What makes Sing-Along a special place? A place families in our community love?
When pondering what makes sing-along different, we came up with these ETHOS that poise our community for connection and should aim to be reflected in all Mulberry Bush Sing-Along Groups around the country and throughout the world!
ETHOS + HOW?
JOYFUL Connecting with your child in a peaceful, playful way is paramount to joyful parenting. Whether your infant relaxes in your arms or your preschooler wants to romp around the circle, you GET this time to be together – and to be together in a musical, caring community. Observing your child learning the movements and songs provides a unique window into their development, watching them interact with other young children can uplift your heart for the entire week ahead. You might interact with them in new ways, aided by the musical instruments they choose to explore that week, or be surprised by how they participate after mostly observing for several weeks. I am forever delighted even by how my third child surprises me in different ways than my first two in his development at sing-along!
Actions sing-along leaders can take: Develop your sing-along repertoire with respect for songs that promote joy, unity, discovery, wonder, community, friendliness, generosity, big love, and nature. Consider discovering a blend of rhythms, tones, singing styles, and musical dynamics, and then integrating them through the BUILDING BLOCKS of sing-along is a source of joy. Also, keep the spirit of experimenting alive! Several aspects of sing-along naturally cycle: the seasons, where you meet, group participants and who the core members are, holidays and celebrations, the ages of the children. You have a chance, consistently, to incorporate songs you and your children are enjoying! The older they get, the more suggestions they’ll have and become your collaborators in creating sing-along playlists!
WELCOMING Everyone is welcome! Everyone needs communal joy in their lives, especially when it means connecting with other parents and caregivers of young children! The investment that parents and caregivers make in bringing their kiddos to sing-along IS the investment. We know what it takes to navigate naps and siblings’ different needs and routines, making sure your diaper bag is packed and all the other details of getting yourself and your small humans out the door. The cost of sing-along is FREE! The investment results in connection! Many families return each week and those who were once strangers become friends in and out of sing-along. We’re happy you’re here!!!
Actions sing-along leaders can take: Whenever we promote the Sing-Along on our facebook page, community FB groups, hang signage at the indoor locations of sing-along, and the outdoor ones too when there is an opportunity (like on a park board), it is mentioned that the group is FREE.
INCLUSIVE Again, everyone is welcome! A beautiful and fun element of sing-along is celebrating our different cultural backgrounds through song and dance and musical play. In our Rochester community, songs in Spanish are featured at every sing-along. Every community is a unique constellation of people and cultures and sing-along leaders will want to include any language and culture that would let folks in your area know they are welcome. Additionally, a community celebration we have each week is to sing “Happy Birthday!” with the parachute. Children and adults are welcome to share that it just was their birthday or if it’s coming up soon, and we’ll sing to you!
Actions sing-along leaders can take: Sing “Happy Birthday!” at every sing-along! Another example is to plan songs at the “festival of lights” time-of-year that recognize and uphold traditions from around the globe, both shining a light on our common humanity. Announce frequently that any member is welcome to bring a song from home to share, and include a personal invitation in the welcome email. It’s a virtuous cycle! As more families participate in leading, more families will come up with something to share!
HARMONIOUS We advocate for multi-culturalism and multi-lingualism to be alive and well in the lives of young people. Experiencing these different ways of seeing the world through singing and playing and connecting in community (vs. simply being exposed to them later on) will help our young people develop into creative thinkers and collaborative leaders in a global world. We also meet OUTDOORS for six months of the year (yes, in Rochester, NY!) fostering an expanse of our senses and nurturing our innate appreciation of the changes in the seasons while we’re moving and grooving together. Nature inspires us to rotate songs as the seasons cycle around. A final aspect of harmonious-ness is multi-generational connection. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, unite and reunite week-after-week at sing-along because whose lives aren’t enriched by an opportunity to connect with the kiddos they love and their larger community?!
Actions sing-along leaders can take: Invest in learning and offering songs in a different language than your own. We tend to utilize those that lend themselves to hand motions or musical dynamics (for example softer, medium, louder). Invest in being inspired by instruments from a culture different than your own. Find a park that works for participants to meet in for the warmer (or cooler) months in your area. As a bonus, holding sing-along outside automatically lets more people know about what you are offering! Post signage for your sing-along in churches (one of the last bastions of inter-generational connection). Directly invite your sing-along community to bring visiting family and friends to sing-alongs on school breaks and during the summer.
GENEROUS in spirit and wonder and boldness. At the beginning of our group, we hosted an “instrument-making” party to supply sing-along with a bin-full of instruments made from recyclables! (This has obvious intersection with welcoming and inclusivity, serving as a fun bonding activity that shows group members that you, too, can make instruments with your weekly recyclables!) Many families made instruments at home and brought them to sing-along after that, too, creating memories for their families and instruments for the community! Everyone at sing-along implicitly agrees to engage in a child-like wonder about the world, their bodies, a parachute, bubbles and connecting with others! Boldness is embodied in members’ willingness to participate in ways that stretch them — whether that is simply showing up, helping their child participate in offering musical suggestions, and offering a song themselves, whether with their voice or with an instrument!
Actions sing-along leaders can take: Host an “instrument-making” party. Welcome new faces at sing-along. In the improv rule of “Yes, and…” whenever members – of any age – bring a song to share to sing-along, encourage all to support that member! We’ve had kids “play” the ukulele to lead “Baby Beluga” and adults play “Twinkle twinkle little star” on their violin. We encourage musical leadership at all ages and stages! Treasure is another form of generosity: when the need arises for a new bigger parachute, or a particular set of uniform rhythm instruments, bursts of donations can be collected for these specific items. We recommend a four-week campaign. Group members are generous when sing-along has these kinds of communal needs.
SPREADING JOY
Sing-along offers an hour of your week that everything else falls away. Sing-along is space for joy and play, music-making, family and community. You and everyone at sing-along will be uplifted. Smiling is contagious – spread the smiles. Sing and dance together and your communal spirits lift.
Great work. As part of the Mulberry Bush Sing-Along Project, you are spreading community one song at a time.
