Baby Lullaby Mixes
I don't think I've mentioned it here, only on a single Facebook update, but I've been putting together a "lullaby mix" for the baby. I went through this really great, time consuming search for the classic lullabies, and found that I still remembered a pretty good amount (even ones I didn't think about immediately, like "Row Row Your Boat" and "Rockaby Baby" and "Mama's Gonna Buy You..." and so on). But, I found that the thought of singing these over and over and over and over on repeat, for days and days on end, possibly even YEARS, made me want to throw up a little in my mouth.
It's not that I don't think I'll sing these at all. After all, one of the reasons why they've survived as long as they have is that they're easy to remember and pass on, and even a small child with limited verbal skills can sing along. However, once I thought of it in this way, I realized that I don't think I *want* my kid knowing only really simple lyrics and tunes. I feel strongly that we've "dumbed" children down in our society. By this I do NOT mean that children are stupider than other generations--I mean EXCLUSIVELY that we TREAT our children as if they are fragile, stupid human beings who cannot know too much too early or it will "ruin" them. I have no idea how this became the prevailing school of thought, particularly since it is the most unsupported belief system since the great Dr. Spock was finally thoroughly debunked. Like Piaget's stages of growth, this theory that children cannot "support complicated thoughts" in their younger minds is completely based on a theoretical belief that has never been proven.
In fact, a lot shows that the less you treat a child like an "adult" (in terms of intelligence, and ability to learn new things, NOT in terms of knowledge), the slower their growth will be. Anyone who has studied neurobiology or sophisticated psychology has learned that we will NEVER learn as quickly and efficiently as we do as children. That is your learning PEAK of fluid intelligence (this has to do with your learning capability, rather than your knowledge), and the more you cram in, the better. But, we've become obsessed with the idea that this can only mean the "subjects" of school: math and reading. However, this is a narrow view of our world and social setting that demonstrates our increasing belief that school teaches us everything we need to know to navigate our world.
As all of us now out of school know, nothing could be more incorrect. A vast majority of our lives have absolutely no connection to what we learned in school within the scope of knowledge gained in an academic way. Oh, the "Playground Rules" were absorbed and put to good use for all these years, but that's a secondary function of school, not the primary purpose. The other things about life we learned as we went, and would have learned regardless of whether school continued to teach us what a metaphor is, or the chemical reason why bread rises, or how to calculate the average within the context of two standard deviations from the mean.
However, the current Child Rearing Psychology has us believe that we should swaddle our children very tightly. They should be exposed to only bright, energetic, colorful happy things, and sheltered from the reality of concepts like sickness, death, or sadness. Now, like any ordinary adult, I don't want a child to EXPERIENCE any of the sad things, at least not in the sense that I want to actively cause any of them. But, I do believe that EXPOSURE to these things only benefits us within our own social context. The reality is that our world contains a lot of things that are not hyperactive cheerful characters. It contains death, decay, sadness, regret, and failure. A responsible parent teaches a child not just to avoid these things, but to COPE with them when they occur.
What does this have to do with lullaby songs? Well, as I reviewed my options in singing to my child(ren), I realized that I wanted to give them songs that were more sophisticated, even some that were in foreign languages that I can sing in. These aren't just simplistic melodies with simple lyrics that a child can easily repeat--but, the repeated exposure to them will actually help to grow my child's vocabulary, and as they come to understand the words that make up the song, it will generate either questions about it, or even better understandings of their world.
Now, I've still had to be careful in choosing these songs--they have to either be naturally slow and soft, or can be sung at "half speed" to make them soothing. Also, while there are some songs I enjoy, and would enjoy singing along to, they're not good lullaby songs. This is fine, because another fun thing to do with the baby when he or she is *awake* is to sing along to a song while lightly bouncing the baby along to the rhythm. The little kid I nannied, Thomas, LOVED doing this. I did it to the radio, and he adored it, and he was 10-months-old at the time. But, there is a lot of research that shows that babies respond positively to music and singing in soothing (the prevailing theory is that its because in the womb, the baby was surrounded by sound--in fact, the most effective lullabies for babies were the ones that they were sung while STILL IN THE WOMB). There are a few (well, two really) songs that I worry about for later when they can begin to repeat the songs. Not because I think they should be sheltered from words like "shit" or "sex" but because I worry that it will get them in trouble with some adult that believes that children who say words like this are "ruined" in some way.
