In Our Home: Music

We could not imagine life without music in this Clarkson home. We do have discriminating tastes, though. However, rather than taking a negative “that’s not good music” approach in our home, we try hard to shape our children’s musical tastes and appetites with a positive “that’s good music!” approach.

We started out young listening to good Christian music at bedtime- Maranatha Praise tapes, Michael Card, hymn tapes, other adult artists, and the like. We also keep a selection of good music to listen to when we’re in the car. The Classical Kids recordings have really piqued their interest in classical music. As new parents, we were drawn to the typical cheery children’s tapes such as Psalty, Kids’ Praise, Donut Man, and others.

Now, though, the more their tastes have been trained to “adult” music, the more they prefer and ask for it. At meal times, we often put on praise and worship, Classical (usually Baroque)m contemporary hymns, or good Christian artist recordings. For fun, we have a variety of genres and artists ranging from hammered dulcimer to Christian country and cowboy music. In all, we unashamedly hold to high standards of quality in composition, performance, and production. By consistently exposing our children to the “real thing” we are training their appetites to enjoy “real” music, and developing their abilities to discern mediocre from excellent. We’ve been startled at times at the songs they know (hymns and choruses they’ve never sung in church), and at the Scriptures and biblical concepts they know just because of a song.