A while back I have read in a post here that @JoshFossgreen 's father would play bass for him when he was in the crib… (Still curious if his father had a portable amp or an acoustic bass)
I have one 3 year old boy and a new-born (1 month) girl and since forever I have been trying to convert some of my bass playing time so that it is interesting for them as well.
I can play half of it out of memory by now (finger style) and sometimes I experiment with slaps and pops on it as in popping open-g string and slapping everything else so it is more fun for me…
Watching hundreds of you tube videos with my toddler next to me we have found lots of repetition but there are some original songs too!
This one is particularly groovy I think:
Most of their songs are original and here there are the chord progressions so that I can easily tap into them:
I would love this topic to be an archive for all the parents in need of ideas and I will be posting here as I find more interesting stuff.
Meanwhile any song and setup ideas are appreciated!
Thanks for opening these floodgates @Fahri!
As a dad who was playing and touring while also starting a family (2 lovely girls, aged 9 and 6 now - and I’m no longer touring due in large part to the fact that these kids are more important than touring) I’ve got loads of stuff to recommend!!
First - Lemme brush off my own horn here before I give it a toot… My wife and I made a kids album when our own kids were small. We played around our county and even got to go to a festival or two thanks to some synergistic booking with the touring band!
Here is that:
We listen to this album all the time, and there is killer musicianship on the whole thing - the songs are all great and classic poems that Natalie Merchant set to music:
I have lists for days.
Real funny / great songs - Mike Phirman
Americana kids music - Red Yarn
Ridiculous YouTube Video Ultra Catchy jams from the singer of Nerf Herder? Parry Gripp
Goofy science music? They Might Be Giants
I’m sure there’s tons more.
Holler if anyone needs any more kid music jams!
Nailed it!
My wife - in addition to being a saint that was willing to stay married to a touring musician whilst also starting a family - is a killer singer! She rocked her own bands in her day.
And those are our kids, my nieces and nephews, and also we invited kids that participated in the weekly storytime that my wife and I did.
I have about 50-odd podcasts under this same name (Benedettiville) - it was just for my kids initially (stories I could send home from tour), then it was a radio show we did here on our local station for a year.
A cross between Monty Python, Sesame Street, and Shel Silverstein.
My heart lives pretty deep in make-believe land.
Enter Benedettiville at your own risk.
I loved playing some of the songs from the Space Ghost’s Musical Bar-B-Que. Particularly…
What Day Is IT
Don’t Touch Me
Put Your Socks On Mama
and I Love You Baby
@Gio oh my god that is amazing stuff! I am super envious of that capability to create this for childeren but I can also see the difficulty that takes you away from your family at the time. All kinds of art built around children must be the biggest investment one can ever make!
I have some good background in dancing (mostly improvisation) and I have been experimenting with my son all along this time. But my day time job ( 40 hours a week) even though it gives economical stability, leaves so little time each time to spend with kids and focus on my “art” this is what I mean when I say dancing with kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkreiRt8GEY
I will be listening to the songs you have shared today at work for inspiration and I will always be investing in creating a taste of music at home BUTT nowadays kids are constantly looking for visual cues… Whenever I play a tune he would run to the computer to see what is on the screen and after a couple of minutes he would ask me to put a video instead…
But I have found this gem from you in another thread! And this is just perfect!
The video is fantastic being super visual, and being star trek fans all around the family my wife would love this too! (From 1 years old my son would stop crying EVERY SINGLE TIME that we have put up Faith of the Heart - Dianne Warren the intro of Star Trek Enterprise <Capt. Archer> )
Since you are already flooding out may I ask a more focused favor on the subject? I have just finished the B2B (even almost got my gold star lol!) would you suggest any of your music for practice to me? If you could share sheets music for me to try to read and practice that would be amazing.
Right on @Fahri! So glad you’re getting stoked and inspired on all things music and bass here.
That dance video? That’s incredible. We have big dance parties here at our house, but it’s just me - a giant dance-challenged dad - jumping around, and hauling kids every which way. Super fun! But not as, um, elegant.
If you like any of the music you hear, I would heartily recommend practicing it! It’s a fun idea, and I’ll go ahead and post the music for that song with the video - Pain Au Chocolate - on the “Gio’s Funk Album” thread later today… or this week. Depends on how things go around here!
im a big fan of st. vincent, and her uncle is tuck of the jazz duo tuck and patti, who have been playing for years. over a year ago, she was being interviewed and was saying how the three of them had decided that most children’s songs were terrible and it would be cool to make a record of original kid’s songs that don’t suck. haven’t heard anything about it in a long time, but recently i heard tuck and patti say it is going to be released soon, should be interesting.
