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Why Music is a Must In The Home

Jeff:
We have a fun topic for you today, but hopefully actually one that makes you think a little bit. And maybe if you don’t do this you can maybe start doing a little bit more, because it is fun, but also has a lot of other immense benefits. And that is five ways to incorporate music in the home. So Jeremy, I’d love to hear you go first.

Jeremy:
All right guys. So yeah, this is a big deal. You need to think about what atmosphere you want to create in your house. And I think music is, it requires some intentionality. I encourage you guys as dads to really dive into this. One of the things we do is, we have a post Shabbat dance playlist. Okay, so what happens is imagine we have this epic meal every Friday night. It’s this really fun, we have candles, we have a lot of, usually, guests over. Sometimes mostly grandparents, but also other family members, sometimes friends.

And cleaning up from this is a nightmare if it just falls on one or two people. So instead of that we have a special playlist, we crank up the music, and we’re really in a celebrative festive mood. And so we crank up the dance music, and we all just run around. Cleaning up takes about two or three dance songs to completely crush a meal that had all dishes, lots and lots of plates, the whole settings for 16 to 20 people. We knock it out in a couple of really good dance songs. And we have tons of fun. And so that just brings a lot of energy, and we really want Friday nights at our house to be celebrative. So music is absolutely key, and an awesome part of that. So that’s one of the favorite ways that I think we incorporate music in our house.

Jeff:
Totally, and I love that one too. And we’re very similar, where I think whenever we feel we have a bigger cleanup, or something, or we just want to it and make it celebratory and fun, then we turn on the music. And I feel like if we just want to… It’s like you can’t, music is so part of our culture and humanity and history, et cetera. You’re almost pre-loading things you want to get done into with the music. Like, “Oh I want celebration and fastness, let’s do a fast fun song,” stuff that.

So one I would say though, that is really big in our household, is bedtime songs and a soft gentle way. We are big on, usually Kinsley, he wants to sing a couple songs in bed. And we sing a couple to Canon as well before we put him down. And I think there’s just something about, again that liturgical rhythm of daily or nightly truth.

So basically, what I’m trying to say is, I think using music or songs to inject truth in a very memorized way into your kids. I think memorizing songs, it’s easier to recall later in life. It’s easier to be triggered by it when you walk by something or hear something. And so I think definitely using it to inject truth, and thinking of fun, easy songs you like that do that, is really fun in our family.

Jeremy:
Yeah. I want to piggyback off of that, because one of the things I created early on was a travel playlist, because I wanted my kids to really remember all of these different places. We went to a lot of national parks the first five or 10 years our kids were really young. And so we created that On the Road Again, some Kenny Rogers, different road songs, about 12 songs. Every single time we took off for the our road trip, we would crank up this travel playlist.

And I always have this wistful idea that one of my kids is going to be maybe with a sibling, there’ll be 50 or 60 years old, and one of these songs will play at some restaurant, and they’ll look over at each other, and go, “Yeah, that was…” They both have the same memory, the same one.

Jeff:
That’s one of the biggest memory triggers than just words.

Jeremy:
Yeah. So having different playlists for maybe different events, particularly if they repeat. So if you have a special trip you go on every year, or it could be obviously holiday playlists, or whatever, but definitely curate some playlists like that, so that your kids will have that shared memory from one another, and that it just becomes a deep part of what it meant to be and grow up in your family.

Jeff:
Yeah, exactly. And then another one I would say actually… Oh man, right when I was about to start talking, I totally forgot. What was it again? Oh yeah, I think another one that’s big to us is utilizing the car. I think cars, especially with toddlers, can sometimes be difficult times. Right, or just like don’t yell at each other, don’t hit each other, get in the car, seats, blah blah blah.

And I think we’ve seen for us that music is really helpful to incorporate either a game of the car, like it’s time to get in and do this, or whatever, or the longevity of a ride. And we mix up whether it’s audio books of kids’ stories and music. So I’m batching this in together, but it’s the injecting of truth again. I think it’s taking advantage of your margins, and taking advantage of things in the car, just filling the space in a healthy, truthful, beautiful, and amazing way.

And we rarely let the kids pick a lot of stuff in the house that we listen to, and the car is almost a little bit of a special time, where because of that, then they are really obedient and good in cars. Because we’ll usually let them say, “Hey, what do you want to listen to?” And you pick on this on going there, and then your brother can pick on the way going back, stuff that. So it’s a little more of a treat for them to pick, if that makes sense?

Jeremy:
Yeah, that’s good. And the last one I’ll say guys, is that this is maybe 20% of you will be able to relate to, but hopefully the rest of you could figure out how it might apply. But to geek out again on my favorite author J R R Tolkien, we have our Tolkien night, where we read on Monday nights some part of The Lord of the Rings. And I to start that off by playing this epic song called the song of Durin.

And so if any of you guys ever watched the Hobbit movie, there’s this… Oh my favorite part in the whole Hobbit movie is when the dwarves get around the fire, and sing that song about where they’re wistfully thinking about their homeland that they’re trying to go back to, which is an incredible song. But there’s actually a poem to me that’s even more reminiscent Tolkien, and his idea of deep loss and longing, that’s really, he’s able to hit that chord like no one else.

And there’s a song called the Song of Durin, which Gimli sings in the Mines of Moria in the first book of The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring. And here’s a version on it, if you’re a token geek, run to YouTube right now, check it out, Song of Durin. It’s got a bass note in it that’ll blow your mind. So our subwoofer just shakes the entire house as we enter into the realm of Lord of the Rings every week with that song.

And that kind of thing, where you just enter into, or think about a song as a portal into a place. And if you could create that, that’s really what I wanted to create with that song. And that I think you can do that with whatever theme nights, or fun things that are unique to your family. Is there a song, is there a playlist, is there some portal you can open up into that world, that music can allow you to do that? And I think if you can figure that out, and you can really bring your kids in through that portal, it’s going to be awesome.

Jeff:
Totally. And guys, and that’s clear with the… And this is a cousin of normal music. And I think that’s soundtrack or story music, like you just said. And whether it’s even Pirates of the Caribbean. It has that dun dun duh duh duh duh duh. Even more than almost even normal music, film, music, soundtrack story music is so captivating, and so matches perfectly the emotion that wants to be brought out. And I think that’s a great, like use those to your advantage, whether it’s an adventure as a family, whether it’s a fun thing, soundtracks and more like fun narrative film stories. And their music are really powerful and really fun, like you said, to enter into a type of place with a certain type of feeling.

So we love you guys. Let us know on social media, especially on this one, what your favorite music is, how you guys utilize it as a family, and we can’t wait to hear.

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