NOT JUST A CATCHY CHORUS
Mitchell College hosts children’s music forum and concert on Saturday
If you’re of a certain age, what you probably retain from your elementary school music songbook is that Old MacDonald had a farm, the fact of which, for some reason, required you to cry, “E-I-E-I-O.” Also, there was a guy called John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, who musically insisted — and this part didn’t make sense — that his name was your name, too, even though John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt WASN’T your name.
Today, children’s music is a vastly different and complex proposition with all sorts of possibilities and rewards. It’s become an estimable part of the entertainment industry as well as a progressively evolving educational component — and those two aspects can work in productive and symbiotic ways.
For example, on Saturday at New London’s Mitchell College, the Artists & Educators Children’s Songs Conference
& Festival provides a one-two punch of purpose and entertainment.
The “conference” segment, taking place in the morning, will be geared toward educators and musicians and consists of theoretical and how-to workshops such as Music in the Classroom, The Business of Children’s Music, Teachers Making Music and Contemporary Recording Techniques.
Instructors are Chris Clouet (head of the education department at Mitchell College, a children’s music songwriter whose tunes are typically paired with children’s books, and the former superintendent of the New London Public School system); Al deCant (longtime Connecticut educator known as “The Singing Principal,” with a catalog that spans musical styles and storytelling); Greg Lato (Providence-based family musician and songwriter and children’s book author); and Steve Elci (Waterford native recently inducted into the New England Music Hall of Fame for
his work as a musician/songwriter in both family and adult music).
In the afternoon, those four will perform at the Children’s Songs Festival, a family-friendly, public-welcome concert that will feature familiar and original material, singalongs and other participatory elements.
The idea of a dual-purpose, daylong event came about — ideally enough — when Clouet and Elci were jamming one day.
“We were just playing; some of my songs and some of his — and Steve’s obviously more adept,” Clouet laughed. “But we were having fun and somehow, as we were talking, it came up: ‘Y’know, we could do this on a bigger scale and we might have something.’ There are a lot of teachers that are writing their own songs and wanting to take the next step but don’t know how.”
Fortuitously, Elci had recently returned from a conference sponsored by the Children’s Music Network, a nonprofit organization of teachers, performers, songwriters, radio hosts and parents who are actively engaged in the development, quality and content of children’s music.
“It had me thinking how cool it would be to do something like the Network conference,” Elci said, “but I never thought about doing one at a local college till Chris brought it up. I thought it was a great idea and I said, ‘Well, I can help you down this road because I’ve learned a lot about it.’”
A hummable evolution
Children’s music began to evolve in the mid-’60s when kids’ TV icons like Captain Kangaroo and Shari Lewis elevated the form from generic song textbooks with more modern melodies and learning components. Simultaneously, established folksingers like Peter, Paul & Mary and Tom Paxton began writing material for young people.
And when “Sesame Street” hit television with music from composers Joe Raposo and Jeff Moss, there was an explosion in terms of quality and appeal. The songs were catchy but also contained educational lyrics ranging from spelling and math to history and even ethics and cultural awareness.