Children's song
The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (March 2021) |
A children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that children invent and share among themselves or a modern creation intended for entertainment, use in the home or education. Although children's songs have been recorded and studied in some cultures more than others, they appear to be universal in human society.[1]
Categories
Iona and Peter Opie, pioneers of the academic study of children's culture, divided children's songs into two classes: those taught to children by adults, which when part of a traditional culture they saw as nursery rhymes, and those that children taught to each other, which formed part of the independent culture of childhood.[2] A further use of the term children's song is for songs written for the entertainment or education of children, usually in the modern era. In practice none of these categories is entirely discrete, since, for example, children often reuse and adapt nursery rhymes, and many songs now considered as traditional were deliberately written by adults for commercial ends.
The Opies further divided nursery rhymes into a number of groups, including[3]
- Amusements (including action songs)
- Counting rhymes
- Lullabies
- Riddles
Playground or children's street rhymes they sub-divided into two major groups: those associated with games and those that were entertainments, with the second category including[4]
- Improper verses
- Jingles
- Joke rhymes
- Nonsense verse
- Macabre rhymes
- Parodies
- Popular songs
- Slogans
- Tongue-twisters
In addition, since the advent of popular music publication in the nineteenth century, a large number of songs have been produced for and often adopted by children. Many of these imitate the form of nursery rhymes, and a number have come to be accepted as such. They can be seen to have arisen from a number of sources, including:
Nursery or Mother Goose rhymes
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" songs for young children in Britain and many
However, most of those used today date from the seventeenth century onwards.
In the early nineteenth century, printed collections of rhymes began to spread to other countries, including
Children's playground and street songs
In contrast to nursery rhymes, which are learned in childhood and passed from adults to children only after a gap of 20 to 40 years, children's playground and street songs, like much children's lore, are learned and passed on almost immediately.[14] The Opies noted that this had two important effects: the rapid transmission of new and adjusted versions of songs, which could cover a country like Great Britain in perhaps a month by exclusively oral transmission, and the process of "wear and repair", in which songs were changed, modified and fixed as words and phrases were forgotten, misunderstood or updated.[15]
Origins of songs
Some rhymes collected in the mid-twentieth century can be seen to have origins as early in the eighteenth century. Where sources could be identified, they could often be traced to popular adult songs, including
Action songs
Some of the most popular playground songs include actions to be done with the words. Among the most famous of these is "I'm a Little Teapot". A term from the song is now commonly used in
Game songs
Many children's playground and street songs are connected to particular games. These include
If a playground song does have a character, it is usually a child present at the time of the song's performance or the child singing the song. Awkward relations between young boys and girls is a common
[Name] and [Name] sitting in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love, then comes marriage,
then comes the baby in a baby carriage![26]
Pastime songs
Other songs have a variety of patterns and contexts. Many of the verses used by children have an element of
Parodies and satire
Playground songs can be parodies of popular songs such as "
Playground songs may also feature contemporary children's characters or child actors such as Popeye, Shirley Temple, Batman or Barney the Dinosaur.[32] Such songs are usually set to common melodies (a popular Batman-themed song uses much of the chorus of "Jingle Bells") and often include subversive and crude humor; in Barney's case, schoolyard parodies of his theme song were a driving force behind a massive backlash against Barney in the 1990s.[33]
Influence
Occasionally the songs are used as a base for modern pop songs, "
Commercial children's music
Commercial children's music grew out of the popular music-publishing industry associated with New York's
The mid-twentieth century
The twenty-first century has seen an increase in the number of independent children's music artists, with acts like
Selected discography
- Simon Mayor and Hilary James, Lullabies with Mandolins (2004)[41] and Children's Favourites from Acoustics (2005)[42]
- Mike and Peggy Seeger, American Folk Songs for Children (1955)
- Isla St Clair, My Generation (2003)
- Broadside Band, Old English Nursery Rhymes
- Tim Hart and Friends, My Very Favourite Nursery Rhyme Record (1981)
- Bobby Susser, Wiggle Wiggle and Other Exercises (1996)
- Various artists, Hello Children Everywhere, Vols. 1–4 (EMI Records, 1988–1991)[43]
See also
- List of children's songs
Notes
- S2CID 143319785.
