ReadySetMom

Instant pick-me-up: make your own music video

I've been in the dumps today...just normal life stuff...but I couldn't shake it. About an hour ago I popped in a CD of stuff I downloaded from iTunes, and the kids and I totally rocked out to our most favoritest song "The Underdog" by Spoon. You know this song. It's a song that should be listened to while bouncing on a trampoline and doing the air guitar. We don't have a trampoline, but we are lucky to have three awesome air guitars in our collection of air instruments. So we cranked up the music and bounced, spun, leapt, strummed, drummed, laughed and sang our hearts out (though we don't really know most of the words.) And now the gray skies in my head have parted, and the kids are happy to have their kooky mom back. Here's the Spoon video, which is waaaay too low-key for the music. So make your own video, right in your living room. (And you can download the song for free here.)

Dogs leave the book and enter the theater

"Go Dog Go" is such a fun book. Happy dogs, on the move, heading to a party. 

Northwest Children's Theater is setting up the party on stage for a live performance version of the book that began on Saturday. There are special matinees this week for spring break, and the show will be performed through April 6.

Before I plunk down money for tickets for my kids and visiting cousins, has anyone seen it already? Should we go see "Go Dog Go"?

It's showtime!

It's time to follow the yellow brick road to Whoville, with a stop to visit Princess Winnifred.

I'm talking, of course, about the spring high school musical season -- and not the Disney version.

I've come across at least three local productions that I know my kids will love, and I'm sure there are many others currently in rehearsal around town. So go out, get your tickets and support our community's actors-in-training. The shows are fun and the prices are right.

Here are the shows I've heard about. Please add any other family-friendly productions that you know about.

• St. Mary's Academy presents "Seussical," which packs in dozens of our favorite Dr. Seuss characters. Tickets for shows this weekend range from $5 to $10. Call (503) 721-7712 for tickets or more information.
• Sunset High School presents "The Wizard of Oz" this weekend and next. All seats are reserved and can be bought at the school box office ($7 to $10 apiece) or online at www.brownpapertickets.com. 
• Beaverton High School presents "Once Upon a Mattress," which promises to tell the real story behind the fairy tale, "Princess and the Pea." You can catch it this weekend and next. All seats are reserved and tickets - $7 to $10 - can be bought in advance or one hour before showtime at the school ticket office.

Books and bassoons will entertain the kids in February

Kids who love music and stories will want to head to the Central Library in February for Symphony Storytime.

The Oregon Symphony program will present storybooks, music, instruments, sound and musical crafts each Saturday during the month. A different symphony musician will be there each week to play and introduce an instrument. The program is free and will take place each Saturday of the month from 2 to 3 pm.

Tom Chapin @ Portland Cooperative School, Jan. 20

How cool is this? Grammy Award-winning children's performer, Tom Chapin, will be in SW Portland on Sunday, January 20! The Portland Cooperative School is hosting Chapin in concert at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church located at 2201 SW Vermont. The concert starts at 4pm with a kid-friendly reception afterwards (and, no doubt, a chance to meet Tom!) From the PCS Web site:

Tom is a wonderful children’s singer and songwriter, who has received 5 Grammy nominations for Best Musical Album for Children. In his more than 30 years of writing and performing songs for children and families, he has been honored by the National Association for Music Education and the American Library Association numerous times. The warmth and humor in Tom Chapin’s music captures children’s imaginations.

Tickets are $12 in advance; $15 at the door. Download a ticket order form on the PCS Web site or call 503-515-4213 for more info.

Free organ looking for a good home

A good friend of mine has a Lowry Tempest TS88 organ. It's about the size of a desk. It works and is looking for a new home -- ideally a non-profit school or program that will promote music education. If you're interested, please send me an email and I'll get you in touch with my friend. Do you know of a school or non-profit that can make beautiful music with this free organ???

Honey, did you check the Internet?

