Raising music nerds: how I choose to musically educate.

You open the doors, you strap everyone in and by the time you hit reverse your kids are already happily chattering and debating over one thing: The soundtrack.

I guess I never thought about how controversial a car's soundtrack would be as a parent, or how much it would differ from family to family. I got on the subject with a friend a few weeks back and it got me thinking. She had said that she tried to always play christian radio while the kids are in the car but after a while, her kids get tired of it and ask for pop music.

I have to admit, I'm with the kids on this one. Christian radio stations can get so daunting for me. I think it's the fact that the music is mass-produced and lacking dynamics (highs and lows). It all just starts to run together to me and even though the messages are positive, I lose them sometimes in the monotonous 4 chord progressions that fill hours of the christian airwaves. 

I sat in a car with another friend who had classical music on and her two year old was incredibly content and calm. She smiled at me and said "This is the only station we agree on. He HATES it when I play country, but he tolerates this." 

All of these conversations going around in my head made me think: What do I do with my kids? When they were babies, I tried to expose them to the most amounts of different kinds of music that I could. I found that they gravitated more towards certain bands and certain albums. They don't particularly care for the jazz that I sometimes make them listen to, but they oblige it simply because introducing them to new music is something that they've done since they were inutero. It's as normal as breathing.

The thing about the radio is... they don't care that children are listening. When you turn the dials and start to hear the adult content that is in most songs it can make your stomach churn. So, as my kids have become more self aware, I've started to just make large playlists that I put on my phone for them. The playlists offer a wide-range of sounds. Some of them are songs from movies they love, some of them are (clean) pop songs. I also have a few albums of christian pop songs that they like equally and, of course, some new indie songs that I deem worthy enough for my kids to listen to.

One of my favorite things to do while listening is teaching my kids about the music. I challenge them sometimes to tell me what instruments they hear, or if they can feel a build up or a slow down. We can just as easily belt out the lyrics to Frozen as we can to Radiohead. I love immersing them in the world of music that is out there. I don't want them to get stuck in that 4 pop song loop just because it's what people are listening to. I want them to be music pioneers; to know all kinds of different music and where it comes from and, eventually, how to play it.

Maybe it's controlling of me to meticulously spend hours creating playlists of music on my phone. But you spend so much of your day in the car, it might as well be a positive and educational experience. If I don't teach them about music, then who will? Miley Cyrus? Lady Gaga? No thanks I got this one ladies. 

The funny thing about being a music nerd is... it's actually kind of cool to be a music nerd.