#BoldDailyThought

Lockdown Playlist for Kids (and parents) – Leonie Mack

Music has made all the difference in our household over the past year of very close quarters with our family of five and very few others. The siblings are less likely to fight if they’re listening to music while they play and I’m much less likely to want to punch something while cleaning the toilet that smells like the boys’ toilets at school and doesn’t stay clean for more than half an hour.

Our music streaming subscription has also been an education for the kids. We’ve explored the origins of hip-hop (but not so many of the newer ones, after having to explain what the little ‘e’ meant by the track listing). We’ve all discovered K-pop sensation BTS (but we can’t get all their names straight) and my son can sing along with Taylor Swift (we both still like ‘Shake it Off’ best, which my daughter insists is called ‘Shake it Up’).

I’ve been listening to a lot of Latin music for years now, but with the kids at home all the time and mummy wanting to dance in the kitchen while she prepares another meal the kids will hate, they have been picking up some Spanish, too. The kids pick up the words to songs so quickly. My eldest can sing the entire chorus of one song, Bonita by Cabas, but he has no idea what it means (and I’m not going to explain that he’s singing: ‘spend the night with me, beautiful’!).

I also occasionally convince them to do some online Zumba with me. My first goal for this lockdown is to perfect this routine to La Plata, by Juanes, one of the most famous Colombian music exports (esto es un vallenato, the song begins: it’s a vallenato, an homage to the folk music of the northern region of Colombia – more on that in my book, My Christmas Number One!!). The Afro-Latin styles are incredibly good for dancing around the house.

Sometimes the kids set up a queue in the app, disappear with the Bluetooth speaker, close all the blinds and have a disco upstairs with the little flashing wand my daughter got with a magazine. Dancing is an amazing way to release energy and lift the mood. No matter how much they’ve sniped and groaned, stick on Gangnam Style or I Like to Move it, Move it and they’ll emerge happy and sweaty twenty minutes later.

The musical education is beginning to go both ways. My eldest came home from school asking to listen to Savage Love by Jason Derulo and Jawsh 685. Despite the language warning, I put it on and initially couldn’t hear the swearing, so it was added to their playlist. Only a few days later did I hear it and snigger. But since I’m never alone to snigger as I like, I then had to explain that it really sounds like he’s singing that he doesn’t give two forks. And now all my kids will happily tell anyone they see that Jason Derulo isn’t very generous with his forks.

My kids also love AC/DC for some reason, which we can call introducing them to their Australian roots. They also like the punky rock of the Toten Hosen, a German band I used to listen to when I was learning the language back in the nineties, although it has led to a few interesting discussions of the content, which they unfortunately understand, unlike the convenience of music in Spanish. Add in some ‘Ich bin ein Einhorn’ (my daughter’s current favourite song. The title means ‘I’m a unicorn’) and the German handwashing song, and all three of them are happy.

I’m gradually introducing some classical music for something a little different, as the time since I last sang in a choir gets longer and longer. If the homeschooling becomes a battle, a bit of Mozart helps us all. My next book, coming out in May, has a classical music angle, so we’ve enjoyed listening to the two works of classical music that the youth orchestra in the book perform. The first is Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, which you will also know very well. The second is a work called Palladio by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins. You may know the first movement, but it’s lovely and dramatic, for when you really want to achieve something, like scrubbing that toilet!

What’s been in your lockdown playlist?