To sing, or not to sing

Last time I wrote that I can’t sing for toffee, I was politely rebuked by one or two people who quite rightly say that everyone should feel confident about taking part in musical activities.

So, for some other reason I was sitting quietly in a circle, smiling and doing some Makaton signs whilst a group of children was singing with an enthusiastic and tuneful family support worker in a Children’s Centre. I found myself wondering what sense the children were making from the songs.

In the middle of The Wheels on the Bus it struck me that practically none of the children will ever hear someone being asked for a ticket on a London bus, now that practically everyone uses electronic Oyster cards to touch in. Then the children were taken even further back in history as they sang about someone called a conductor telling passengers to “move along please”.

Then there was Miss Polly had a Dolly, during which the children made a strange twirling movement with their fingers as they sang about calling the doctor. I would be surprised if more than one in a million children in England has ever seen anyone use an old rotary telephone dial, and almost as surprised if any of their parents to call a doctor out for such a minor illness. During Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar, the children mimed starting a car up by pulling out the choke – something that even my twenty-year-old piece of motoring history does not have.

But I wonder if this matters much. Perhaps nursery rhymes are just charming collections of historical words, ideas and actions. How many children know about bobbins and how to wind them up, or have grandfather clocks at home, have ever heard of curds or whey, or know about looking after (and losing) sheep?

I also wonder why there are practically no nursery rhymes about contemporary everyday life – none I know which refer to mobile phones, television, using computers, or a more up to date celebrity than the grand old Duke of York. The most recent of the songs children commonly sing feel like they are about a couple of decades old, or more –little spacemen singing, smoky cars with chokes and so on. Or perhaps there is a whole new school of new rhymes that I do not know about?

The session ended with children having a chance to choose the song they wanted. A little girl chose Twinke Twinkle Little Star  - the original version, not a jokey one – and the adults sang along with her and did the Makaton signs. Unfortunately it is common for nearly everyone in early years to put fingers and thumbs together in a diamond shape that is, I was told recently by an amused deaf parent, rather close to the sign for vagina in both British and American sign language. 

So, altogether now…  “Up above the world so high, Like a ..."