For the curious, I've decided to write down the Lullaby Lists. It's plural "lists" because there's MY list, and then there's Brian's list. They're not the same because while I can sort of carry a vaguely recognizeable tune (though it will likely not have reliable pitch, and will only be partially on key....not that I will know this 90% of the time), Brian can actually sing, and knows when he's off, and can self-correct. So, he can sing some songs I just cannot sing acappella. However, he has no gift for lyrics at all, which is what I can do. I remember the entire lyrics to about 40% of the songs I have, most of the lyrics to another 30%, and at least some of the lyrics to 25%, with only a very small percentage being really unknown to me except MAYBE the chorus (around 5%). This is more impressive, I suppose, if you know I have 2200 songs, of which only about 150 of those are instrumentals. It's less than some people have, I know, but my relatively smaller collection allows me to know my music better. Brian probably knows about 5 songs in entirety. (40% of around 2100 song is 840, for those not able to math in your head). So, he'll be practicing. XD
Athena's Lullabies (an * next to the song title means its on Brian's list as well):
1. "Always With Me"-Joe Hisaishi (Japanese)
2. "Toki No Hourousha"-Nobuo Uematsu (Japanese)
3. "Suteki Da Ne"-Nobuo Uematsu (Japanese)
4. "Kaze No Machi He"-FictionJunction KEIKO (Japanese)
5. "Voices"-Akino Arai (Japanese)
6. "Tooi Kono Machi De"-Naomi Kaitani (Japanese)
7. "Sora"-Shanti Synder (Latin)
8. "HANABI"-ayumi hamasaki (Japanese)
9. "Hiiru No Tsuki"-Akino Arai (Japanese)
10. "Green Island Seranade"-Vienna Teng (Chinese)
11. "Your Cloud"-Tori Amos*
12. "Fields of Gold"-Eva Cassidy*
13. "Winter"-Tori Amos
14. "Answer"-Sarah McLachlan
15. "Hush, Hush, Hush"-Paula Cole
16. "Into The West"-Annie Lennox and Howard Shore*
17. "Wandering Star"-Portishead*
18. "Angel"-Sarah McLachlan
19. "Eva"-Nightwish
20. "The Dream Within"-Lara Fabian*
21. "O Holy Night"-Celtic Woman
22. "Left of the Middle"-Natalie Imbruglia
23. "Half Acre"-Hem*
24. "Sailor"-Hem
25. "Hollow"-Hem*
26. "Amazing Grace"-Lisbeth Scott*
27. "Madness"-Alanis Morissette
28. "Gravity"-Sara Bareilles*
29. "Bethlehem"-Paula Cole
30. "The Fire Thief"-Hem*
31. "Mary"-Sarah McLachlan
32. "Leave Me Here"-Hem*
33. "Dying In The Sun"-The Cranberries
34. "Leaving On A Jet Plane"-Chntal Kreviazuk
35. "Life Goes On"-Elisa*
36. "Fast Car"-Tracy Chapman
37. "Save Me"-Aimee Mann
38. "My Immortal"-Evanescence
39. "Looking Through Your Eyes"-Camelot Soundtrack
40. "Set Fire To The Third Bar"-Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright*
41. "Chasing Cars"-Snow Patrol
42. "Unchained Melody"-Righteous Brothers
43. "Mad World"-Michael Andrews & Gary Jules*
44. "The Spirit Carries On"-Dream Theater*
45. "Darkness"-Disturbed
46. "Hallelujah"-Rufus Wainwright*
47. "The Freshman"-Jay Brannan*
I know it looks like a lot, but the thing is--it will probably take upwards of five songs (or five repeats of the same song) to get the baby to sleep. When you think about it that way, it could be a long while that you're singing, and the more variety you have the better. This isn't just me guessing, by the way--there was a period of almost a full year where Sheena COULD NOT go to sleep without being sung to sleep (and guess who did that?), and I quickly realized that the old standbys like Twinkle, Twinkle just don't get you very far. After 40 renditions of Twinkle, Twinkle, you start to wish you knew more songs. Of the songs above, I can sing about 10 completely on my own, and the rest with the music. There are only about 5 or 6 that I don't know all the lyrics to that I need the song to prompt me. But, I can get through quite a few even when I'm very tired (this is a point I brought up to Brian repeatedly when we were picking his: make sure at LEAST half of these songs are ones you think you can remember when you're exhausted, your voice is infected with sleep, and you're ready to just try to sleep through the crying).
