(Chapter from the book: “Charismatic Kid: The New Breed Of Superhero”)
In the summer of ‘09, I was invited to a preschool to demonstrate how I teach creativity to children. My goal was to prove that children are already professional artists, it was just allowing them to confidently bring that out.
I decided that I’d let the children create and record their own song within thirty minutes. Because of the short amount of time, I kept their artistic responsibilities limited to storyline, lyrics, emotional vibe, and performance of the song, while I directed and came up with a melody for it all.
Here are the tools I used to bring this to life:
I started by telling the children that in order to make a song, we first need a story. The story can be about anything they want. The trick to getting children to open up their mind is by asking them a series of open-ended questions. The important part is not what their answer is, but how you respond to the answer. They want to know they can feel comfortable being creative in front of you, so be accepting of any idea they throw your way.
“What should this story be about?”
“An alien!”
“Great!”
They could have shouted out anything, and I would have accepted it. I have a high tolerance for creativity, as long as it is genuine and coming from
their own mind, not somebody else’s. The only time I will reject an answer is if I find the same answer is being given too many times.
“What should the alien’s name be?”
“Mr. Alien!”
Children have a talent for going with the obvious. This, contrary to what adults may think, is better than trying to give interesting and unique answers. There is beauty in the obvious, because there lies your natural instinct to create. Trying to be interesting only makes you less interesting, because trying in itself is counterproductive in creating art. Don’t try, just do. I find kids to be great at this.
“And what happens to Mr. Alien when he wakes up in the morning?”
“He wears his pajamas!”
“What does he do in his pajamas?”
“He has a party with his friends!”
“Then what does he do?”
“He eats breakfast!”
“Then what?”
“He brushes his teeth!”
This is enough for a simple storyline. An alien wakes up and goes through his morning routine. I use the Sharpie and poster board to write everything down. But now we have to turn this story into lyrics. Once again, the kids do this for me.
“Okay, now we need to rhyme our story to make it into a song. What rhymes with pajamas?”
“Pajamarama!”
“Haha! Great. Okay, what rhymes with breakfast?”
There’s a pause in the room.
“Nextist!”
That’s enough for me. Art doesn’t always have to make sense; how do you think Picasso made it big?
“Now what can we rhyme with ‘brushing teeth’?”
“Underneath?”
“Yes! Now that we have the story about the alien, what do we call the song?”
“Alien story!”
I write that down. This is when the real fun starts. I get out my ukulele and ask the kids what the song should sound like. At first they don’t get what that means. But after I make it a little more specific, they get the idea. I ask them if it should be a happy song, or a sad song.
“Happy.”
“Should it be fast or slow?”
“Fast!”
Then I start strumming some chords and recording the rhythm ukulele track, made a vocal track for myself, then sang out the lyrics into the microphone:
“Mr. Alien wears his pajamas at The Pajamarama, then nextist he eats breakfast! Then he brushes all his teeth and he makes sure to get underneath all those teeth! Yeah, yeah! Alien party! Alien party! Alien party! Alien party!”
This is when I bring up five kids to sing the “Alien party!” chorus into the microphone, and they do it perfectly on the first take. After that, I bring up three other kids for percussion. One kid does the claps, another uses blocks to make a drum sound, and another uses the egg shaker. And it gets more interesting! I bring up another two kids for alien sound effects. I tell one boy to make laser gun sounds into the mic, while the other makes a spaceship sound. They do it perfectly.
Being creative is about having fun. If I concentrated too much on getting this song nominated for a Grammy, it would take the fun out of the process and the creativity of the kids and pizzazz of the music would suffer. I could feel the energy in the room as the kids were singing the song that they had made into the microphone. It was as if everyone in the room was part of the band, and we were at a recording session putting music together. This project goes beyond just having fun, because the fun your kids will have goes beyond just being a spectator to entertainment, but actively creating the excitement on their own.
Want to hear the song I recorded with the kids? Click this link below.
You don’t have to do exactly what I did in order to get creative with your kids. As long as your child is using his/her brain to make something new, that’s being creative!
Now that you have a base of how to get creative, what are ways you think you can spark the creative side of your own children?