I’m currently taking a music appreciation class at College of DuPage, and our last discussion board post was about how musicians create some “music to teach people what to believe or how to think about or remember certain stories or events”.
Consider how much one can learn from a song. From the ABCs to the Months of the Year song to “Five Green and Speckled Frogs”, there are so many learning tunes. And even songs that aren’t inherently educational can still have value for learning, whether it be mental development or working on fine and gross motor skills.
I really appreciated this article about the benefits of music in our lives, especially for children.
My car isn’t “smart”, so I have to connect my phone via aux cable when playing Spotify in the car. Our listening runs the gamut from Hepcat to Melanie Martinez to Baby Shark depending on who requests what (I have a 10-year-old and a two-year-old). My aux port is a bit finicky, so I also have a CD in my CD player (Love is Dead and We Killed Her by Doll Skin) that has probably been in there for a year. The other day, I was pretty surprised when my two-year-old started singing along with one of the songs from that CD. I guess it’s often on in the background, but I didn’t realize that she was actually paying attention. I guess I just assumed she would tune it out. For me, that further solidifies the effect of music on the brain and how it helps with memory and learning words.
We have some great digital resources at the library for downloading, borrowing, and streaming music. Hoopla has music for geared towards kids (and their adults) like Laurie Berkner, Raffi, They Might Be Giants, and a variety of Disney (and non-Disney) soundtracks; greats like Elton John, Bob Marley, and Queen; and newer pop music like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Machine Gun Kelly, and Kidz Bop 2021 (if you want popular songs with kid-friendly language). Freegal also has a wide variety of music, and some really neat themed playlists like Green Thumb: A Gardening Playlist, The Spirit of Radio, and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2021 Nominees, among others.
We also have a variety of music-related materials here at the library, be it CDs, nonfiction materials on varying subjects of music, or fiction materials that are music-themed.
One final note – we will be trying out a new format of our Get Up ‘n Groove Storytime this April, so keep your ears perked and check the calendar for more info about that!