My 5-year-old came home from school singing "All the Pretty Little Horses" after hearing it at music classes the other day. I told her I had played that song, as well as other lullabies we had on a cassette tape, to soothe her as an infant. She, of course, wanted to find the cassette and listen to it immediately. Easier said than done. A cassette tape we haven't listened to, or even seen, in several years. I looked in a few spots. No luck. My daughter asked if my husband had seen it. No luck. I did find the cassette case, and liner notes, but not the tape. Then instead of looking for the lost cassette, we searched the Internet. And we found the Pretty Little Horses song lickety-split. So there's two things:

1. Isn't the Internet amazing? Don't cha remember when it was just listservs and ugly stuff? Now it's this incredible electronic world at our fingerstips...
2. How sad is it that I can find something on the Internet faster than I can find a tangible object that is hiding somewhere in my house??

Mommy music

We've talked before about kid music that parents can stomach. Now I want some good music to load onto MY iPod for MY listening pleasure. I go through spurts with music where I listen to nothing except when I'm in the car (usually KINK). Now I am on the warpath for music that moves...moves my body and moves my soul. Music to cook, read, write, exercise and clean to. I recently rediscovered the Down from the Mountain CD, which contains live bluegrass music from and inspired by the movie O Brother Where Art Thou. Am loving Gillian Welch. Loving her. Recently discovered The Weepies -- lovely, mellow, sort of Cowboy Junkies-ish. And then there's Modest Mouse, a band that makes me dance like a lunatic (which makes the kids fall down in spasms of laughter.)

Who are you listening to these days?

Just who is this Yankee Doodle anyhow?

My 3-year old came home from preschool last week singing:

Yankee Doodle went to town

Riding on a pony

Stuck a feather in his hat

And called it macaroni.

Raucous laughter ensued. Sing, laugh, repeat. It got me to thinking, "what in the heck does this song mean anyhow?" In true 21st century Cliff Claven fashion, I sought the answer on Wikipedia. Turns out that this pre-revolutionary song was penned by the British soldiers making fun of Americans, aka Yankees, and Doodle is an 18th century term for fool. The word macaroni is another word for a dandy; thus by sticking a feather in one's hat one might believe one is quite fashionable. Basically our soldiers were being mocked.

And while I was at it, I decided to get to the bottom of another troubling tune for tots: Pop Goes the Weasel. This is the version I've always sung:

All around the mulberry bush

The monkey chased the weasel

The monkey thought it was all in fun

Pop goes the weasel.

Wha? Turns out there are many theories behind the true meaning of this little ditty, but I like this disturbing one: a monkey is another name (in 17th century Brit-speak) for a vessel one might drink from in a pub (like a mug 'o grog). A weasel is part of a spinning wheel, which occasional 'pops' when the yarn has reached a certain length. Still with me? So you might infer that this song is about the plight of the underpaid London worker who spends his last shilling on alcohol in order to ease the burden of his meager existence. Woo hoo! Let's sing it again, kids!

Finally, there's the ultimate head-scratcher:

Ring around the rosie

Pocket full of posies

Ashes, ashes we all fall down.

Now, contrary to popular belief, Ring Around the Rosie is NOT a song about the Black Plague (I'm as disappointed as you). One might think that ring around the rosie suggests a skin rash; a pocket full of posies being necessary to mask the putrid smell of infection and death; and ashes being what becomes of one's disease-ridden body. One would be mistaken. This tune is merely gibberish. Nonsense. Good old-fashioned whimsy. Kid's stuff!

My work here is done. If you have any other questionable children's songs to submit for interpretation, please do so at the beep.

More parenting truthiness with The Mom Song

A couple of people have sent in links to this YouTube video, so you may have seen it already. I don't know who this woman is, but, much like the dad who wrote parenting lyrics to Pachelbel's Canon, she's obviously found the secret to fame on YouTube. In her case, she's lyricized the William Tell Overture (theme from the Lone Ranger) into a hilarious homage to motherhood. It's worth a listen -- a nice pick-me-up on a dreary Friday.