Monday Morning Smile: "Everybody Gets a Kitten" - Jeremy Messersmith

I'm a longtime fan of Jeremy Messersmith, dating back to seeing him at SXSW in 2010. At the time, he was prepping an album called The Reluctant Graveyard, a baker's dozen of songs about death and dying, not exactly the prototypical album you'd expect to be featured on a kids music website. (Note: it wasn't featured here, though it's a pretty great album.)

A couple weeks ago, Messersmith released 11 Obscenely Optimistic Songs For Ukulele: A Micro Folk Record For The 21st Century And Beyond, an album of, well, that album title says it all. The songs are 100% delightful and, even better, if you sign up for Messersmith's mailing list via his website, you can get a copy of a ukulele songbook for the entire album, a task I highly recommend following through on. The songs are a bunch of fun to play, and they're not terribly challenging for anyone with the barest of uke skills.

While I think all of the songs could probably fit unchallenged as a cover on a kids' album, I thought I'd feature the leadoff track, "Everybody Gets a Kitten" because, you know, kittens.

Jeremy Messersmith: "Everybody Gets a Kitten" [YouTube]

Justin Roberts with ukulele and some lemonade

Interview: Justin Roberts

Some of my favorite power-poppy songs for kids ("Recess," "Trick or Treat," My Imaginary Rhino") have come from kids music superstar Justin Roberts, but on his just-released album Lemonade, the Chicago-based musician took a slightly different songwriting approach. For Lemonade, Roberts wrote and performed the music using the ukulele and took a more stripped-down approach to arranging it on record.

As a ukulele noodler, the idea that a longtime musician would pick up the ukulele as a new instrument and proceed to craft an entire album intrigued me. In the interview, Roberts talk about which longtime kids duo got him into the ukulele, what it's like to write an album with a uke, and whether he'll be playing it in his upcoming fall shows (for example, in Albuquerque in November and New York's Symphony Space on December 10th). Also, find out whether Roberts, like me, finds strumming to be the hardest ukulele skill to master.

Zooglobble: What are your first ukulele memories?

Justin Roberts: Well, I always wanted to play the ukulele and I'd been talking with Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer for years about their amazing Uke Fest in Maryland. I was also getting advice about which ukulele to buy. About a year and a half ago, Cathy and Marcy were staying with me while they played shows in Chicago. I was trying out Marcy's personal uke and said "I think I'll just buy one of these." It was her Kala signature model. And she said, "You can keep it!" This was the ukulele that she had been playing and recording with for years and Cathy and I were a bit shocked. But after I realized she was serious, I knew I would have to actually learn to play. It turned out to be in the inspiration behind most of the songs on Lemonade.

You said you wanted to take a different approach in writing Lemonade than your other recent efforts -- why is that?

I decided I wanted to try to write somewhat simpler songs with a little more space and not as much wall of sound production as I'd done in the past. I wanted it to be welcoming like hearing people play on a front porch. My songs from the first several records are usually 3 or 4 chords and I love songs like that. I just made that my goal when writing songs for this record. Now, you will hear songs that could have been on Recess ("Dodgeball," for example), but we recorded it with upright bass and cardboard box snare instead of with a giant rock band.

How did you decide to make the ukulele a central focus of your writing?

It was hard writing Lemonade after making a musical ("Hansel & Gretel") where all the content was handed to me. I'd been writing mainly on my computer since "Meltdown," and I still did it that way this time around, but I tried to start with a song I could simply play on the uke alone without a million other instruments. That sort of simplicity continued to be the theme as we recorded. The goal of simplicity also helped me define the musicians we ended up asking to perform on the album (Robbie Fulks, Nora O'Connor, etc.).

How is writing or crafting music on a uke different from how you’ve written music before?

Since I only knew a few chords and sometimes didn't even know what chords I was playing as I moved my fingers around it was like returning to the simplicity of just learning a new instrument.

This might be a difficult question, but how do you think the music on Lemonade turned out differently as a result of how you wrote the music?

Well, I wasn't thinking of a five-piece rock bank when I wrote the songs and when I recorded the demos. So, I was more like, "Let's add a few notes of piano here or a hand clap there," rather than starting with bass and drums and adding guitars and ten vocal harmonies. I just tried to give the songs what they needed to make them interesting without sticking to a power pop band formula.

What was the hardest thing for you to master on the ukulele -- fingering, strumming, or something else?

I'm still trying to master the strumming. It's hard to not mimic holding a pick when you play with your fingers. But some of it came very naturally like the riff in "Long As I Got You." Every time I picked up the uke, that melody got played.

Are you planning to play the ukulele live?

I already am. It's so fun. I love to change between that and guitar.

Any secret ukulele-playing tips to share?

There are a lot of secrets on the internet. Whenever I was looking for a chord or wanted to learn something new, I turned there. You can also take lessons from Marcy Marxer, the master herself, on sites like TrueFire, Peghead Nation and others. That's a great way to learn.

hoto credit: Todd Rosenberg

Heidi Swedberg Teaches You "Al Tambor" on the Ukulele

On her latest album My Cup of Tea, Heidi Swedberg and her friends take the listener on a variety show tour of music from across the centuries and continents, a full-fledged instrumental extravaganza. But at heart, Swedberg remains a ukulele evangelist dedicated to teaching the humblest of stringed instruments to folks the world over.

