Description
Rainbow Parachute CD by Rhapsodaisy
There are 17 wonderful tracks on this CD, appropriate for toddlers through to the early years of school. Talented and highly regarded musicians Annie Peterson, Lil’ Fi, Jamie Clark, Peter Walters and Wendy Brown have come together to make a folk-influenced album full of opportunities for learning through dance and song.
The first nine tracks encourage dance and movement to music, stimulating balance, fine and gross motor skills and spatial awareness. The next 8 tracks encourage listening and singing, supporting communication skills and attention among other things.
Annie was the highly successful organiser of the Woodford Folk Festival for many years and exposure to years of high quality folk music from around the world is a clear influence on this work. Adults might just find themselves listening to this one for their own pleasure!
We will soon be packaging this great product up with some of our other instruments and resources and will keep you up to date with Annie’s own teacher resource being designed to accompany this CD.
Children’s music seems to fall into two categories in Australia: banal tunes sung by men in coloured skivvies or nursery rhymes played on a dinky electronic keyboard. Music is so much richer, more nuanced, and exciting than that and children should learn to appreciate all types of music, whether it’s swing, a rockabilly tune, or a hip hop beat.
Rainbow Parachute is a new CD from Annie Peterson, the Brisbane-based music specialist behind the excellent “Women in Voice” series. She was also instrumental in the formation of the renowned Woodford Folk Festival, and now runs the Rhapsodaisy music school.
The album introduces children to many types of music, rhythms, and melodies whether it’s a gypsy dance or a folk tune. The instrumentation is eclectic, ranging from thumb piano to glockenspiel to traditional piano and guitar. The inclusion of the voices of young singers Poppi Wilson (aged 8) and Stella Peterson (aged 11) immediately drew my own daughters in. “Butterfly”, the song the youngsters sing on, is a favourite in our house. There’s plenty of fun in the lyrics too courtesy of “Okki Tokki Unga” which is an eskimo fishing song, or the equally spirited African tune “Funga Alafia”.
Children are also introduced to the concept of a round, which is a simple type of musical canon where several voices sing the same melody but beginning at different times (think Row Your Boat). “I like the flowers” will have the whole family taking a turn at the melody and trying to sustain it when others join in.
Rainbow Parachute throws away the misconception that children’s music should be simplistic and instead provides children with a nourishing range of rhythms and melodies that is fun for everyone to listen to (even when the kids in the back seat keep requesting the album over and over and over!).
Kellie Riordan, 2013
(Kellie has worked for major record labels such as Warner Music and EMI Music, worked as a music journalist for publications such as Time Off, been a board member of Queensland’s peak industry body Q Music, and worked for ABC Radio for more than a decade.)