droolicious : kids' music

Tiger Headphones For Little Ears

Lisa Estall — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:28:00 GMT

If you have school age kids you might like these Tiger Headphones for times you just want peace and quiet. These can be used for storytime, at the library, on the computer...

or listening to ipods. It’s specifically designed for young students with safety as the first concern.

I guess these would be good for audiobooks too.

On sale for $14.75 at Kidsdesk.com

Do You Like Waffles? Now Invading Our Brains On CD

Aaron Burgess — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:04:00 GMT

Titled after the insanely catchy YouTube clip that made its creator -- Nerf Herder frontman-turned-professional-jingle-writer Parry Gripp -- a worldwide phenomeon, Do You Like Waffles? is 24 songs and 17 minutes' worth of kid-friendly tunes that sound premade for any snack-food commercial you'd care to imagine. The CD is $9.98 from Amazon, but thanks to Parry Gripp's Song of the Week website, we've also got some freebies to help get you psyched about Gripp's weird world.

Do You Like Waffles? doesn't actually feature any of the tunes below (all of which are 100% squeaky-clean) -- but whether Gripp is singing about breakfast foods or setting inane YouTube clips to music, the idea's the same: simple ideas, big dumb laughs, and tunes that'll stick in your head for days. (Check out "Hip, Hip Hoo-Raisin," "Pizza Bagel" and "Sandwich" at the Song of the Week homepage for a taste of what you'll find on the CD.)

If lowbrow humor isn't your idea of family fun, you might want to stop reading here. Otherwise, set aside the Ritalin, gather the kids around the monitor, and get ready for some giggles.

Cat Flushing a Toilet:

Chimpanzee Riding a Segway:

Boogie Boogie Hedgehog:

Hamster On a Piano (Eating Popcorn):

Can't get enough? Stalk Parry Gripp on MySpace, Facebook and iTunes.

MyTunes Brings Kids' Tunes to iTunes - Over 100 Songs in All

Aaron Burgess — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:04:00 GMT

If you're an iTunes junkie, you may associate the name "MyTunes" with the program that lets you poach Steve in accounting's music library; but where kids are concerned, MyTunes is the new (as of last week) 100-plus-song series of children's music co-helmed by Bay Area music/singing teacher Mona Dena and composer Phil Schroeder.

Split across three volumes -- Outdoor Fun & Learning/People & Places, Fun & Movement/Creatures Big & Small, and Indoor Fun & Learning/Me, Myself & I -- MyTunes combines familiar, folk-inspired classics with a gaggle of new songs that are as well-produced as they are catchy. Though the songs are clearly aimed at preschoolers, they're thankfully free of the more annoying traits that bog down so many other kids' comps: namely, cloying, phoned-in musicianship or strained attempts at pleasing kids while staying hip enough to hold parents' attention.

Incidentally, though they have no connection to the "other" MyTunes, MyTunes 1, 2 and 3 are all available via iTunes -- in fact, digital download is the only way you can grab 'em now, though the record label behind the series, Artistry Kids, notes that MyTunes will eventually appear on CD. The upside of having them digitally, though, is that you can mix and match volumes and songs into your own kid-friendly playlists, and with the purchase of each collection through iTunes, you can also download a PDF featuring liner notes, a coloring page, and a guide to enhancing your kids' learning and development through interactive play.

MyTunes 1, 2 and 3 are available for $7.99 per volume, or as individual songs, through the iTunes Store, and you can also sample selected songs and videos from the series at MyTunes' MySpace page.

Kiddie Playlist: Pete Seeger

Meredith Broussard — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:05:00 GMT

On Monday, over on the Babble Boards, a reader named KarenLynn asked "What's your kiddie playlist?"

Here's the short answer: Like most parents of our demographic, our soundtrack at Chez Broussard features a lot of Dan Zanes and Laurie Berkner. But we're also playing a lot of American roots music for the kid, since it's something the whole family can agree on.

I'm partial to Pete Seeger's pro-union protest songs ("Which side are you on? Will you be a union man, or will you be a scab?). My son prefers Seeger's children's music ouvre. In heavy rotation at the moment: selections from American Favorite Ballads, Vol. 2. The album features classic kids' songs like "Camptown Races," "I Had A Rooster (Barnyard Song)," "Froggie Went A Courtin'," and "Blow the Man Down." Seeger performs most of the songs on the banjo-- if that's not kid-friendly, I don't know what is. You can listen to some excerpts here.

After several weeks of listening to Seeger in the car, "I Had A Rooster" has replaced the "Elmo's World" theme song as the number one song stuck in my head all day. Whew.

Pete Seeger, American Favorite Ballads, Vol. 2, $14.99 on Amazon.