Video: "You're Not the Boss of Me" - Bill Harley

This isn't really a video per se -- it's Bill Harley staring into the camera telling a story.

That's good enough, though, because although Harley's storytelling needs no visual accompaniment, Harley's facial expressions are a sweet bonus. This is "You're Not the Boss of Me," collected on Harley's Play it Again disk in which lessons are learned (and promptly forgotten).

Bill Harley - "You're Not the Boss of Me" [YouTube]

Why I'm Going to Kindiefest 2010

When I mentioned previously that registration for Kindiefest was open, I wasn't 100% sure that I was going myself. I mean, I had lots of fun last year, and this year promises to be even better (more panels, a keynote, a chance to hear 14 different artists playing live). But it's a really long flight from Phoenix, and a weekend away from the family essentially working.

Having said all that, I'm going. And now the panel I was asked to moderate is starting to take shape, I might've been willing to go to Brooklyn for that experience alone. The panel "Old School Meets New School," will talk about the generations of family musicians -- those who've been doing it for 3 years and those who've been doing it for 30 -- and their perspectives on making music for families in today's world. At the moment, the panel includes Elizabeth Mitchell, Suni Paz, and Bill Harley. Not to mention Kids Corner's Kathy O'Connell. (And I don't think the panel's quite complete.)

Yeah. You read that right. My chief goal in being moderator will be shutting up and not getting in the way.

Anyway, earlybird registration for the conference ends next Monday, so if you haven't seen the burgeoning list of speakers and artists, I encourage you to do so. See you in Brooklyn.

Bill Harley Joins the H1N1 Fight

This is how big Bill Harley is. While waiting for NPR to air his essay on singing the national anthem, Harley has a backup NPR piece ready to air. Seeking to join the kids music fight against H1N1 spearheaded by the Jimmies and Chromeo Harley writes a song about washing one's hands ("Wash Your Hands," natch) for airing on NPR. You can listen to a clip in the embedded player below, but you may as well just go to Harley's website and download the mp3 for free.

Singing Together

I mentioned a few weeks back that Bill Harley had started a new blog and I've been checking it out occasionally ever since.

What I like about Harley's blog, besides it being well-written, funny, and spell-checked -- I'm lucky if I get two of those three -- is that he's been taking a very big picture view of things. He's been interested in songs, and kids, and culture, big topics that don't lend themselves to quick posts, snappy one-liners, and links to other folks' comments. Things, if you haven't noticed, that I tend to rely on.

So I was quite pleased to see Bill's recent post on singing together, because it says better than I could how wonderful making music together can be.

Singing together is what people have always done. There’s less of it today – we leave it to the “professionals” (me?) and forget that we’re happier and healthier if we open up our mouths and belt it out with the people around us. This has nothing to do with virtuosity, or perfect pitch, or being a soprano or alto or whatever. It has to do with being human.

I've found it a little sad that we've left most of the communal singing in our North American society to the churches. Don't get me wrong -- I think it's great for the churches, and it's one of the things that brings me joy on Sunday mornings -- but why it should be reserved for a segment of the population for maybe an hour on Sunday morning?

So I'm hopeful to hear in Harley's post that there are still groups of people who get together and sing for the pure joy of it. As he puts it, "Singing is an expression and fostering of community." While I spend most of my time talking about how professionals craft songs and experiences for our families to enjoy together, I hope that you are all also taking the opportunity to sing your own songs, no matter how silly or out-of-tune you may think they are. Because they're probably not, and even if they are, it doesn't matter.

Well, this wasn't quite quick, but there was a snappy one-liner or two, and a link. Two out of three ain't bad.

Dancing About Architecture From Kids Musicians

... or, in more search-friendly terms, writing about music -- ie, blogs -- by kids musicians. I know that Warren covered this last week, but I've had this on my to-do list for awhile, so I'm going to press forward with a highlighting of another wave of kids musicians turning their thoughts to the blogosphere. Some have a lot to do with the kids music genre, some very little. But I'm guessing at least one of 'em will be of interest to most of you and/or your RSS reader...

-- Ann Torralba, best known as Little Miss Ann, is trying her hand writing about kids music at littleshouldersmusic, focusing in particular about music in the Chicago area where Ann lives.
-- Bill Harley has long been one of the most talented wordsmiths in the kids music field, so I'm glad to see that he's started a blog. He tells his stories very well, and anyone interested about the arts and school culture generally will find this of value.
-- Robert Burke Warren had a long career making music for adults before starting to make music for kids as Uncle Rock. Now he's got a blog in which he's every bit as thoughtful on paper as he is in person.
-- Debbie Cavalier records music for kids under the moniker Debbie and Friends but her day job (OK, other day job) is Dean of Continuing Education at Berklee College, so, uh, yeah, she knows something about music education. She has not one, but two blogs. One, on Music, Education and Technology, is geared more toward Berklee's students, but occasionally deals with stuff of interest to a broader audience, while the other, Kid's Music Matters, is a pretty good example of an artist blog, mixing self-promotional stuff with more behind-the-scenes stuff.