Lullabies for Babies (and Parents)

My family is a music loving family.  My now-husband and I spent many many dates at concerts, and that continued right up until we had children, which means we go less often together.  My husband still does a lot of concert going.  I took many years of piano lessons.  Our house is home to a piano, three guitars, more percussion instruments than I can count (and many things that get used as instruments that aren't even - it's true what they say about kids not needing toys).  We still buy CDs in actual hard CD format.  My husband got five for Christmas, in fact.  I could not even estimate how many we have in the house.  I'm not sure if we have more CDs or more books, but I do know that whenever we move (which we will NEVER do again, my fingers to God's ears), far over 50% of our belongings are made up of these two categories.  As a result, one of the things I wish for my girls is a love of music.

So far, that hasn't been a problem.  Our older daughter loves music.  She sings constantly.  She has music in nearly every room.  She recently started piano lessons.  In her dad's car, she has a list on the iPod of "her favorites" which includes Hank Williams, Vince Guiraldi, Mario Matteoli, and 25 other songs that are escaping me.  Somehow, in my car, she has CDs of Frozen, Sofia the First, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and other Disney tunes.  Someone is getting the short end of the stick here, obviously. I'll review the preschool music set at another time.  Today I want to talk about lullabies.

When my first daughter was born, I bought two lullaby CDs specifically for my husband.  I figured since he was the true music lover, he should have some music specific to her.  (You'll note from above, he disagrees with this method.  I'm not sure he ever listened to either of the CDs I'm about to discuss).

The first CD was Golden Slumbers: A Father's Lullaby.  This album is full of familiar songs (Blackbird, Hush Little Baby, Somewhere Over the Rainbow).  Somehow I missed, though, that it was all soft-jazz instrumental versions.  In hindsight, it's hard to know how I missed it, since Dave and Jeff Koz feature prominently. It was great music for having background noise for L to sleep to.  It was not, however, easy for me to sing along with since I didn't know the words to some of the songs at all, and without a voice track for the ones I did know, I think my voice was competing with the saxophone.

The second CD was  Daddies Sing Goodnight. Now this! This CD is lullaby gold. Turns out what I want in a lullaby CD, or at least what I wanted in 2009, was men singing gentle songs about and for children.  I didn't know many of these songs when the CD arrived, and Doc Watson was the only performer I had heard of.  The songs are wonderful though.  Easy to sing along to.  Soothing. Wonderful.  I rocked my baby to sleep almost every night to at least the first half of the CD.  It is one of my all time favorites, and makes me think of snuggling L as a baby.

When our second daughter, M, was born in March, I wanted to find something that would be special for me and her, just like I had with L.  Again, I wanted something soothing, but with words - lullaby CDs with words are hard to find.  I checked out Jewel; I liked some of the songs but they are a bit nasally to listen to a whole album.  I checked out Nick Lachay, but that wasn't my thing.

The first one I purchased was Dream A Little.
This album has 15 songs, all of which I knew, sung mostly by a woman, and then a set of instrumental versions of the songs. Like Golden Slumbers, it is a fine enough CD, but it wasn't grasping me as the one I was going to listen to every night for two years.  My search continued.

Eventually, I somehow stumbled on Mae Robertson.  Lullaby jackpot!!

All Through The Night  is a collection of songs I had never heard but quickly fell in love with (Isle Au Haut Lullaby, John O Dreams) and covers (Love Me Tender) and familiar standards (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star).  Ms. Robertson's voice is a perfect female tone to me - not screechy or nasally, just right.  I like all the songs on the CD, so it's easy to push play and let it go.  M is usually asleep by John O Dreams, but I often rock her through the end of the music, just as a way to relax myself.  There are several other CDs in this series, which I will be checking out.

Of course, I now sing songs to L each night; she requests Amazing Grace, Hush Little Baby, Jesus Loves the Little Children, and Away in a Manger from me.  From my husband, she requests songs from her favorite's list - usually Ines' Lullaby. Interestingly, that song is from an album we played while I was in labor with her. It's one of my favorite all time albums - one I can listen to start to finish.  (Poor M, she didn't get labor music, because she came too fast! Hopefully that doesn't impact her love of music someday.)

What kind of music do your children enjoy? Or what did you enjoy singing to them?