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Originally Posted by Xell101
Even though I don't have kids, here is my bit. I heartily recommend classical music, and disadvise pop music. To summarize what has been turning into a large, ridiculously incoherent post...
1. Popular music is transient, it appeals to the times. Like flash in the pan media that when it's time has come and gone, ends up appearing to have been a waste of time.
2. Classic media is timeless as it appeals to you a human level. Like Shakespeare.
3. Music leaves impressions on people, young kids are quite impressionable, what would you like in your kids head? Afterall, for the first few years of life all we seem to do is absorb information, configuring the crux of one's pysche. Would you like the music of Britney Spears involved in that?
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I agree with parts, disagree with parts. I was 4 in 1964 and a large part of my musical pysche today comes from the fact that my siblings loved The Beatles. At the time, they were completely written off as non-musical drivel by the "knowledgeable" music critics and were feared as having a horrible influence on America's youth. Time has told a much different story. I'm not suggesting that Britney Spears = Beatles, but dismissing all contemporary music as meaningless is foolish.
The successful ingredient in music for kids is the pentatonic scale. The pentatonic scale is like a major scale with no half-steps, and children find this sound appealing to their ears and they are able to sing these songs in tune correctly later on exactly because of their lack of half-steps. The pentatonic scale is extremely versatile and can be rearranged to fit almost any kind of global music. In other words, folk music for Hungarian, Korean, Maori, and American children are all different-sounding yet based on the same pentatonic scales.
Those same "dumb" songs that we all grew up with (Rain Rain Go Away, Crawdad Hole, Cotton-Eyed Joe, Ring Around The Rosy, etc.) are really the best things for American kids because they lay the foundation for an American cultural identity.