How I Raised My Children in Music

Have you ever noticed that families with extreme religions have a high success rate in having their children become adults who will follow their parents' religious practices? This applies to Orthodox Jews, Mormons, the Amish, Evangelical Christians and others. This is because the children are immersed in the culture from birth and kept away from outside influences as much as possible.

In our house, music is the religion. From birth, we exercised complete control of our children's sound environment. They could only watch television under our supervision. We approved of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood because it had excellent music. Shari Lewis Lamb Chop's Play-Along was musically acceptable. We watched Warner Brothers cartoons (Bugs Bunny etc.) They have excellent orchestral music scores that are indispensable to the humor.

Our children listened to a lot of audiotape cassettes. CD's came along a bit later. The general guideline is that the child should hear only recorded sounds produced by human lungs, hands, and feet. In other words, only singing, and acoustic instruments. No electronically amplified sounds were permitted. Any form of rock music was excluded.

There were many musicians making good recordings for children. These included Raffi, Rosenshontz, and Sharon, Lois and Bram. There are many others. Anything with good singing accompanied by acoustic instruments will help your children develop good musical values.

From an early age, our children listened to jazz singers. These included Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, Billy Eckstine, along with a host of females like Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Rosemary Clooney, etc. By the time they entered middle school, our children had a vast knowledge of American songs by Berlin, Kern, Gershwin, Rodgers, etc. and could instantly identify a large number of jazz and pre-rock pop singers by the sounds of their voices.

Videotaped movie musicals were also a resource for our children's music education. The Wizard of Oz is a good one to start with. Singing in the Rain is also excellent. By middle school, our children knew the movies of Fred and Ginger, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra. They knew nothing about Michael Jackson or Bruce Springsteen, or Bob Dylan, or anybody else whose music we don't like.

Classical music was introduced as bedtime listening. Our children liked to fall asleep to a recording of the Handel Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord. Later, they added the Mozart Quintet for Clarinet and Strings to their bedtime listening menu.

Our daughter is now 32 and our son is 29. Their knowledge of music and their preferences are almost identical to mine. And mine is almost the same as those of my father, who was born in 1915. That's the same year that Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday were born.

Some of my friends envy my child-rearing outcomes because they failed to impart good musical values to their children and watched them get sucked into a culture that is worse than worthless. They see now that they were not sufficiently vigilant and pro-active in making musical values central to the whole domestic environment. Of course, it helped that I am a musician. The children saw adults come to the house to rehearse with me. They thought that playing music is what grownups do.

If music is very important to you and central to your life, you have an excellent chance of seeing your children adopt your values. Good luck.

PS:2 quotations from Duke Ellington:

1. “If it sounds good, it IS good."

2. It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing