Digital Resources: Mama Lisa's World

Mama Lisa's World: International Music and Culture 

(MP3s, Midi MP3s, and YouTube)  

Official website: http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=eh

Accessed 2/18/2012

Preschool
Music

The are many benefits of music in early learning. Mama Lisa's World includes a extensive collection of songs from around the world and discussions about international culture. It features a major collection of English Mother Goose Rhymes and thousands of songs from over a hundred countries and cultures. All for free. 

The collection includes midi tunes (piano without lyrics), Mp3 versions of the sung songs, and youtube videos for songs when available. The basic bare piano music is important. This provides the melody line of the song which are not deviated from. The midi piano tunes also give listeners the simplest possible source to begin learning music. 

In the American song collection, the collection includes well known songs, such as "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" and less known folk songs such as "The Cat Came Back" and "Wabash Cannonball." It's important that folk songs are not neglected. In addition, importantly, rhymes and songs from North American include various cultures outside of solely American culture. This section includes: historical African American, Iroquois,  Amish, Gabrielinos, Maya, Mexico among others. It seems important for children learn there are many other sides beneath the visible predominant culture. 

Young children are like sponges and can be introduced to new cultures, melodies, and songs. This is one of the important aspects of this site. It initiates a new level of learning for children to go beyond the common American songs to experience the songs and nursery rhymes from other cultures. It initiates interest in the wider world. And, as a reverse side, it also can introduce other cultures to American songs and assist in learning English (the website also has other languages such as Spanish and French along with the many other languages from the nursery rhymes and songs). 

This major project was started in the late nineties as an answer to her son's interest in Mother Goose rhymes. Since then, Lisa has added to the site through her background in languages and culture. The website is still active (current blog entries). The goal of posting nursery rhymes and children's songs from every country and culture in existence is an admirable goal. As culture seems to be merging into one similar style, the need to capture world diversity is all the more important. It's a very admirable collection.