Hearing what Toddlers Hear in Music

~ By Kevin Emerson, Musician and Novelist

“Daddy, why’s that man sad?” My daughter asks over dinner.
“Huh?” I answer.  Our last topic of conversation was a detailed discussion of what boys she likes and dislikes in her preschool class and why.
“That man on the radio,” she says.
We are listening to KEXP’s Swinging Doors, a preferred dinner music choice, right up there with The Swing Years on KUOW.  I turn my ear to the current song.  A country crooner is explaining his lonely nights now that his baby has left him.  “Well,” I say, “he’s sad because he’s lonely.”
“Why is he lonely?” my three-and-a-half-year-old predictably asks.
“I think it’s because his family is gone and he doesn’t know when they’ll come back.”
The ‘why’ questions go on from there.  We discuss the plight of the country crooner long past the end of the song.  We talk about times when she feels lonely, and what that’s like.  It strikes me as we talk, that no other medium engages my daughter in this way.  She is inquisitive about books and movies, but they don’t capture her interest quite like a singer’s story does. 
Later in the week, I catch her playing out in the yard, singing to herself, something to the effect of, “When you’re so sad and lonely… and your baby is gone…”
Since she reached her mid-three’s, I’ve sensed lately that the world is starting to expect things of my daughter.  People now want to know: Can she read? How is her counting?  What is she good at?
These questions immediately put me on the defensive.  My wife and I want her to be good at everything.  We know she won’t be.  But there is one thing that she is really, obviously good at.  And that’s music.  She has a knack for carrying a tune, staying in key and finding correct pitches.  She can name her favorite songs if I drum the rhythm of their melodies on the steering wheel.  She has natural verve with drumsticks, and enjoys taking her favorite songs and ‘rapping’ them over daddy’s beat box sounds.  It’s amazing, totally fun, and seems like it’s just there inside her.  At the same time, I’m worried (this would be a good time to note that “easy going” is something I have to work at).
Reams of research make it clear that music education is great for young kids.  My wife and I are both musically inclined, and I play music for part of my living.  This is something I could really be doing intensively with my daughter.  Should I already be explaining major and minor keys to her, how to subdivide rhythms, giving her formal drum or piano lessons? Should she already know her scales?  Chopsticks?  Should we be working at this?  Am I missing an opportunity here, letting her down, inadvertently sabotaging her aptitude in other areas, even?
I’m not sure.  Because what I want more than anything is for her to love music, to feel passionate about it.  Sure, I also want her to play an instrument and learn it deeply, someday.  I want to go to her middle school orchestra concerts, her high school band shows, and so on, but I don’t want to push the discipline, the learning, too far, and encroach on the passion and joy.  As with everything else in child rearing, I’m looking for the happy medium.
So, I’ve been keeping an eye out for the place where my daughter and I can engage with music on the same level—the professional musician and the three-and-a-half year old— and the place that has really struck me, one that reaches back through the millennia, is how music conveys story.  Whether it’s chatting about the lyrics of a song, the tone of the singer, or the mood of instrumental music, my daughter and I have great conversations about the emotions and stories in music.   It’s a place where I can learn from her keen observations, and we can both get excited. 
It’s been two months since that night when we heard the sad crooner on KEXP.  In that time, a slew of Dreamworks and even Pixar movies have fallen in and out of her favor.  We’ve been through a bunch of books. 
Yet still, just the other day, my daughter piped up from the backseat, “Daddy, that man on the radio was sad because his baby left him.”
“He was,” I reply, “but what did he do to make himself feel better?”
“He wrote a song,” my daughter remembers.  “That made him feel better.”
“Yeah,” I agree, “I think it did.”
“Yeah.”
And I feel sure that we both think that is very cool.

About the Author

Kevin Emerson is a musician and novelist in Seattle.  His band, Central Services, recently released a kids’ album called The Board of Education, and will be playing at PEPSapalooza Family Music Fest on August 22nd.  His novels, published by Scholastic, are the Seattle-based series Oliver Nocturne, and the hardcover Carlos is Gonna Get It.  The books are for middle grade readers, ages 8 and up.  Kevin teaches writing for Writers in the Schools (a program of Seattle Arts and Lectures), and at 826 Seattle.  You can also find him online at www.kevinemerson.net.