Controlled chaos could be a phrase employed to describe a Music Together class. In the last few weeks, I’ve accompanied my sister and one-year-old niece Sonya to two sessions of the baby and toddler class that meets in a storefront on Second Street just off of Sixth Avenue.

It’s been a long time since I attended a Music Together class. When my daughter was a year or so, we went to classes in the Ethical Culture building on Prospect Park West. The program was just starting out in Brooklyn. We had a retired male opera singer for a teacher and he could really sing the hell out of some of those songs. Even then, Music Together answered a two-fold desire on the part of young moms and dads: (1) to provide their infants with as much pre-academic stimulation as possible and (2)to give themselves and their babies something to do other than go to the playground or hang around the house.

Before Music Together came to Park Slope in approximately 1997, there wasn’t much in the way of music classes for babies. A Gymboree class in a church and some offerings at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music were about it. When my son was an infant in 1992, a pioneering young woman named Alison DiSalvo taught a weekly class called Mommy and Me, a name she temporarily amended to Mommy and Daddy and Me because my husband regularly took our son to her classes. It was a lovely class she devised combining classic kid’s songs, creative movement and artwork; a real life saver for us and a great place to make long lasting mommy friends.

When my second child came along in 1997, Music Together was the thing to do. Somewhat pedagogical in approach, it seemed to have strong academic backing in its claims that early music was important for young children. Their literature used words like development and curriculum. Mind you, this was just before the popularity of "Baby Einstein" and "Baby Mozart" videos swept the Slope. But it was the beginning of the "you must stimulate your child constantly otherwise they’ll grow up to be failures" movement of parenting. On their rather serious web site Music together offers this description of themselves:

A music and movement approach to early childhood music development for infant, toddler, preschool, and kindergarten children and their parents, teachers, and other primary caregivers. Originally offered to the public in 1987, it pioneered the concept of a research-based, developmentally appropriate early childhood music curriculum that strongly emphasizes and facilitates adult involvement. The Music Together approach develops every child’s birthright of basic music competence by encouraging the actual experiencing of music rather than the learning of concepts or information about music. It began as an educational project of the Center for Music and Young Children and is now being taught internationally.

I would say that Music Together and those Baby Mozart tapes epitomize the  difference between  raising a baby in 1991 and 2005 in the Slope. In 1991, we were still buying Raffi cassetes and hunting around for what few baby activities there were.

By 1997, things were really revving up. And in the years after that, there’s been an explosion of things to do, things to buy, things to wear, things to read, things to listen to, things to eat for babies. Which isn’t to say that pre-1997, Slope parents weren’t concerned about their children’s early stimulation. But I think in the intervening years, people became obsessed with it. And now music, swimming, movement, yoga, sign language, cooking, art – you name it is available, if not required ,for the younger set.

In late 1998, I got a little bored with Music Together and switched to the  alt-rock version of it that was just starting up, Music for Aardvarks.

Founded by David Winestone, a rock musician who had done a stint as a teacher of Music Together, Music for Aardvarks was the East Village alternative to all those songs about farms and locomotives. Winestone sang songs about taxis, elevators, the Guggenheim Museum, bagels, Avenue A., a turnstile jumping bunny’s night in jail, and other ultra urban topics. On his web site, which is pretty wacky and fun, I found this quote from an interview he did with Kids Cuts, a radio show.

I think the parents find the stylistic diversity in the music exciting. The element of surprise both musically and lyrically. The different energy levels. And I also think they recognize it as being authentically original and intelligent compared to other children’s music. As far as the music being inappropriate for young children, I think that’s ridiculous. My writing is full of traditional folk, pop and jazz, classical and Latin influences, but I’ve grown up listening to The Ramones, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Lou Reed and Nirvana. If some of my songs seem over-the-top to a few people I say "buy something else." I’m not crossing a line. Hopefully I’m erasing one.

Mind you, he comes before Dan Zanes in the evolution of ‘kids music that adults love,too’ in New York. I feel for him sometimes that he is now relegated to being the other guy who does cool kids music in Cobble Hill. And he’ll probably never get his picture in Vanity Fair (though he has been profiled in Time and the New York Times).

In early 1998, a friend and I would bundle up our toddlers and schlep their strollers down and up subway stairs, so that our children could study with the Master Winstone  himself at a dance studio in the East Village. His personality alone was worth the trip and we did find ourselves laughing out loud at his wonderful songs and antics. Over the years, he has trained teachers and now the program reaches out beyond the East Village to Brooklyn and beyond.

Cut to 2005. The streets abound with $800 Bugaboos. Brooklyn’s own and very talented Dan Zanes is a top selling children’s performer nationally. There are all kinds of new-fangled innovations that didn’t exist even five years ago: stroller weights so that the stroller doesn’t tip over and coffee holders for mom’s coffee cup.  Everything is so well-designed and well thought out. Fidgits and Jumping Julia (both now defunct) aren’t the only children’s clothing stores around. Stores like Lolli, Orange Blossom, Baby Bird, Romp offer great alternatives to The Gap if you’re doing that price point. Target, Old Navy, and the Children’s Place are the go-to spots for the more budget conscious like me.   

This is a great time to be a baby in the Slope if your parents have money, that is.

So this morning I sat with Sonya and watched her face light up as Justin, her perfectly wonderful Music Together teacher, sang "The Insy Binsy Spider" fast, slow, pitched high, pitched low, while he made all knds of burbly, googly noises.

He gently reminded the parents and caregivers to sing and dance along. It was a crazy scene. The kids were all doing their own thing: Crying, wrestling, falling, walking away, even singing along. Sonya loved shaking the egg-shaped shakers and banging or sucking her drum stick on or near a wide assortment of percussion instruments; the rainbow tye-dyed scarves were fun for putting over her head and the soft lullaby song at the end was a nice time to cuddle up with her mom.

And then it was time for the Goodbye song when, amazingly, Justin remembered every child’s name plus guests and even  remembered to say ‘goodbye, so long, farewell my friend’ to the aunts, who’ve been here before but not for a very long time.