist) and an environmental component (the type of music one is exposed to), and one influences the other.

Here's an interesting paper about development of music preferences, although it doesn't (unfortunately) look at children's response to children's music:

http://kw.uni-paderborn.de/fileadmin...nces_Escom.pdf

^ The paper says that usually young kids under 10 have "open-earedness" meaning that they don't reject listening to any music, but during elementary years (as social peer pressures mount), they tend to start preferring popular music and reject other genres.

And here's a good, short article ( What is the significance of music for young children? - OpenLearn - Open University ) by a researcher who looks at music preferences of kids who are under 5, but it doesn't specifically address the issue of how kids respond to children's music other than to say: " 'Children’s' music is the most frequently heard, chosen, and responded to positively by the children. This includes television theme tunes as well as a lot of nursery rhymes! So why do children like particular kinds of music? The three-and-a-half year olds all tend to choose fast music when they’re given a choice. We know from adult studies that liking for faster music might be related to aspects of personality, such as sensation-seeking. I also studied children’s personalities, but there were no clear links between personality and musical preference at this age."

Contrary to what Janszoon suggested earlier in the thread, I doubt that a child's dislike of children's music correlates with narrow-mindedness toward music when an adult. The article above said that by age 10 most kids stop having "open-earedness" and prefer whatever music is popular in their culture, tending to dislike other genres (such as classical and folk music). So, this is a normal phenomenon that happens with most kids, the majority of whom did like children's music when they were little children. Therefore, I hypothesize, the narrowing of music preferences would be expected to occur whether or not a young child liked children's music.

BTW...

The Ducktales Theme Song *is* pretty catchy and sounds like a lot of pop songs that adults might like. It even has a little "bridge" section and a rise in the key near the end!


Ducktales Theme Song - YouTube

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ribbons

Erica, I have to catch up on this thread but just want to tell you: Your son is like a mini-Lester Bangs there with his comments. He is frank and to the point! Following your lead, I solicited my 8-going-on-9 year old son's comments earlier tonight on Kermit's "Disco Frog" and here's what he said:

"I don’t know, Ma…this is for little kids…what am I supposed to say? (Me: Say anything you want.) Little kids like Kermit, it’s OK, it’s supposed to be stupid. The ghost frog dances around too fast, he doesn’t go with the beat. But he’s supposed to be a crazy ghost frog. The ladies are funny with their hair. They have the same tongue as Kermit. The jungle was cool. Did you see the little lights in the trees? (Me: I think those were fireflies. What about the song?) I don’t like it, it’s not a good Sesame Street song. But little kids – like, kids in preschool, they will like Kermit singing it and the scene. What were the tan plants at the beginning? (Me: I think they were reeds.) Yeah, they'll like that."

My son, lover of tan plants and firefly lights.

ribbons

You don't use the Mister Flibble hand puppet in your exchanges, do you? Humor (or should I write "humour" ) is the best medicine and your efforts to keep your sister from feeling ashamed are so touching. I hope she was not very uncomfortable today, and that you shared some of those "warped" laughs strictly for enjoyment and not to cover her pain, and yours.

Howard the Duck

thanks, I enjoyed that

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Engine

Pac Man Fever by Buckner and Garcia was my favorite (and only) album when I was 6.
My parents bought it for me because they knew I was into Atari 2600. I suppose that it influenced my lasting musical taste.





They also bought me the West Street Mob self-titled album presumably because my mom was a disco fan and she figured that since I hated the competitive sports that they tried to get me into, I might enjoy breakdancing. I can't deny that this music had a lasting effect on me. This song is hardwired into some part of my brain.

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

ribbons

You hit the nail on the head, Erica, with the threshold being age 5-6; that’s when the “real school” of kindergarten and peer pressure comes into play. My children also started disliking children’s songs around that age. I get the feeling that my children were not as precocious as your son was at that age, though – so their progression with music was not so much the result of critical thinking as it was just going with the flow along with their peers. Around that stage, I also noticed that my kids started to “tease” me with rolling eyes whenever I sang those children’s songs. I had always made up these short impromptu songs that I would sing to them -- in place of talking a lot of the time -- in a half-singing half-talking voice. That was and is sort of my trademark with them! I do it to this day, and still get the rolling eyes! They refer to those songs as “Mom’s Greatest Hits”.

ribbons

I loved West Street Mob and Sugar Hill Gang, too. Great records!

My son does play soccer (mainly because he enjoys doing things with his legs!), but he's not a sports nut. He is a member of a boys' breakdance troupe at school and they perform at school shows. So he does like some light hop-hop. They also incorporate some hard rock songs into their routines. He also loves Led Zeppelin, Kaiser Chiefs, The Ramones, Queen, Paramore (sister influence!), The Beach Boys (victory for me!), Magic Kids (another sister influence), and The Beatles (ultimate victory for me!).