its just good...

these last few weeks as i have started preschool with madilynn i have also started introducing her to some music as well.

i decided, of course, to sing some of the fun kids stuff like old mcdonald,one-two-three-four-five i caught a fish alive, and all those songs we sang as kids but i decided too i would expose them to some really great music.

i think that one of the greatest things that our parents did for us as kids was to give us the opportunity to learn about all kinds of music.

i think that my mother had one of the greatest records collections of anyone i know. i say had because i think that we (mainly coday) have laid claim to almost all of them over the years. but back when we were kids one of our favorite past times was to go through her albums. what fun it was to laugh at the covers and listen to the music on our fisher price record player. as we grew older we learned to appreciate the fact that the music we were listening to was greats like pink floyd, the beatles, andrae crouch, simon and garfunkle and judy collins.

i know that i was only six when it came out but i still remember paul simon's graceland. daddy had the cassette tape and we would listen to it over and over as we drove with him in the truck. i absolutely loved it when the music video for 'call me al' came on. chevy chase was so funny. that music really spoke to me as a kid, even if i didn't understand what it was that it was saying.

so far i have let my little ones listen to some of my favorites as well. i am proud to say that madilynn can identify by sight and sound both paul simon and james taylor.

one of my greatest joys in the last few weeks was the day that she and i were watching jt's jelly man kelly performance on sesame street circa 1980. he still had the long hair and that great mustache that i fell in love with on the cover of his one man dog album. as i sat there and watched him sing to the children on the steps of sesame street my little madilynn turned to me and said, "he is so pretty, isn't he?" that's my girl! she loves him almost as much as i do. my work here is done.

the next week i worried (i don't know why) that she might not be as excited about paul simon. i let her listen to 'call me al' and she loved it but the shortest version of homeless i could find was like eight minutes long. i wanted her to hear it because of the sounds that the ladysmith black mambazo and joseph shabalala make that i loved as a child, but i feared that she and ben would get bored with this long live version. we had made drums from tea cans and i reluctantly put the song on, and much to my amazement not only did they sing and dance and play their drums throughout the entire song, when it was over they begged to hear it again.

the next week we talked about singing high and low notes and watched a clip of the sound of music where maria teaches the children to sing do re mi. this, too, is a long clip, but when it was over madilynn actually clapped and shouted 'yay! can i watch it again!'

these experiences have taught me what i should have already known from my own childhood, it doesn't matter how old you are or how old the song is, when something or someone is good, its just good!

that's the power of music.

this week i continue my journey with the kids through the beautiful world of truly great music.

"these are four guys from a place called liverpool who changed the world forever, madilynn. their names are john,paul, george and ringo. yes, ringo is a funny name. he plays the drums. heh. yes. they have funny hair too. but you know, i bet your grand daddy combed his hair that way once upon a time. do you like the way that they sound, madilynn? me too, sweet girl, me too."