Kids

He does music for kids, too?  Really…?  Yes!

Here’s a snippet of a concert for kids from June, 2023 at the Irish Institute for Music and Song.  It’s a live rendition of the title track from one of my children’s albums.

In addition to touring around the world and playing for grownups, I also play for kids.  It’s an entirely different body of work I’m drawing on for the kids shows, consisting mostly of songs that I wrote, which all appear on one of my two children’s albums.

The music

My children’s songs have been played on children’s radio shows and used in school plays around the world.  They can all be found on one of two albums, Har Har Har and Ballad of a Dung Beetle.  They can be found on all the usual music streaming platforms.  Here they are together on a Soundcloud playlist.  Here they are on Bandcamp (below).

To find sheet music for any of these songs, they all appear in alphabetical order in the Songbook section of my website.

Animated videos

Five of the songs from Har Har Har have animated music videos made by Norwegian animator, Bjorn-Magne Stuesdol.

If you’re going to a show

If you’re bringing kids to a kids’ show, the kids will collectively have the coolest experience if the parents (or teachers or whoever is facilitating things) bear a few things in mind.  This advice applies to a lot of other children’s performers as well, though I can’t speak for all of them.

• These songs have a target audience, and that is kids between the ages of 4-8.  While younger and older kids are welcome, parents should plan to keep the babies quiet and the toddlers from being too disruptive, and be prepared to take them somewhere else if they’re being too rowdy.  This won’t be an issue for the kids who are the right age range.  The older kids (over 8) may be very embarrassed to be anywhere near an event like one of these children’s shows, because they no longer think singing songs about poop or snot is at all interesting.
• The kids will appreciate the concert so much more if they’re even passingly familiar with the music.  It’s great if you have a chance to play the music for your kids, if they’ll let you, next time you’re on a road trip or hanging out somewhere where listening to recorded music or watching some music videos might be nice.
• Sometimes it’s not the babies or toddlers who mess things up for the age-appropriate kids at a show, but it’s the parents or other adults involved.  It’s good for the adults to bear in mind, along with the kids (who won’t need any help with the concept) that this is a concert, a story-telling sort of concert, not a party.  It’s like being in class, or watching a talent show.  You sit in a chair, or you dance and sing along, but you don’t have conversations while the music is going on, any more than you’d do that in class.  This applies just as much to parents, too, whether they’re seated or standing around on the periphery of the room!

Want to organize a show somewhere?

Drop me a line and we can talk logistics!

Free parenting advice

What I most wish I had done before having any kids, rather than several years into my first child’s life, was read Naomi Aldort’s book about parenting sooner than I did.  Though maybe it hadn’t been published yet, so that would have been difficult…  In any case, it’s called Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, and you can find it in ebook form as well as physical book form.