Creative Futures and musician Rosie Adediran launched London Rhymes – a new Youtube channel featuring original songs for modern families.
Hackney parents from The Ivy Street Family Centre in Hoxton and the Hackney Playbus groups have collaborated with professional musicians to create London Rhymes – the antithesis to the Baby Shark phenomenon.
The antithesis to the often garish visuals and grating songs found on Youtube, London Rhymes aims to breathe new life, quality and imagination into children’s online music with lively, catchy tunes beautifully animated by artist Claire Fauché that will get the whole family singing.
A reinvention of the traditional nursery rhyme the collection of songs have been written by professional musicians and parents from various family centres around London and the project has been supported by digital commissioning agency The Space. With titles such as ‘It’s Nappy Time’ and ‘Let’s be Friends’, the songs are rooted in real life parenting to reflect the joys and challenges of family life.
London Rhymes founder and lead musician, Rosie Adediran says, “The lyrics and melodies in this collection of songs were created from experiences that parents from all walks of life have brought to the table.”
The fun and lively songs are designed to give families the opportunity to listen to great music and inspire them to use singing and music in their everyday lives.
London Rhymes is supported by research that points to the merits of music in the early stages of a child’s development, and in particular the benefits of music interaction between parent and child which can enhance bonding and attachment.
It is known that babies are innately musical and acute listeners. They can hear their mother’s voices from around 26 weeks in utero and recognise it above other voices once born (Nöcker-Ribaupierre 1999).
According to a report written for Creative Futures there is a wide body of evidence to demonstrate that early engagement in music can have a beneficial impact upon young children’s development. Music has been shown to improve developing children’s speech and communication skills, pro-social skills, fine motor and coordination skills, and even numeracy.
Rosie says, “Through London Rhymes we want to bring something new and exciting to the world of children’s music and to shout about the positive impact that singing and music-making can have on family life.”
London Rhymes can be found on the following platforms
www.LondonRhymes.com
Youtube, Spotify, SoundCloud, iTunes
The London Rhymes channel has been commissioned by The Space CIC, with funds from Arts Council England.