That's why I'm tickled pink that Swedberg is offering up a free and exclusive ukulele lesson for the song "Al Tambor" (which appears on My Cup of Tea as well). She and one of her chief partners in musical crime Daniel Ward take you through the two -- just two! -- chords needed to play the song. And in case you're the kind of person who wants to study a piece of paper (hey, I'm that guy sometimes), Swedberg has put together a sheet for you. Download the chord chart here.

Thanks to Heidi and Daniel for the lessons -- uke players, you know what to do!

Review: My Cup of Tea - Heidi Swedberg

On her first album Play!, Heidi Swedberg gave us a celebration of the ukulele, playing (for the most part) simple songs designed to get uke-enthusiasts to play along. The songs and arrangements were playful to be sure, and definitely more than somebody strumming the ukulele, but its ambitions were modest.

Move forward three years, and her follow up My Cup of Tea reveals Swedberg's true ambition -- to be the vaudevillian Dan Zanes of family music. Yes, that cover photo, with family and friends playing roles of Civil War reenactors, Frida Kahlo, and barechested strongmen (to name a few), is a nice visual complement to the album's contents. From the Jazz Age zip of the original title track which leads off the disk with a good dozen instruments and nearly as many voices to Swedberg's vocally dramatic take on Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat," if you're looking for an album with a single, distinctive groove, please move along.

The songs here are varied, and not in the "one song reggae, one song rap" approach that kids albums sometimes take. After that Edward Lear song, the traditional folk tune "Little Birdie," perhaps the simplest song on the album, segues into the uptempo Panamanian tune "Al Tambor." And while on a lot of albums, "Duermete," a Spanish lullaby, might be the album closer, Swedberg's duet with Cesar Bauvallet subtly turns into a Cuban-tinged raveup. It's in these wild leaps from song to song that Swedberg and her collaborators -- primarily Daniel Ward and John Bartlit -- shine instrumentally.

Of course, given the wide-ranging musical interests, not everything succeeds -- there is no love lost between me and "Boogie Man," which takes a cheesy boogie theme and cranks it up to the point of clicking fast-forward. And while I liked her more dramatic takes on "The Owl and the Pussycat" and "Istanbul" (made famous once more by distant cousin John Linnell in They Might Be Giants), some listeners might be put off by that musical playacting. YMMV.

In true Zanes-ian fashion, there is very little here that could be pegged at a specific (non-adult) age range, so I'll call it ages 3 and up. You can hear a sampler here.

You can appreciate My Cup of Tea as a straight-up album of music from folk and world traditions played with verve and imaginatively arranged. But I think you'll get more out of it if you think of it as a variety show without the banter, skits, and sponsor thanks. In fact, somebody please get Ms. Swedberg a gig hosting her own variety show, pronto. Signed, the Universe. Definitely recommended.

Note: I was given a copy of the album for possible review.

Video: "The Owl and the Pussycat" - Heidi Swedberg

Heidi Swedberg and Daniel Ward are heading to China in a couple weeks to do some playing and teaching for Ohana Ukuleles -- a sweet gig if you can get it, right? In any case, to help with promotion, they've produced a simple video of Swedberg and Ward playing their rendition of "The Owl and the Pussycat," recorded but not (yet) released on an album amidst many ukuleles in an Ohana warehouse. The odd setting for a video is appropriate, I think, for Swedberg's slightly mysterious reading of Edward Lear's poem.

Heidi Swedberg (with Daniel Ward) - "The Owl and the Pussycat" [YouTube]

Create a Family Band for $100 (Musical Instruments for Families)

If you've read this site for any length of time, you know that I just as interested in making music yourself as I am in finding excellent and cool music for kids. Singing hymns, singing in other groups, playing ukulele, getting ukulele lessons from Dan Zanes -- yeah, it's all a part of a musical life. So with holidays associated with gift-giving coming up, I've decided to put together a list of instruments that would cost you roughly $100 and allow a family of all ages and sizes to make music together. Now, don't get me wrong, it's perfectly OK to make your own instrument -- I've been known to make my own drum set -- but over time I've noticed that our kids (or we adults) don't tend to use those paper-plate shakers. It's a useful process to know how to make those sorts of things when you're 3 years old, but I also think it's important to have high-quality instruments. What have I excluded in putting together this list? 1) A place to store all this stuff: We have a couple of big, lined wicker baskets we got from Target that, if I recall correctly, probably cost around $10 each. 2) Accessories: Depending on what you get, you may need (or want) to get tuners, mallets, or bags. 3) Songbooks: This topic deserves a whole separate post on its own. You don't need a songbook, but there are times -- more often than you think -- when you will realize you know exactly one line of a song and that's all. Or need chords to go along with the words. 4) Books on making music: I'd recommend Nerissa & Katryna Nields' All Together Singing in the Kitchen, particularly if you've not made music before yourself, but there are obviously many ways to learn how to play just about any instrument.

5) Large, expensive instruments: Pianos are great, but even the cheapest piano on Craigslist will spend your entire budget. Full-sized guitars or Loog guitars will also generally exceed the $100 limit. My goal with this list is to get your family enough musical diversity to get y'all to the point where you want to learn to play the piano or guitar or violin or drum set. To make my $100 limit more practical, I aimed for a $90 list of instruments on Amazon, giving you room, therefore, for shipping costs, pricing variability, or, should you decide to shop at your local music store (also a good bet), sales tax and local pricing variability. If you want more than the Basics, I've made a few suggestions for Extra instruments should your interest or budget allow. Ready? Good, let's begin.