Playing music for your kids is a great idea. There are many noted benefits enjoyed by children who are regularly exposed to music at a young age, including motor skill development, a boost in literacy, and more. Beyond the cognitive and physical advantages, listening to music with your kids is just plain fun.
Unfortunately, there is a problem with many of the songs that are created with kids in mind—they all sound the same! Countless parents have experienced the frustration of going through song after song, looking for something that doesn’t feel exactly the same as the rest. Not only is it painful for parents to listen to such repetitive songs, but the kids will surely tune out soon enough, too.
For many parents, it feels like the average kids’ song has been written and composed with the specific intention of driving them crazy. Anyone who has spent an afternoon listening to the same few songs with the same basic melodies can relate to the feeling of disdain for some of these tunes.
That said, the similarities among children’s songs can be traced back to the motivation of making these songs easy for kids to enjoy and remember. As their brains are in the process of developing, young people tend to have an easier time engaging with music that is relatively simple and straightforward. Not only would complex compositions be lost on a child, but such music might actively take away from the experience.
So, it has come to be that most kids’ songs are pretty generic, repetitive, and boring. This is a formula that has worked out fine in terms of entertaining the kids, but it falls short for the parents. And when the parents don’t enjoy the music, they don’t wind up playing it as often for the kids, so everyone loses in the end. Upgrading children’s music while still retaining some basic core melodies can improve this experience for all involved.
To understand what makes a good kids’ song and what can be done to produce a song that kids and adults will both appreciate, it’s important to think about why kids are drawn to music in the first place. There are many reasons, of course, but some of the most important are as follows:
Singing along. Many kids like to sing along with the words to their favorite songs, but they’ll have trouble doing so if the lyrics are too complex or hard to understand. This is why most kids’ songs have repetitive hooks that include just a few words over and over again.
Dancing. While they are singing, those same kids may want to bust out a few sweet moves across the room. Music that is upbeat and suitable for dancing will tend to draw their attention—and hold their interest—far more than slower, more intricate arrangements.
Understanding. Just as is the case for adults, kids want to be able to relate to the music they hear. This is why songs from movies tend to be so popular with kids, as they remember the scenes from the movie when the song was playing and can draw a connection. So, in addition to clear lyrics and a beat that supports dancing, relatable topics are also important.
When you look at kids’ music through the lens of the three points above, it becomes clear that songs don’t have to be painful and boring to be successful. Yes, they need to be written and performed in a way that makes them approachable for kids, but there is plenty of room for songs that have more variation and interest than the standard kids’ tune while still hitting on these three keys we’ve highlighted.
We’ve established that it is not impossible to create music for kids that everyone can enjoy. So, why does boring music continue to get produced? This is where the business side of the industry comes into the picture.
Simply put, it’s easier to pump out predictable kids’ music than it is to be creative and invest in the process. When someone is developing a children’s song with only the bottom line in mind, they are going to watch every penny and make sure a minimum of time is spent on the creative process. Time is money, after all.
This approach inevitably leads to pretty predictable songs as the end result. With Go Fish, we try our best to do things differently. Whether we are creating new Bible songs for kids or developing an album of preschool music, our primary focus first and foremost is on the quality of what we create. Our goal is for kids ages 0-100 to enjoy the music that is published under the Go Fish name. We’ve found that when we do that, the business side of things takes care of itself!
There is a tendency among parents with the best intentions to treat their children like children for far too long. There is nothing wrong with always wanting to care for your kids, of course, but they are often capable of far more than we expect or even understand.
This thinking can apply to music as well. Once they have been introduced to music and have started to develop an enjoyment of singing and dancing, they might be ready to branch out sooner than you know. As you suffer through listening to the same repetitive song for the hundredth time, not only are you putting yourself through a long day, but you might actually be selling your child short in the process.
Opening up their world and mind to new types of music can do wonders for getting even more positive benefits from the experience. You might think of it a little bit like how you approach food with your kids. Do you stop at just carrots when trying to get them to eat vegetables? Of course not—once they’ll eat some carrots, you move on to other veggies in the hopes of expanding their tastes and giving them more opportunities. It’s the same with music, which is why we work hard to create diverse, high-quality songs that hopefully create more excitement than the same old bland repetition from a few low-effort songs.
The key to creating music that both kids and adults will love is blending the musical elements that are most likely to appeal to these two groups. For example, we mentioned above that kids like to sing along to songs, so the words should be relatively simple and easy to understand. That’s great, and nothing about that will bother the average adult. If you sample some of our Go Fish Tunes, you’ll find that the words tend to be very easy to hear and understand.
At the same time, the composition of the songs doesn’t need to be boring. We can layer in additional harmonies and varied arrangements without bothering the children one bit. This more advanced approach to creating the songs will appeal to the adult ear and make the music much more palatable, especially when it is played over and over again.
In other words, kids’ music doesn’t need to be fully “grown-up” to be enjoyed by adults—it just needs to take a step in that direction to remove the annoying parts and arrive at a blended destination that is suitable for everyone.
We were just as tired of repetitive, mundane kids’ music as you are, so we decided to do something about it! Our selection of songs for kids is available on all of the major music streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music. You can also find us on YouTube, so feel free to subscribe to our channel and enjoy our content with your children. We are proud of our collection of kids Christian music and are also happy to offer a collection of secular tunes for our audience to enjoy. Say goodbye to boring kids’ music once and for all by making the switch to Go Fish!
