music for children

SuperBoy loves music. Don’t all little tikes? He dances along, twirls, shrugs his shoulders, twists his wrists, and bobs his head from side to side. Sometimes there is jumping up and down involved. He only listens to two kids of music, though: classical or a limited selection of children/folk tunes. Why so limited? Why not open up his horizons to encompass the normal range of what’s out there? Well, for a few reasons. Most pop culture music has bad beats & bad lyrics. Classical music affects neurological development in a positive way (read more on my posts here and here). Heavy metal is bad for everyone’s ear drums. Folk & children’s tunes are generally benign enough lyrics-wise, and can be tolerated for protracted periods of time (by moi). What to we actually listen to, most of the time, aside from a small collection of random kid’s CDs? 1) Classical Minnesota Public Radio. MPR, baby! It’s commercial-free (unless you count the inane member drives), plays a huge variety, and never gets dull. When it burgeons into modern or what sounds like the scary violins in a thriller movie, we turn to our CD collection of opera, piano concertos, and orchestral suites. We had him listen to classical music exclusively until he was about 10-12 months, when those neurons were really REALLY forming. See below for reference to lecture on The Profound Effects of Music on Life. SuperBoy really loves Maria Callas. We have this old CD of her performing about 12 arias. He…