Brian's Lullabies:
1. "How I Go"-Yellowcard
2. "Lazarus"-Porcupine Tree
3. "As The World Falls Down"-David Bowie
4. "Sea of Faces"-Kutless (one of the only songs Brian knows all the lyrics to)
5. "Black Tables"-Other Lives
6. "Wanna Be"-Nine Days
7. "The Islander"-Nightwish
8. "This Night"-Black Lab
9. "Twenty-Four"-Switchfoot
10. "Here's To The Night"-Eve 6
11. "Counting Stars"-Sugarcult
12. "Hollow Years"-Dream Theater
13. "Fire"-Augustana
14. "Superman"-Five For Fighting
15. "Life Is Wonderful"-Jason Mraz
16. "Bound"-Black Lab
17. "Back To California"-Sugarcult
18. "Human"-Civil Twilight
19. "So Far Away"-Staind
20. "Lonely Boy"-Black Lab
21. "I Love You"-Sarah McLachlan
(These are in addition to the ones with an * on my list.) My only concern is that he doesn't know most of the songs he likes, even those that he would be happy to sing. I'm a little worried that he picked some of the songs because he likes them, but doesn't realize that singing them on his own means he will have to recall the lyrics. Though, I've said already that I may end up making some print-outs of the lyrics of the lullaby lists, for both of us, since lyrics tend to flee when one is tired. But, I'm not going to do it for 41 songs (the amount on Brian's list). I'll maybe do it for 10 or 15, but that's it (and only because I can use columns and print front and back pages).
And that is that. For those that have nothing better to do today, I'd recommend any of these songs to check out on iTunes (or whatever you're using for you music), especially for nice slower songs. Sometimes these are really just great songs to have. In fact, all of those on my list rate a 4 or 5 in my library (Brian picked some of my 3 stars, like "This Night" and "Fire").
Anyway. I now am off to eat lunch. I purposefully went on and on in this entry because I'm trying to avoid playing Roller Toaster. I had actual NIGHTMARES about this one scenario (Amnity Airfields, for those in the Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 know) that neither Brian nor I can seem to beat (I JUST CANNOT GET MORE THAN 2,000 GUESTS IN MY PARK BY YEAR 4 AND YOU NEED 3,000!!! HOW!? HOW CAN THIS BE POSSIBLE?!?! IT'S NOT EVEN IN EXPERT PARKS! JUST CHALLENGING!!!). So, I'm trying to avoid it as long as I can, especially since for the past few days, every time I close my eyes I see lots of little animated people walking along little pathways (if you've played, you know what I'm talking about). But, I feel that I will succumb soon. This scenario has become something of an obsession of mine.
It's not that I don't think I'll sing these at all. After all, one of the reasons why they've survived as long as they have is that they're easy to remember and pass on, and even a small child with limited verbal skills can sing along. However, once I thought of it in this way, I realized that I don't think I *want* my kid knowing only really simple lyrics and tunes. I feel strongly that we've "dumbed" children down in our society. By this I do NOT mean that children are stupider than other generations--I mean EXCLUSIVELY that we TREAT our children as if they are fragile, stupid human beings who cannot know too much too early or it will "ruin" them. I have no idea how this became the prevailing school of thought, particularly since it is the most unsupported belief system since the great Dr. Spock was finally thoroughly debunked. Like Piaget's stages of growth, this theory that children cannot "support complicated thoughts" in their younger minds is completely based on a theoretical belief that has never been proven.
In fact, a lot shows that the less you treat a child like an "adult" (in terms of intelligence, and ability to learn new things, NOT in terms of knowledge), the slower their growth will be. Anyone who has studied neurobiology or sophisticated psychology has learned that we will NEVER learn as quickly and efficiently as we do as children. That is your learning PEAK of fluid intelligence (this has to do with your learning capability, rather than your knowledge), and the more you cram in, the better. But, we've become obsessed with the idea that this can only mean the "subjects" of school: math and reading. However, this is a narrow view of our world and social setting that demonstrates our increasing belief that school teaches us everything we need to know to navigate our world.
As all of us now out of school know, nothing could be more incorrect. A vast majority of our lives have absolutely no connection to what we learned in school within the scope of knowledge gained in an academic way. Oh, the "Playground Rules" were absorbed and put to good use for all these years, but that's a secondary function of school, not the primary purpose. The other things about life we learned as we went, and would have learned regardless of whether school continued to teach us what a metaphor is, or the chemical reason why bread rises, or how to calculate the average within the context of two standard deviations from the mean.
