COVID WARNING
Fifty years ago, it was commonplace for children to spontaneously gather, on school grounds or in their neighborhoods, engaging in skip-rope chants, playing hand-clapping games and singing and dancing together. These songs, chants and dances formed a distinct body of folklore, commonly known as childlore. One of the last surviving oral traditions of our time, childlore has passed from one generation of youngsters to the next for centuries.
Today, though, things are changing. As fears of danger in urban neighborhoods have grown, accompanied by reduced recess time and the advent of tablets and smartphones, the spontaneous outdoor play of children has become more and more rare1. In my work teaching music to children in the United States, I have observed that most students who come to me have not learned any songs, rhymes, hand-clapping games or dances from other children at all. Their musical repertoire – if they have one – normally consists of songs taught them by teachers or parents, or songs written by pop stars.
One might ask if this really matters. Is it important for children to sing and dance together? Is there anything so very special about Miss Mary Mack or Ring Around the Rosy? The answer is an emphatic yes!
There are several reasons why children’s music and dance are important. For one thing, songs that children pass to one another in playground situations are quite distinct from songs that adults compose for children2, and thus constitute a unique body of work. If we consider a song like Ring Around the Rosy (which has been the subject of much scholarly debate as to its origins and meaning)3 you may observe several qualities characteristic of songs typically composed by children. First, it is married to a very simple and repetitive circle dance and game. Second, it follows a very simple melody based around the third and fifth of the major scale, in what is also the melody of a typical playground taunt (“I’m the king of the castle…”). Finally, the lyrics are whimsical, making no literal sense. It has a timeless appeal, still beloved by children in the present day. Yet perhaps even more important is what it represents: children, collectively, in their own social sphere, creating their own music and dance, and passing it on to future generations of children. It represents the budding of creative agency, and thus, a foundation for more advanced cooperative efforts, as the young composers of the playground mature into creative, cooperative adults. If children’s folklore is lost, humanity is losing much more than just a collection of little nursery rhymes. We stand to lose an essential piece of what makes us human: the capability to gather together in our communities and make our own music and dance.
In my work as a children’s music teacher and a compiler/creator of children’s music, I’ve kept the mission of preserving our fundamental human connection to music and dance at the heart of what I do. In an increasingly tech-based world, where we are often encouraged to compare ourselves to unreasonable ideals, my most formidable task is often simply to convince parents that it’s okay for them to sing. I remind them that it’s not about perfection – it’s about putting our voices together and being enthusiastic musical role models for our children.
Sharing music across cultures is also a valuable tool for fostering cultural understanding. I’ve discovered many wonderful traditional children’s songs from around the world that have hitherto not been well-known in North America, and brought them to new audiences. I’ve also written translations and transliterations of many non-English songs, now available in print and on my YouTube channel. Consider this much-loved Korean song about a bunny:
Oh, tee ruh ga-nu-ya
Kan-chong, kan-chuog, dee-myun-suh
Oh, tee ruh ga-nu-ya
Hey, mountain rabbit,
Where are you going today?
You jump up and run away.
Where are you going today?
I’ve also put new words to some traditional folk melodies, such as Big Scary Monsters, sung to the tune of the Australian folk song Brisbane Ladies.
We’ll rant and we’ll roar like big scary monsters,
We’ll rant and we’ll roar and we’ll howl at the moon,
We’ll jump up and down, we’ll jump all around,
We’ll swing from the trees like hairy baboons!
In some cases, I’ve had the opportunity to draw directly from the imagination of children. The song Dragon on My Knee was born of a pretend game my own daughter used to play in the car.
There’s a baby dragon on my knee,
There’s a baby dragon on my knee
Well I don’t know why he’s there,
but he makes me kinda scared
Mama, please, get that dragon off my knee!
Allowing children to rediscover their innate relationship with music and dance in our hectic modern world takes some conscious effort on the part of the adults in their life, but it’s well worth the investment.
1 Lee, Jane J et al. “The Role of Timing and Amount of Outdoor Play in Emotional Dysregulation in Preschool Children.” Child: care, health and development vol. 51,1 (2025).
2 Kartomi, Margaret. “Play Songs by Children and Their Educational Implications”. Aboriginal History, vol. 23, p. 61-62.
3 Winick, Stephen. “Ring around the Rosie: Metafolklore, Rhyme and Reason: Folklife Today.” The Library of Congress, 24 July 2014.
“Miss Charlotte” Thistle has a BA in music and has been teaching music to children for over 25 years. Her children’s CD, A Spoonful of Songs, received a Parents’ Choice Silver Award in 2016 and is available on Bandcamp. Her children’s music videos can be viewed on YouTube and her books of children’s songs are available on Amazon.
http://www.misscharlottemusic.com
https://www.youtube.com/@MissCharlotteMusic
https://agirlwithaguitar.bandcamp.com/
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Miss-Charlotte/author/B01N1L0OX4
