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Originally Posted by 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. |
Yes, my son is very frank!
And yours gave such a cute analysis of Kermit's "Disco Frog!" I was especially amused that he said, "The ghost frog dances around too fast, he doesn't go with the beat" and "the ladies are funny with their hair." I like how he analyses the song from the perspective of little kids and in such detail. (Like your son, I didn't realize the little lights were supposed to be fireflies, either. I also thought they were pretty, and I liked the "tan" reeds and the way they screened the action at the end of the video.)
Your son's comments are a great example of how an 8-year-old distinguishes himself from "little kids." My child claims he will not even associate with "young" children of 6 anymore, which always amuses me, because to me *he* is still young (and he makes exceptions for the 6-year-olds who are "cool").
Quote:
Originally Posted by 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”. 
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I'd like to hear these "Mom's Greatest Hits," Liz. Just wait until your kids become parents (if they do become parents): they'll probably be warbling little songs, too.
Yes, I've observed that the peer pressure is huge beginning in 1st grade, and preferences for particular songs/clothes rush through my child's class like wildfire. I think he knew of Katy Perry's "Hot n' Cold" song before I did, because many of the elementary school kids were singing it!
I think the peer pressure in elementary school results partly from fear of being teased if one isn't like the others, but mostly from a huge urge to "belong" and "be the same as" and be "cool," where "cool" means what teenagers or admired peers do. Anything "baby-like" is viewed with disdain, including the songs. Children's songs are repulsive to my child. They drive him wild. He likes tough, aggressive songs and no sing-songy voices.
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Originally Posted by Howard the Duck
thanks, I enjoyed that
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I'm glad you liked the Disco Frog!
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Originally Posted by sopsych
Thanks for the research information, VEGANGELICA.
I do think I get the point of children's music - it's mostly to soothe and distract children. I personally don't think it would have worked on little me, or maybe it was tried and failed. Apparently I was very colicky. Plus, I'm very sensitive to voice quality, so I don't want a mediocre voice in my presence. That's one area where most prerecorded children's music excels - Bob Dylan won't be making children's songs anytime soon |
You're welcome. Children's songs interest me because their structure reflects not only what children usually can handle mentally or prefer emotionally from a developmental standpoint, but also what adults who make up the songs *think* children may like based on interacting with kids (or other adults, whom they copy) or *want* children to like.
I don't know how much you've been around babies, but if you talk in "baby talk" (use lots of inflection and raise your voice), they really *do* perk up and pay more attention to you. And they seem to like repetition much more than older people do. Probably the knowledge-hungry brains of very little children gravitate toward repetition because it is meaningful order in the chaos of sensory input, and the repetition cements what is learned.
I would expect most songs for children under 5, who are voraciously learning language, to be sing-songy and highly repetitive just like the song below, because such songs cater to their developmental stage. An article about international children's songs does say that children's songs globally often have short phrases and much repetition, although there are also many dissimilarities ("Discovering musical characteristics of children's songs from various parts of the world" by Shih-Yu Jade Pai (2009)).
Did anyone do the pat-a-cake song/game with little you? Even a colicky baby might like that!
Pat-a-cake song
This video shows a baby being socialized and amused by the adults teaching the song and singing it twice
Pat-a-Cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man - YouTube
^ The simplicity of such children's songs is beneath the level of communication of which most 1st graders are capable, so I think it makes sense that most 6 or 7 year olds would not gravitate toward (little) children's songs. A good example of this is Barney & Friends, which (according to Wikipedia) was designed for children age 1 - 8. (I always was surprised to see the older kids on the shows, because I expected an 8-year-old to be snorting disdainfully at the songs rather than singing along.)
Beyond just the musical characteristics of children's songs, I'm also interested in their subject matter. I've noticed (as probably everyone has) that many children's songs deal with animals, showing them in whimsical, anthropomorphic ways. (Ducktales is a great example.) To me this reflects a catering to children's innate fascination with other animals (moving beings), and also reflects a desire of adults to create a fictitious world in which people get along with other animals (rather than ignore, hurt, kill, eat them, etc.).
The subject matter of children's songs seems to show a desire among adults for a better, safer, kinder world than it really is in which humans and the rest of nature get along. Many of my favorite children's songs (when I was a child) involved animals: "The Inchworm Song," "Puff the Magic Dragon," "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree," "Old MacDonald Had A Farm."
After age 7 or 8, kids' maturity is much more adult-like, and so it makes sense to me that children's songs no longer appeal to them very much. You may have just gone through the developmental stages of early childhood very fast, such that children's songs didn't appeal to you by the time you remember hearing them (after age 5)!
Did you by any chance learn to read before age 3 or 4?
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Originally Posted by jhjhj
I'm 'way older than most of you. When I was a child, I listened to the Little Golden Records that were 78rpm. The only really children's song I can remember had the words "I dropped my head/candy," but what I remember the most was a set of Sousa marches I listened to over and over and over. I loved Sousa as a child.
I suppose you would not have liked Dylan's version of "Froggie Went A-Courtin'."
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There's also Bob Dylan's "This Old Man."
This old man Children's Song Bob Dylan - YouTube