However, the current Child Rearing Psychology has us believe that we should swaddle our children very tightly. They should be exposed to only bright, energetic, colorful happy things, and sheltered from the reality of concepts like sickness, death, or sadness. Now, like any ordinary adult, I don't want a child to EXPERIENCE any of the sad things, at least not in the sense that I want to actively cause any of them. But, I do believe that EXPOSURE to these things only benefits us within our own social context. The reality is that our world contains a lot of things that are not hyperactive cheerful characters. It contains death, decay, sadness, regret, and failure. A responsible parent teaches a child not just to avoid these things, but to COPE with them when they occur.
What does this have to do with lullaby songs? Well, as I reviewed my options in singing to my child(ren), I realized that I wanted to give them songs that were more sophisticated, even some that were in foreign languages that I can sing in. These aren't just simplistic melodies with simple lyrics that a child can easily repeat--but, the repeated exposure to them will actually help to grow my child's vocabulary, and as they come to understand the words that make up the song, it will generate either questions about it, or even better understandings of their world.
Now, I've still had to be careful in choosing these songs--they have to either be naturally slow and soft, or can be sung at "half speed" to make them soothing. Also, while there are some songs I enjoy, and would enjoy singing along to, they're not good lullaby songs. This is fine, because another fun thing to do with the baby when he or she is *awake* is to sing along to a song while lightly bouncing the baby along to the rhythm. The little kid I nannied, Thomas, LOVED doing this. I did it to the radio, and he adored it, and he was 10-months-old at the time. But, there is a lot of research that shows that babies respond positively to music and singing in soothing (the prevailing theory is that its because in the womb, the baby was surrounded by sound--in fact, the most effective lullabies for babies were the ones that they were sung while STILL IN THE WOMB). There are a few (well, two really) songs that I worry about for later when they can begin to repeat the songs. Not because I think they should be sheltered from words like "shit" or "sex" but because I worry that it will get them in trouble with some adult that believes that children who say words like this are "ruined" in some way.
For the curious, I've decided to write down the Lullaby Lists. It's plural "lists" because there's MY list, and then there's Brian's list. They're not the same because while I can sort of carry a vaguely recognizeable tune (though it will likely not have reliable pitch, and will only be partially on key....not that I will know this 90% of the time), Brian can actually sing, and knows when he's off, and can self-correct. So, he can sing some songs I just cannot sing acappella. However, he has no gift for lyrics at all, which is what I can do. I remember the entire lyrics to about 40% of the songs I have, most of the lyrics to another 30%, and at least some of the lyrics to 25%, with only a very small percentage being really unknown to me except MAYBE the chorus (around 5%). This is more impressive, I suppose, if you know I have 2200 songs, of which only about 150 of those are instrumentals. It's less than some people have, I know, but my relatively smaller collection allows me to know my music better. Brian probably knows about 5 songs in entirety. (40% of around 2100 song is 840, for those not able to math in your head). So, he'll be practicing. XD
Athena's Lullabies (an * next to the song title means its on Brian's list as well):
1. "Always With Me"-Joe Hisaishi (Japanese)
2. "Toki No Hourousha"-Nobuo Uematsu (Japanese)
3. "Suteki Da Ne"-Nobuo Uematsu (Japanese)
4. "Kaze No Machi He"-FictionJunction KEIKO (Japanese)
5. "Voices"-Akino Arai (Japanese)
6. "Tooi Kono Machi De"-Naomi Kaitani (Japanese)
7. "Sora"-Shanti Synder (Latin)
8. "HANABI"-ayumi hamasaki (Japanese)
9. "Hiiru No Tsuki"-Akino Arai (Japanese)
10. "Green Island Seranade"-Vienna Teng (Chinese)
11. "Your Cloud"-Tori Amos*
12. "Fields of Gold"-Eva Cassidy*
13. "Winter"-Tori Amos
14. "Answer"-Sarah McLachlan
15. "Hush, Hush, Hush"-Paula Cole
16. "Into The West"-Annie Lennox and Howard Shore*
17. "Wandering Star"-Portishead*
18. "Angel"-Sarah McLachlan
19. "Eva"-Nightwish
20. "The Dream Within"-Lara Fabian*
21. "O Holy Night"-Celtic Woman
