A World of Music for Your Kids

By Kurt Goerke

Parents spend a lot of time trying to convince their children to try new foods. The argument in favor of expanding their culinary experience usually boils down to some parental statement about how boring the world would be if all we had to eat was macaroni and cheese or some description of the great big world filled with tasty items just waiting to be discovered. There’s spaghetti from Italy, e Egg r Rolls from China and f Fajitas from Mexico out there just begging to be gobbled up! “Think about this,” I have said to my own son “you probably have not even tried the dish yet that will turn out to be your favorite.” He responded with something like “But I don’t want to try this, Dad, it’s GREEN!” As parents, we press on, knowing they will be thankful one day that their adult diet includes more than just goldfish crackers, peanut butter & and jelly and Cheerios!

Listen to Samples from the CD, Animal Playground:
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Listening to the latest release from Putumayo Kids World Music Adventures, I wondered why we don’t spend the same amount of time trying to expose them to the wide variety of music that this world has to offer? While playing the CD Animal Playground, a collection of songs and artists from all around the globe-- places such as Honduras, Italy and Canada. There are tracks sung in languages ranging from English to Spanish to Portuguese to a Suriname language called Papiamento. There will be a good portion of the music on the disc that will be foreign to you no matter where you are from. That is the beauty of the collection. There are wonderful liner notes included with the CD case that explain in several different languages what they songs are about. So, even if you don’t speak Papiamento, you can still learn that the song Bigi Kaiman is about a big crocodile enjoying the sun and lying in the sand ready to slip into the water at the first sign of danger. It won’t take long for you and your child to realize that, although many of the animals referenced in the songs seem exotic, that the feelings behind the songs are very familiar. Most U.S. citizens will already know “Mbube” sung by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a group from South Africa. They know the song as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Even though the fear of a lion attacking at night seems foreign , the idea of a mother comforting a child who is trying to go to sleep is not. Those who know Paul Simon’s album “Graceland” will already be familiar with the incredible sound of this South African choral group. They were very prominently featured on the groundbreaking album. (Perhaps the finest, fairly recent, example of an album that expanded the reach of our collective musical radar in America.)

An Italian version of “Old MacDonald” on the CD still carries the fun and joy of the song and may even provide a chance for your child to learn the names of a few common animals in Italian. “No More Monkey’s Jumping on the Bed” gets a fresh boost of life from an artist from Trinidad named Asheba. This track is also sung in a bonus music video included on the disk. Eight of the 13 tracks on the CD have all , or at least some lyrics , sung in English. It is not an inaccessible album by any means, but its beauty still stems from the under lying message that in all this wonderful refreshing diversity is a clear binding humanity. It seems a little odd at first glance to find our “shared” humanity in a music collection centered on “animals.” A second look, as the liner notes point out, reminds us that animals have always played an important role in the lives of all people. Animals appear in paintings, writing, music and dances and stories in all cultures. The animal kingdom (like food and music) is much more interesting for its great diversity. Kangaroos, giraffes and polar bears are fascinating to children and adults because they are unique creatures that most of us don’t see everyday.

Wouldn’t it be boring if the only animals in the world were cats? Wouldn’t it be boring if the only food was baloney? The music on this collection is joyful, exciting, fresh and brimming with “teachable moments” in regard to culture, language, geography, the animal kingdom and the human kingdom. Now, there is probably the greatest variety ever available of kid/family friendly music in the United States, with a great variety of styles musically and lyrically. But if those are all your children ever hear, they will have had only a small taste of the world of music waiting out there for them to discover. As variety is the spice of life, do your child a favor and purchase Animal Playground or one of Putumayo’s other wonderful releases to expand and spice up their musical buffet!