Music Matters

This has been the week of playtime for Harvey. It started right after Thanksgiving. He starting craving quality time with the barnyard animals from his mobile. He would cry if I didn't wind it up immediately after the music "expired". A few days later we started winding up the flashing firefly, which plays a musically inaccurate version of "You Are My Sunshine" and its fuzzy red wings flash like a strobe in a disco. It is mesmerizing to Harvey, but in the words of a music theory nerd, "The six-four chord is incorrectly substituted with a two chord." Okay, so now that we are on the subject, I am having SERIOUS problems with the music that my infant is being subjected to via "innocent" wind-up toys. How can these irresponsible toy companies flood the market with music that has wrong notes and wrong harmonies and still sleep at night? In my book, it is important to introduce children to GOOD music as early as possible. It seems that all of my efforts to play Brahms, Haydn and Mendelssohn whilest my little peanut was in utero are being undermined by lazy toy manufacturers! Okay, I suppose I am overreacting, but it is such a simple thing to fix - a note here and there could make all the difference. I would even be willing to donate my music skills toward that end to help purify the music that our babies are being exposed to. The other day I was in the local Baby Boutique where the overly-zealous (read "pushy") salesman was singing the out-of-tune praises of the Symphony In Motion Farm Animal Mobile . It plays the great C Major Prelude from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier - a tune that just about everyone recognizes from weddings as "Ave Maria". Well, this tune has not only been transposed to D-flat Major, but THIS toy company has decided to completely change (destroy) the simple and brilliant harmonies of Johann SEBASTIAN Bach. It actually took me a bit of listening before I could discern any resemblance to Bach.
I am willing to overlook the fact that these tunes are being churned out through some overly synsthesized mechanism that sounds more like a dishwasher than any keyboard instrument I have ever heard. And yes, I realize that this is a fruitless rant against the baby industry. And granted the babies LOVE this stuff. BUT!!! It would be so wonderful if musicians could find themselves in a Baby Mart where there were signs on the toys, "approved by the MFBBMB*".

* Musicians For Better Baby Music Bureau