Discuss with the board the traditional and cultural music in your home community.

[Meredith Pizzi]

[Elizabeth Carras]

One of the biggest culture shock moments for me during my internship at a pediatric hospital was that not everyone knows what I thought of as “children’s music”. I discovered that the music therapy clients in the 3-7 age group had never heard The Wheels on the Bus or Row Row Row Your Boat, but knew every word to Nikki Minaj’s pop songs. Partly for that reason, when we do early childhood music classes in our community, we do self-written embedded songs but also include teaching songs like Hickory Dickory Dock or the ABCs, simply because children in our community aren’t hearing them in their homes.
There are certain songs that I notice parents are more likely to join in singing when used in class, such as Shortnin’ Bread or Oh Susannah, ones that I classify as American Folk Songs.

[Anonymous]

Great reflections Elizabeth. Do you know what the styles of music and cultural music in your community? Looking at the communities where we provide services helps us to be aware of how we can include this in the work that we do and find ways to connect with our communities. In my community, there is a vast mix of cultures from almost every country in the world. When a new family joins my Sprouting Melodies class I encourage my families to share a song from their culture that we can include in our group.

[Kate Potrykus]

I’m finding that, in my area, that there is less diversity in cultural music. There is plenty of diversity and musical exploration to be done within those difference cultures, but most children that I have worked with in this area prefer American pop, rock, or rap music. I also find, like Elizabeth, that younger and younger children are being exposed to pop music and other music over the children’s songs we grew up knowing, singing, and loving. Even then, I’ll prep music for a new group or individual and find that just because they are a 20-something year old, they have zero interest in hearing today’s top 100. In fact, I’m seeing that many children in my area are drawn to the music that their parents have exposed them to – which often happens to be classic rock! Other popular songs in my community among younger people are the ones they learned in music class in elementary school – Fifty Nifty United States, The Cat Came Back, and other more traditional folk songs. They sang these songs every year during elementary school and they’re easy to remember. So I’ve also found I get a lot of positive feedback from using those.

I know there are other cultures and traditional music in neighboring communities which I am hoping to experience more once I can start offering Sprouting Melodies classes! Just how this week’s lesson said that children should have their musical horizons expanded, it is always nice as a music therapist/musician, to have your musical horizons expanded too!

[Marcie Hernandez, MT-BC]

Similar to Kate’s observations, I have found that most of the children I work with like pop, rock, rap and hip hop music (what their parents are listening to). My town, however, has a large refugee community, mostly individuals from Somalia and Burma. Although I haven’t worked with anyone from this community yet, one of my hopes is that we could reach out to these families with Sprouting Melodies classes to not only assist with healthy child development, but also provide meaningful ways for these families to feel connected to the greater community.

[Susan Gannon]

I have not experienced as much of the phenomenon of children liking pop music as my colleagues have pointed out. I have noticed that most of the children in my groups and individual sessions know children’s songs such as the Wheels on the Bus. They also know some nursery rhyme songs, but probably not as many as I did as a child. They really like songs from Disney movies such as “Frozen”, “Spirit”, and “Rapunzel” just to name a few. The clinic where I work is in an area where there are a lot of immigrants from India. I have asked families to bring me CDs of their cultural music, but I find the children prefer to listen to CDs or my voice singing children’s songs. It’s almost as if they are using these songs to learn English and fit into the surrounding culture. Therefore, I use a lot of my own composed songs because most of the children’s songs are over-learned songs, and that makes it difficult to use them as training and therapy songs if piggybacked.

[Rebecca Woodruff]

In my community, the children I have observed seem to know nursery songs such as “twinkle twinkle” or “five little speckled frogs” but when asked to choose a favorite song will gravitate towards Disney music, especially “Let it Go” from “Frozen”. There has been a large increase in the Pilipino population in my community over the years, so I will be looking more into songs popular within their culture. My community also is surrounded by farms and ranches so western and country music is also popular.

Within my internship, though we used set lesson plans we would often look for ways to add more new music, usually pop, into our sessions. The children and caregivers responded to these songs with great enthusiasm. Many of the children I worked with in my internship were in the developmental levels discussed here. They also greatly enjoyed nursery songs, “the Wheels on the Bus” and songs with embedded movement, “If You’re Happy and You Know It”.

[Shelly Peterson]

I led a program about holidays around the world and asked for suggestions from my families. Some families were eager to share of their French or Indian (the country) heritage and others did not share so much. I find it depends on the center or area of town I am in sometimes, but my community is very diverse in cultures from around the world: Germany, France, India, China, Japan, Philippines, Laos, Africa (many different countries in Africa). I hold a great interest in learning about the music in other peoples’ cultures and share it with the children I work with. When I worked in St. Paul, I had a teacher who taught me a few traditionally American folk songs (Brother John) in her African language and I still use it with groups. What a great way to empower everyone in the group to feel like they have value and can contribute to the group.

