Artsporers Meet: Benny Time, Children’s Musician

Benny Time is a children’s musician, daycare educator, and dad (and my neighbor!). When I wanted to start writing my children’s music review series, he gave me a lot of insight as to where to begin. A bigger advocate for Australian children’s artists you won’t meet – just have a look at his Instagram feed or scroll over to see the podcast series where he interviews his fellow musicians. So, I asked him if he would give us some of his thoughts on children and music – and, he kindly replied…

Hi Benny! What is your history with making children’s music? Did you grow up making music? When and how did you start writing for children?

I guess its fair to say I have always been involved, or had an interest in, music from as early as I can remember. There was a lot of music in my life growing up. Not necessarily instruments, as such, but I remember my mother taking me to a lot of gigs at a really young age (places, looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been in) and my father had a rather eclectic musical taste.

My personal musical life involved bands and singer songwriter moments, along with a few musical production courses and a Bachelor of Music. Within this however, I began doing small TV and theatre bits and felt much more at home doing that kind of composing. Through all of this, largely to pay bills, I also studied early childhood and worked in childcare. Through various connections I was asked to write a few songs for a children’s television pilot, which I did, and then one day I was playing the songs to the kids at work and then thought, ‘Oh, yeah, that makes sense’ and so it began. 

You are a daycare professional. Do you use music throughout the day with the kids? 

Music is enormously important to me as a teacher. I don’t necessarily teach the children music, as such, but I play ALL DAY. Any time I speak to the group or an individual child, I tend to grab the nearest instrument and make a song out of it. Its not a conscious thing, its just the right audience for it and it just makes everything more magical and meaningful, and the children love it.  I’m also fortunate enough to play a whole range of instruments well enough to entertain a four year old. God forbid a real clarinet player come and observe, but for a four yr old, I’m legit.

I’m also a budding collector of  instruments from other cultures, which the kids tend to love, also. Erhu’s, Harmonic Whirlies, Sanxian’s and again, children want to know what these things are and I’m able to make beautiful connections with my students through these. My classroom currently has quite a large range of instruments, which the children have full access to and are allowed to play with, unencumbered, and I do believe this access sets up a deeper fascination with music and the musical power these things hold.

How can we parents incorporate music more meaningfully into our children’s lives?

This is a hard question. I’m not a music teacher, as such, so I have to be careful what I say about the actual process of teaching music, however I do believe it’s a good thing for a parent to be conscious of how learning happens in this age group. For example, a child doesn’t learn to write their name because they discover literacy. They learn to write their name because of other factors such emerging identities, a sense of pride and ownership, and writing their name becomes part of that process. And it’s the same with music. Often parents will say ‘I’m not musical’ or ‘I can’t sing’ but music is found in everything a child does. The speed in which you speak, your intonation, the way you stamp your feet as you walk, banging on objects, it all possesses musical qualities that add to the child’s development of musical concepts. Being aware of all the existing musical opportunities that are already present in your child’s day and celebrating those is a good start.

Also, sing. Just pick simple songs and sing them. Your child does not care if you can sing or not, but the benefits are enormous. I personally feel its better to do songs that you know in their entirety. Nursery rhymes are good. They have a start, a middle, an end and the child can song along. But when you sing, you are inevitably singing TO your child, and that one on one interaction has benefits way beyond the power of music. Recently, chatting to the amazing Angie Who, she basically claimed her beautiful album Littlefolk was essentially her wanting to document all the songs her mother sang to her as a child.  Music is very personal, so allow your children to establish that personal connection as early as possible. Making it special between you and your child gives it power.

Sorry, did I just rant?

On my children’s music reviews, I always seem to get the comment, “oh, we just listen to Taylor Swift/Katy Perry/whatever is on the radio.” What is the benefit to music made specifically for children, as opposed to kids just listening to adult music? 

Another tricky one. I think it’s wonderful that people expose their children to lots of different music. However, lets cut to the chase – they are just exposing their children to music they like. Not sure many parents have nights dedicated to Polka just so their kid get a good cross section of musical styles, and I do sometimes feel we as parents tend to get carried away in the preservation of our own musical sanity, but music made for children speaks to children better than the Ramones ever will.

Children live in a world where everything is decided for them. We may not think so, but they have to go where we go, they have to go to day care, they have to brush their teeth, they have to wear clothes, they have to eat dinner. The reality is, they don’t have a lot of control over their lives. Having moments within this powerless environment whereby something or someone is specifically talking to them, catering only to them, and nurturing their own personal questioning, is incredibly empowering. It kinda says ‘hey, we hear you’.

Children are the same as adults. They like things they can relate to. I guess it’s about finding that fairness and balance for the entire household.

 Will you tell me about some albums that are on high rotation in your home for your kids? 

We are more of a single family, at the moment. My kids (6 and 2) will get hooked on a song and we’ll more or less play it till its demise. “Mr Rabbit” by Caspar Babypants was a big hit, then randomly M.I.A. My son has become obsessed with a song by REMI entitled “My People,” which is entirely contradictory to every thing I just said in the previous question. Bunny Racket’s “A Chicken is Not a Fruit” was another. My son also will happily sit with ABC iview and just repeatedly listen to the title tracks of shows. The titles to Pablo is a particular favourite for him.

My daughter did fall in love with the Vegetable Plot, Season 1. But, they both tend to move on rather quickly.

Please tell us all the ways that we can find you and your music!

Almost all I do can be found via my website. There you will find the albums and relevant links, along with my podcast and extra bits and pieces.

I also want to say thank you for taking the time. It’s nice to see people show interest and allow us talk about what we do.

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Benny Time’s albums are What a Beautiful Day and Beyond the Little Star. Read the Artsplorers review of Beyond the Little Star.

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