One of my goals as father is to help my children to find joy in their everyday, mundane tasks. I have always been a huge fan of music, and so it seems natural to me to pass on that joy of music to my young charges. With the advent of connected, do-anything, smart phones, these two objectives (enjoying daily tasks and learning music) coincide quite nicely. Let me elaborate.
I have my phone on my person at almost all times of the day. Outside doing yard work, in the bathroom brushing the kids’ teeth, cooking breakfast in the morning… At any time, I can switch on the tunes. My favorite time to crank it up is when getting ready for bed at night. Kids are going every-which-way, bedrooms, bathrooms, up and down stairs. Everyone is tired. Often emotions are high. A little bit of music just helps to smooth things over a bit.
Granted, my little phone doesn’t have the greatest audio quality, but for most situations, it is perfectly suited for some fun, unobtrusive, background accompaniment. I even have a playlist with kid-friendly music setup on my phone for just this purpose. It’s currently running around 120 songs, and I’m constantly on the lookout for new material to add to the mix.
Good sources of new music include:
- Kids’ movies (especially the end credits)
- Sports events (including things like Monster Jam)
- Live shows (musicals, Disney on Ice, circus, etc.)
- Televised events (parades, halftime shows, etc.)
- School events (talent show, assemblies, etc.)
I have an application on my phone that I keep handy for just such times. If I hear a song that sounds exciting, or it is associated with a memorable event, then I launch “Sound Hound” on my phone. It listens to the music for a few seconds, and then (usually) is able to tell me the name of the song, and the artist. It even provides a handy link for me to buy the track from Amazon. I normally will do so (only $.99) and instantly add it to the kids’ playlist. Then later on, when they are brushing their teeth or taking a bath, the song will come on, and they will be all excited. “That’s the song from the movie we saw today, Daddy!”
I also get the inverse fairly frequently: we’ll be out and about, shopping at Wegmans or sitting at dinner at a restaurant, and one of the kids (usually Jasmin) will hear a song come on the radio and inform me, “That’s the song from on your phone, Daddy!”
It’s not a big thing. It doesn’t cost all that much in either time or money, and yet it makes quite an impression. I love it when Timmy is all excited to hear the Kidz Bop version of “Thrift Shop” come on, or when Jasmin starts hopping around (often in her undies while dressing) to the sound of One Direction, or when Jacob starts shadow boxing to “Eye of the Tiger”.
It all boils down to one simple fact: Making them happy makes me happy!
– danBhentschel