[Julia Park]

Like Susan, I have noticed children respond well to songs from Disney like “Frozen”. I was born in South Korea and lived in Boston, Alabama, and California. I still have friends and families in those places. Most of my friends have little kids by now and Disney songs play such a huge role. It seems like kids love songs with storyline and pictures that they can associate with. When I worked with geriatric population, I had an older Korean male who asked me to sing “Arirang” which is a popular Korean folk song. This song reminded of him his home country and his friends and families. He teared up and thanked me immediately. We were able to share a brief yet an intimate and powerful moment together where I was able to show him the respect of his country of origin through music. I believe it is always good to know at least one song from a different cultures background. Folk songs seems to be a great tool to reach people from different culture. In fact, my old internship supervisor required all her interns to memorize one folk song from different cultures which became very handy.

[Christina Bass]

Although many of the clients I work with are familiar are with American traditional and pop songs, I have found the music culture of Colorado Springs very diverse and interesting. A couple of my client’s families have a strong Christian faith and the children are most familiar with the Christian Rock they hear at church and listen to on the radio. There is also a strong country influence, both old and current, there is an elderly woman at one of the facilities my company works with that used to sing on a local country radio station with her family when she was younger, and I have a couple younger clients (ages 7-9) that love many of the older country songs. There are many bilingual families, primarily Spanish/English, and many engage in the traditional music of their culture. Colorado also has folk, bluegrass, and Celtic music with many events and festivals.

[Nicole Drozd]

Because I am relatively new to private practice ownership, I work with a lot of different populations and age groups with in my community. The children I work with primarily resonate toward pop music or religious music (one of my clients’ mothers is very involved within their religious community and bring her child with her all the time), My teens love underground rap and hip-hop artists with a little bit of pop, metal, and alternative music thrown in there, and my adults with ID/DD can vary in their preferences depending on what they have been exposed to. When I used to live in South-West VA a lot of the music was country, bluegrass. and classic rock. Now that I live in Norfolk-it varies greatly. I have lived her for a little less than a year and it is always exciting learning more about the traditional and cultural music in my community.

[Alexis Ramagnano]

I am finding it very difficult to pin down the traditional and cultural music of my home community. I find that the Philadelphia area is so culturally diverse, as is most cities. I currently work with adults, in a place I’ve been for over 8 years, and the musical preferences are so vastly different and keep changing with each admission. Everyone here knows the Rocky theme song, and The Roots, there are so many religions, and people from every part of the world. The diversity of Philadelphia is one of the reasons I stayed here after finishing my degree at Temple University. I mean who wouldn’t love being able to go and hear any type of music almost any night of the week and also make friends with people from all over the world!
I do love the idea of having a family member and or child share a song that is part of their culture/tradition with the group! This idea is one I will definitely use.

[Daniel Henry]

Tough question! I feel that it varies so much in a city like Boston, where there are so many cultures packed together. There are groups that really enjoy the great american composers like Gershwin or Berlin, some enjoy traditional Irish tunes, and others that really love Spanish music or rock and roll. I think a challenge that I have working with varying populations is just learning all the music, but it’s also a great joy because it allows me to be exposed to music that I may not otherwise seek out.

[Johanna Horn]

I live in Northern Virginia right outside of DC and there are so many different cultures and communities. At the preschool I work at, I am always trying to expose the children to different genres of music and world instruments/music. One week, I invited the children to engage in a “Show and Share”, and asked the students to bring in instruments or music that is found in their household to reflect their own culture. One student brought in a ukulele from Hawaii, another brought a CD of “pop” music from India. It was fantastic to hear and see the music and cultural influences these children have at home. I think it is important to recognize this in music class.

[Anonymous]

It is great to hear all of the variations you are all seeing in your communities. When you begin to get to know your communities music you have a greater capacity to work from a culturally informed place as a therapist. Johanna I love the Show and Share, I am going to try that with my clients as some point.

[Charniqua Snell]

In my community there are a diverse number of people who live here. There are many people from the Caribbean who now call Florida home. With them comes reggae and dance hall music. There are a lot of Latino families and knowing songs in Spanish is a huge plus for this community. In both of these communities, I have noticed that dancing is a big part of their culture! In the African-American community, gospel and other religious songs are huge. If the parents/grandparents are religious than the children usually know the songs sung in their church. There are many families that live in rural areas surrounding Orlando or are from other southern states. So country and folk music is something listened to a lot around here. Depending where you are in central Florida, the cultures, languages, and music listened to can change. You just have to wait until you meet the family and you will always be surprised what they say is their favorite!

[Flora Whitmore]

I grew up learning a great deal of Yiddish, Hebrew, French and American folk songs with a sprinkle of Broadway, Sesame Street, Sharon Lois & Bram and Raffi. I lived in Vermont but my parents were from the Midwest so I got all the traditional nursery rhyme songs too, but the populations I work with now all, as many others have said, tend to lean heavily into the pop and Disney categories. KidzBop. All my under six crowd are obsessed. There are also a great deal of musical entertainers out there now, like Laurie Berkner, Elizabeth Mitchell and Tom Pease, and many I have yet to discover. Often I find families have their own preferred ‘kids music cd’ or music from a specific TV show. I constantly feel the pressure to stay media savvy to keep my music knowledge current. I do work hard though, to throw in and teach songs from my childhood as well, because I think there is value in building and sustaining a cultural legacy beyond the music of this digital age.

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