22. "Left of the Middle"-Natalie Imbruglia
23. "Half Acre"-Hem*
24. "Sailor"-Hem
25. "Hollow"-Hem*
26. "Amazing Grace"-Lisbeth Scott*
27. "Madness"-Alanis Morissette
28. "Gravity"-Sara Bareilles*
29. "Bethlehem"-Paula Cole
30. "The Fire Thief"-Hem*
31. "Mary"-Sarah McLachlan
32. "Leave Me Here"-Hem*
33. "Dying In The Sun"-The Cranberries
34. "Leaving On A Jet Plane"-Chntal Kreviazuk
35. "Life Goes On"-Elisa*
36. "Fast Car"-Tracy Chapman
37. "Save Me"-Aimee Mann
38. "My Immortal"-Evanescence
39. "Looking Through Your Eyes"-Camelot Soundtrack
40. "Set Fire To The Third Bar"-Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright*
41. "Chasing Cars"-Snow Patrol
42. "Unchained Melody"-Righteous Brothers
43. "Mad World"-Michael Andrews & Gary Jules*
44. "The Spirit Carries On"-Dream Theater*
45. "Darkness"-Disturbed
46. "Hallelujah"-Rufus Wainwright*
47. "The Freshman"-Jay Brannan*
I know it looks like a lot, but the thing is--it will probably take upwards of five songs (or five repeats of the same song) to get the baby to sleep. When you think about it that way, it could be a long while that you're singing, and the more variety you have the better. This isn't just me guessing, by the way--there was a period of almost a full year where Sheena COULD NOT go to sleep without being sung to sleep (and guess who did that?), and I quickly realized that the old standbys like Twinkle, Twinkle just don't get you very far. After 40 renditions of Twinkle, Twinkle, you start to wish you knew more songs. Of the songs above, I can sing about 10 completely on my own, and the rest with the music. There are only about 5 or 6 that I don't know all the lyrics to that I need the song to prompt me. But, I can get through quite a few even when I'm very tired (this is a point I brought up to Brian repeatedly when we were picking his: make sure at LEAST half of these songs are ones you think you can remember when you're exhausted, your voice is infected with sleep, and you're ready to just try to sleep through the crying).
Brian's Lullabies:
1. "How I Go"-Yellowcard
2. "Lazarus"-Porcupine Tree
3. "As The World Falls Down"-David Bowie
4. "Sea of Faces"-Kutless (one of the only songs Brian knows all the lyrics to)
5. "Black Tables"-Other Lives
6. "Wanna Be"-Nine Days
7. "The Islander"-Nightwish
8. "This Night"-Black Lab
9. "Twenty-Four"-Switchfoot
10. "Here's To The Night"-Eve 6
11. "Counting Stars"-Sugarcult
12. "Hollow Years"-Dream Theater
13. "Fire"-Augustana
14. "Superman"-Five For Fighting
15. "Life Is Wonderful"-Jason Mraz
16. "Bound"-Black Lab
17. "Back To California"-Sugarcult
18. "Human"-Civil Twilight
19. "So Far Away"-Staind
20. "Lonely Boy"-Black Lab
21. "I Love You"-Sarah McLachlan
(These are in addition to the ones with an * on my list.) My only concern is that he doesn't know most of the songs he likes, even those that he would be happy to sing. I'm a little worried that he picked some of the songs because he likes them, but doesn't realize that singing them on his own means he will have to recall the lyrics. Though, I've said already that I may end up making some print-outs of the lyrics of the lullaby lists, for both of us, since lyrics tend to flee when one is tired. But, I'm not going to do it for 41 songs (the amount on Brian's list). I'll maybe do it for 10 or 15, but that's it (and only because I can use columns and print front and back pages).
And that is that. For those that have nothing better to do today, I'd recommend any of these songs to check out on iTunes (or whatever you're using for you music), especially for nice slower songs. Sometimes these are really just great songs to have. In fact, all of those on my list rate a 4 or 5 in my library (Brian picked some of my 3 stars, like "This Night" and "Fire").
Anyway. I now am off to eat lunch. I purposefully went on and on in this entry because I'm trying to avoid playing Roller Toaster. I had actual NIGHTMARES about this one scenario (Amnity Airfields, for those in the Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 know) that neither Brian nor I can seem to beat (I JUST CANNOT GET MORE THAN 2,000 GUESTS IN MY PARK BY YEAR 4 AND YOU NEED 3,000!!! HOW!? HOW CAN THIS BE POSSIBLE?!?! IT'S NOT EVEN IN EXPERT PARKS! JUST CHALLENGING!!!). So, I'm trying to avoid it as long as I can, especially since for the past few days, every time I close my eyes I see lots of little animated people walking along little pathways (if you've played, you know what I'm talking about). But, I feel that I will succumb soon. This scenario has become something of an obsession of mine.