Children’s Songs and Games from Ecuador, Mexico, and Puerto Rico

Here’s a 1970 Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage CD (or download) that collects field recordings of children in Mexico, Puerto Rico and Ecuador playing and singing various games and songs. Some of the material will be familiar.

The music was collected and annotated by the late ethnomusicologist Henrietta Yurchenko, a “song-catcher,” scholar, and author of the biography Woody Guthrie: A Mighty Hard Road.

The Folkways collection costs $17 on CD or cassette but just $9 as a download. Click on the cover art for more information.

Early Childhood Songs and Rhymes

Following are lyrics for many of the traditional standards for teaching music in early childhood:

Many thanks to the compiler, Walter Paul, who teaches music at P.S. 42 in Manhattan. He has provided brief a cappella MP3 files for melodies of any unfamiliar pieces, at      http://drop.io/songsandrhymeslevel1

Little Johnny Brown

“Little Johnny Brown” is an extraordinary African-American singing game, with lots of call and response, group interaction with the individual players, and opportunities for invention and improvisation.

Doug Goodkin, who is one of the top Orff educators and clinicians in the U.S., has this excellent introduction to “Little Johnny Brown” on his website. It’s a PDF file with images, a small score and discussion.

And some video segments are available: a recent performance and the older version seen on YouTube (above) led by the Georgia Sea Islands singer, teacher and author Bessie Jones.