lifeasdaddy

lifeasdaddy - Ed listens to the music

Ed was searching through Gabrielle's handbag this morning and found a set of ear phones.

He asked to put them on, and then pretended to hear some music.

lifeasdaddy - Edward's development

Edward has been progressing in all sorts of areas in the past couple of weeks.

Gabrielle was helping him with his computer mouse skills and that's resulted in his ability to use some simple kids games by himself.  One example is colouring-in on The Wiggles website.

This was a solo effort.

He has also started singing songs.  We've been singing to him since he was born, but he hasn't been keen to join in. This week he has sung verses of Jingle Bells,  Hot Potato,  and Fly Through The Sky.

Must be that music therapy kicking in.

When we've been reading stories, he has been asking me to read the blurb on the back cover of books.

His play has started to involve wanting us to take on named personae.  For example, yesterday when we were playing a train game, he wanted me to address him as "Train Driver Edward" and he called me "Passenger Daddy".  He must have liked thhose titles, because he kept calling me that for hours later, and asking me to keep calling him "Train Driver Edward".

He's nearly three.

lifeasdaddy - Jazz and classical treasures on YouTube

Terry Teachout, the Wall Street Journal's theatre critic, has written a good piece about jazz and classical treasures to be found on YouTube.  Read the article here. 

Want the YouTube links?    You need to scroll down to the "VIDEO" section in the right hand margin of Terry Teachout's blog. 

lifeasdaddy - Social networking site piggy-backs on iTunes

When I think about it, it's surprising that Apple hasn't capitalised properly on the current craze for social networking by bolting something on to iTunes. 

Now, somebody else has.  Here's SpotDJ. 

From the Spot DJ blurb:

When you join SpotDJ, you can:

• Learn more about your music
• Find new music based on recommendations from real people
• Meet other people who share your tastes
• Share your opinions with the world

[tip from the Doc ]

lifeasdaddy - Some music for Ed

Gabrielle and I decided recently that we wanted to give Edward more exposure to music.  We want him to be able to get as much enjoyment from music as we have and do.

So I've been playing him a few more CDs apart from the usual childrens' fare.  I'm using a hook which gets him interested.  He's fascinated with the moon, and aircraft, so I searched my collection for the themes of flying and moon.

He's been listening to these:

An Elegant Evening  George Shearing and Mel Torme - 1986 - featuring: Moon Medley: Love And The Moon/Oh, You Crazy Moon/No Moon At All 

Sinatra At The Sands with Count Basie and the Orchestra - 1966 - featuring: Come Fly With Me, Fly Me To The Moon.

Louis Armstrong meets Oscar Peterson - 1957 - featuring: Moon Song.

Edward likes them fine, but if I sing along he says, "No, no, no, no."

The CD collection is not exhausted yet.  I've got several versions of Blue Moon.

lifeasdaddy - The Wiggles live in concert

Yesterday Edward and I went with Thomas and my brother-in-law Ben to see The Wiggles in concert at the Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL Club.  I thought I'd write a review of The Wiggles Concert.

The Wiggles are great!  They put on a show for about 1hours and 10 minutes (I didn't time it exactly) and they go all out for the whole time.  Their well known friends Dorothy the Dinosaur, Wags the Dog, Captain Featherword, Henry the Octopus, and the Wiggly Dancers all feature prominantly.  If you are familiar with The Wiggles' canon, you'd have seen a few clips of their live shows here and there in their DVDs and videos.  They are just like that in concert.

The room where they appeared held about 400 - 500 people, and twice during the gig Jeff Wiggle and Murray Wiggle wandered through the crowd greeting children and having a few words to say to individuals here and there.  They weren't mobbed by kids, because all of the kids were pre-school age and don't have a mob mentality.  It comes as no surprise that the four Wiggles all relate to children exceptionally well.  Greg really does sing, and very well too.  Murray plays his guitars, and at other times during the show Greg and Anthony play guitar too.  Jeff plays his keyboard.  These guys are very musical.  All kids are encouraged to dance.

The Wiggles friends - Dorothy, Wags, Henry, and the Captain - are all given plenty of time in the spotlight too, so anyone who had a special favourite wouldn't go home disappointed.

Edward and Thomas had a great time and loved the show.  Most of the adults I could see had a good time too, and enjoyed singing and dancing with their kids.

The Wiggles have got concert dates upcoming in the UK (30 June - 13th July)and the USA (28 July - 27 August) so this seems to be a series of shake out gigs for that.

As a bonus for my American readers, here's the transcript of an interview The Wiggles did for Australian TV.

lifeasdaddy - If Microsoft designed the iPod..

Joe Wikert pointed to this video about Microsoft's version of the iPod.

You'll get more out of the video if you've got some good sound.  The backing track is quite appropriate.