I have somewhat mixed feelings about this. While I certainly appreciate the zeal with which some of today’s talented songsters have embraced the mission of creating kid-friendly music and videos — Ms. Berkner and her crew not least, who obviously take their music and mission very seriously — the cynical part of me recognizes that it’s a full-on commercial targeted at preschoolers and their parents. But that’s nothing new. That’s one way in which brands are born, and that’s how many have been born for decades — by establishing the relationship with the consumer when they’re more or less just out of the womb.
What I think rubs me the wrong way is that when I look at what’s generally being offered to children, it often comes off as simply a sanitized scion of some specific movement in the grown-up world of music that happens to be popular at the moment — hip-hop, indie folk, alt-country or what have you. And with (seriously) all due respect to its intent and well-craftedness, what I often see being offered to stimulate children’s imaginations feels rather narrow and even, at times, condescending.
As adults, it’s hard for many of us to remember what our imaginations were like as children. As many people who have worked in creative disciplines — Picasso among them — have suggested before, the wellspring of creativity is intuitively connected to the imagination we have as children. In part it’s always about trying to get back to that sense of total exploration, an urgency to find out, to have an experience that will take you somewhere new. When you’re a kid, those tendencies are as boundless as they ever are in your lifetime — you’re capable of soaring to the greatest heights because you’re almost completely unencumbered by what you have yet to learn or experience.
This is why it’s so unfortunate that some of the primary media outlets that produce culture for children seem to think that all the little tikes can handle is safe and syrupy pop, or tidy versions of musics that in reality have considerably more grit and life in them. It misrepresents the true wonder and range of experience to be found in music, and reinforces the notion that music is necessarily consumed in two-to-four-and-a-half-minute chunks, let alone that it “should” have video accompaniment. I’m certainly not suggesting that the content kids hear should be rough, or suggesting you start filling those ears with Slayer or 50 Cent instead — both of whom have their place and merits — I’m talking, in short, about substance.
There are some programs — Jack’s Big Music Show, for one — that in my view do get points for bringing on the variety of guests that they do, and for at least trying to broaden the palette of its audience. But I still think it’s doing children a disservice to keep the music to which they’re exposed, even at the pre-K level, limited to what major media would have us perceive that their young little minds are capable of appreciating and absorbing. Fred Rogers knew this, and whenever possible, invited world-class artists on his show to demonstrate what they could do. More than this, for virtually his entire show’s run, he had jazz pianist Johnny Costa regularly ripping up the keyboard with frenzied improvisations — an ultra-sophisticated move that many children who watched the show probably don’t consciously remember. Though I’ll bet that a good number of those children who eventually went on to discover jazz later in life at some point asked themselves, while listening to a passage by Arthur Lyman or Cecil Taylor, “Why does this remind me of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood?”
Another example, closer to home: A couple of nights ago, I visited my brother’s family — he has five children, ranging in age from 11 to 2 — and I barely noticed when, after dinner, the kids retired to the basement to watch a DVD. What I did notice, soon enough, was that the DVD they put in was of the Metropolitan Opera production of Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West. Maybe not the most memorable Puccini score, and perhaps a little dark for the younger ones, but really no more so than Pirates of the Caribbean or anything dished out by the Brothers Grimm. More surprising still was the oldest coming back into the room and telling us all about the tricky bandit Ramerrez, how he disguised himself to steal the gold, etc.
OK, yes, in this case, it’s in part the proud uncle in me coming through, and my brother happens to be a very accomplished musician with a lot of music in the house. But it still underscores my point: Kids will absorb whatever you give them, and they have incredibly elastic and fertile imaginations. Pop, hip-hop and easily digested musics that “have a good beat and are easy to dance to” are absolutely fine — integral, even, to a well-rounded early musical life. But they’re by no means the limit. Don’t be afraid to take your little ones into terrain that challenges them, even if it challenges you. Music is travel, in a sense. It takes you someplace else — specifically, into the minds and hearts of those who have created it — and like travel, it has the capacity to broaden horizons and increase understanding of the world around us. And that’s never a bad thing.
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Photo Credit: Noggin