Album Notes

When I was making my first recording, Jim Gill Sings The Sneezing Song and Other Contagious Tunes, the producer had a question about one song in particular. The Sneezing Song (the title song) bothered him because, "well...it isn't really a song."

He was right. It's a simple rhyming game set to a few strummed chords. The important thing, in my mind, isn't the music or the melody. To me, it's most important that young children actively and enthusiastically play along with the song. Some children sneeze along. Some giggle when they hear other children sneeze. Some children create their own rhyming verses of the song. It's music play.

Since we defined it better, the producer of my recordings, Steve Rashid, and I have made a great team. His musical sense along with my sense of play have allowed us to create three recordings filled with songs that fall into one of the following categories of music play.

1. Games or activities set to music that I have created through my own work with children and families. (See About Jim Gill for more information about my work.) Teachers and children's librarians appreciate these songs for circle time activities and parents enjoy the active play to pass the time on long car rides.

2. Rhymes and word play that I have created while talking, singing, and playing with my own children. These are the types of songs that you can keep singing long after the CD player is turned off. You can create verses of your own... and improve the song! (By the way, some research points to this type of rhyming play as one important factor in a child's learning to read. It's a concept called phonemic awareness.)

3. Rockin' numbers that get everyone dancing together. Some of the best times with my own children are when we crank up the stereo and dance with abandon to some of the best CD's in my collection- none of which are children's recordings. Moms and Dads might enjoy the numbers on my recordings as much as the kids. One mother told me that a neighbor called and asked her to turn the music down. She was listening to The Night We Made it Noisy in Boise, Idaho...and her kids weren't home!

Jim Gill is, by training, a child development specialist with a Master's Degree from the Erikson Institute for Advanced Studies in Child Development. He leads weekly programs in music and supported play for families with young children with special needs. These are sponsored by various therapeutic and family support agencies in the Chicago area. Most of the games included on Jim's recordings are a product of this work which he has been involved in since 1984.

Jim travels throughout the country leading "family concerts of music and play" at schools, libraries, theaters, and museums. His goal is to make each concert feel as though everyone is playing together in the living room - even though it might be a room filled with 100...or 500 people.

Jim also speaks nationwide to early childhood educators and child care providers about play and its value in the lives of both the children and the adults who care for them. A particular focus of each workshop is, of course, Jim's creations in music play.