- ^ Opie, I.; Opie, P. (1977). The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. Granada. p. 21.
- ^ Opie, I.; Opie, P. (1997). The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 12–19.
- ^ Opie, I.; Opie, P. (1977). The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. Granada. p. 37.
- ^ a b c d H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 383.
- ^ a b I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 6.
- ^ a b H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 326.
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 30–31, 47–48, 128–29, 299.
- ^ H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 382–83.
- ^ H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 363–64.
- ^ a b I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997).
- ^ H. Carpenter and M. Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 384.
- ^ R. M. Dorson, The British Folklorists: a History (Taylor & Francis, 1999), p. 67.
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), p. 27.
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), p. 26.
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), p. 33.
- ^ Bolton, Henry Carrington (1888). The counting-out rhymes of children: their antiquity, origin, and wide distribution : a study in folk-lore. London: E. Stock. p. 121.
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), pp. 138–40.
- ^ "No wickets, didn't score a run but it was vintage McGrath | the Australian". Archived from the original on 2008-06-12. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
- ^ "Loss to England really hurt: McGrath – News – Ashes Tour 06–07". www.theage.com.au. 10 February 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29.
- ^ S. E. D. Wilkins, Sports and games of medieval cultures (Greenwood, 2002), p. 32.
- ^ M. McLean, Maori Music (Auckland University Press, 1996), pp. 147–64.
- ^ T. Mukenge, Culture and customs of the Congo (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), p. 56.
- ^ K. D. Gaunt, The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-hop (New York University Press, 2006), pp. 158–80.
- ISBN 978-1-4347-6748-6.
- ^ A variant can be found in Mansour, David (2005). From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia Of The Late 20th Century. Andrews McMeel. p. 263.
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), pp. 107–17.
- ^ Simon J. Bronner, American children's folklore (August House, 1988), p. 96.
- ^ Roger T. Ames, Sin-wai Chan, Mau-sang Ng, Dim Cheuk Lau, Interpreting culture through translation: a festschrift for D.C. Lau (Chinese University Press, 1991), pp. 38–39.
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Granada, 1977), pp. 37–44.
- ^ . 28 August 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20060828020726/http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/playfolklore/pdf/playfolklore_issue44_2.pdf. Archived from the original on 28 August 2006.
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(help)CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ISBN 9780940322691. Archivedfrom the original on 2015-09-05.
- on March 12, 2001. Retrieved September 2, 2016.)
- ^ E. C. Axford, Song Sheets to Software: A Guide to Print Music, Software, and Web Sites for Musicians (Scarecrow Press, 2004), p. 18.
- ^ van der Merwe, Peter, Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western Music (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 436.
- ^ D. A. Jasen, Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song (Taylor & Francis, 2003), p. 111.
- ^ D. A. Jasen, Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song (Taylor & Francis, 2003), pp. 111–12.
- ^ Educational Dealer, August, 1997
- ^ D. A. Jasen, Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song (Taylor & Francis, 2003), p. 113.
- ^ Thill, Scott. "They Might Be Giants Keeps Pop Kid-Friendly With Smart Science". WIRED. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
- ^ Childrensmusic.co.uk Archived August 13, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Mayor, Simon. "Acoustics Records". Acoustics Records. Archived from the original on 2007-09-11.
- ^ "Hello Children Everywhere". www.sterlingtimes.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2014-12-21. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
Further reading
- Iona and Peter Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959)
- Bronner, Simon J. American Children's Folklore (August House, 1988)
- Brian Sutton-Smith, Jay Mechling, Thomas W. Johnson, Felicia McMahon (ed.) Children's Folklore: A SourceBook (Routledge, 2012)