There’s something magical about making music with friends and family. There’s a bond we form when sing and play together that we can’t get strumming a guitar alone. The music sounds better the more people are making it, regardless of how well a person may think they can play or sing. The spirit of community makes the song sound so much more beautiful.
We listen to lots of music in our house. But the stuff we really gravitate to has something special. There’s a quality of heart that we can hear in it. That’s what makes us want to sing out together, get out our instruments and play along. It makes us want to get together with our friends, turn off the stereo and play the song again, ourselves.
This year we were more excited than ever because of the sheer abundance of great new kids’ and family music. Our favorite artists from 2006 have that quality of heart that inspires us to make music with one another. You can tell that they love making music.
· Enzo Garcia’s
LMNO Music series, particularly,
Pink,
Orange and
Violet.
· Frances England’s
Fascinating Creatures· Elizabeth Mitchell’s
You Are My Little Bird·
Old Town School of Folk Music SONGBOOK Volume One·
Down By the Riverside – a compilation benefiting the Reuben Lindh family services
· Dog On Fleas’
When I Get LittleThese are fun and jumpin’ and sweet and quiet and beautiful and happy and full of heart!
We’re a family of music makers, though by no means professionals. We squeak and squawk here and there. And sometimes even more than that. But we love it. We’ve got a bunch of instruments in the house, and when friends come over, the kids and adults end up taking them out. We have tambourines, drums, pots and pans, homemade shakers and kazoos. An autoharp is a FABULOUS instrument to have around with kids. Each key has the name of the chord you are going to play, then you just press and strum. You can find them cheap on Ebay or at rummage sales. They have this dork factor, but really, parents and kids can play them with quick success. The ukulele is also a pretty easy instrument to learn. It’s a great size for smaller fingers and has fewer strings than a guitar. But great music can be made with just voices, shakers and drums.
We’ve been helped along in our music making by a couple of wonderful music books.
Rise Up Singing is an outstanding collection of 1,200 songs, subtitled “the group singing songbook.” It’s got lyrics and chords for a wide variety of songs from sea chanties to some show tunes to “Oh Susanna” to “I’m My Own Grandpa” and on and on…
Ruth Crawford Seeger’s American Folk Songs for Children is another book we use often.
In that same vein, we’ve downloaded song lyrics and chords from the websites of some of the family musicians we like. Dan Zanes has lyrics and chords to many of the songs on his records at his website. Elizabeth Mitchell created a truly lovely songbook with many of the songs from
You Are My Little Bird that we printed out at home. Frances England has lyrics at her site and so does Dog on Fleas. Lots of artists are putting lyrics at their websites now, which is great for community music making.
To contribute to the spirit of community music making, I’ve compiled a few of the songs from this year that have made our family sing and dance into a songbook for your families. (Download the songbook
here.) Frances England, Enzo Garcia, and Dean Jones of Dog on Fleas were kind enough to contribute original songs. The rest are traditional melodies that can be found on the other albums. Enjoy these and create the magic, too. Let’s all be music makers and see what wonderful inspiration 2007 brings.
Deb Evans Braun lives in San Francisco with her husband, two kids, a guitar, banjo, ukulele, flute, clarinet, two autoharps, two recorders, and myriad other music making thingamajigs.
