Song Help Request Infants, Uke playing and singing to babies and small children

Graham Greenbag

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I’ve reached that Grandad stage of life and can envisage that the next ten or so years will see my wife and I helping with and enjoying the early life stages of the next generation. To my mind music is an important part of both life and mental development. I’d like to be part of introducing my Grandchildren to music and believe that ‘singing’ to and with them and me ‘playing’ the Uke could be useful.

Do members have any ideas on what to sing and play to them and where to find such songs and music? All help would be appreciated, and I’d also like to hear of your own experiences doing similar to my proposal. Additionally perhaps some of you will have memories of adults, parents and grandparents singing and playing to you as a small child, what worked for you?
 
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I started ukulele at about the same time as I started getting grandkids. Mine like anything. I started with the songs they were hearing at preschool like itsy bitsy spider. But, popular songs were things they were hearing in movies, Netflix, or videos. Disney songs are always a hit, and Cynthia Lin has a lot of good ones.

But, they don't like repetition, such as me memorizing a song and playing a bar over and over. They are surprisingly good at recognizing a song that I had played before, even if it was not one that they would come across on their own. Much better than an adult, or at least the other adult in the house.

They all got started on First Act ukuleles very early on - like the plastic ones at Walmart. Then they got Enya HPL and Nova U ukes at around age five.
 

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My kids and other kids I've played for, now my grand kids, liked:
Gene Autry's Cowpoke Pokin' Along,
Carl Martin's Barnyard Dance,
Hopalong Peter, learned from The New Lost City Ramblers,
Singin' In The Bathtub learned from The Cheap Suit Serenaders,
Old Joe Clark,
My kids loved John Prine's Spanish Pipe Dream. They'd say, "Sing that 'Blow Up Your TV' song Papa."
Boodle Am Shake learned from Jim Kweskin's Jug Band.
Rosalie Sorrell's I'm Gonna Tell,
The Watermelon Song
Then there were Pete Seeger's story songs, Abiyoyo and The Foolish Frog.

My dad sang Frog Went A-Courtin' to us and finished up with an ending I've never heard anyone else do:

They paddled off across the lake uh huh,
They paddled off across the lake uh huh,
They paddled off across the lake
And got swallered up by a big black snake
Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.

Well that was the end of him and her uh huh,
That was the end of him and her uh huh,
That was the end of him and her
Now we won't have tadpoles covered in fur
Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.
 
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When my son was a babe in arms, I used to talk to him quite normally i.e. not baby talk. My wife, in contrast, couldn't bring herself to talk to him, knowing that he had no understanding of what she was saying, it just didn't work for her, so she would play the guitar and sing to him, instead. He developed very good language and communication skills and a great appreciation of music.

To me it seems like cause and effect.

John Colter
 
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