We rock.

And, oh boy, does he like it when he gets to play too.

Gwen gets her groove on too.

We need a few more kids (um, and guitars) to be like the von Trapps, but Gwen and Aidan try their best at dueling guitars…

Check out the grin below. Clearly an unhappy little boy.

He already tells us what he thinks of our “guitar” playing (“You ROCK mommy!”). Now we just need to teach him how to throw the goat.  Who knew that Guitar Hero would be a family game?!?

Ok, Anthony has to fix the other blog so I can post video. Here’s the video I was talking about there.

We’re looking into getting a digital piano for Christmas, and Gwen took Aidan down to Tom Lee’s to see some up close.

Aidan sure liked them!

The boy is developing an ear for music. Or, for singing and being sung to at least. It’s been quite neat to see develop over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, his favourite songs seem to be “typical” children’s songs … despite our ongoing efforts. His current favourite seems to be “Sing” from Sesame Street (you know, “Sing, sing a song, sing it loud, sing it strong!”). He also likes “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. He can get through most of the chorus to “My Bonnie (Lies Over the Ocean)”. And, um, he’s been singing the hook to “Wild, Wild West”. As far as I can tell, the Wil Smith version. I’m not sure where he picked that up.

I think we’ve been pretty good at exposing him to a wide range of music. Both Gwen & I have reasonably varied musical tastes, and we’ve always played music around him. Certainly for dancing he seems to prefer The Black Eyed Peas. But for singing, it seems like he prefers the old standards.

We’ve bought (honest-to-goodness CDs!) several “parent-friendly” albums that he doesn’t seem to mind, but have yet to make a big impression on him. He like the music videos to “Mother Goose Rocks!“, and I’ve heard him singing the Eminen-stylized “Monkeys Jumping on the Bed”, and I think this album has the best chance of being adopted by him. We have the album “Ablum” by local group “Duplex“. Recently we received “For The Kids” and “For The Kids Too!”, compilation albums by Nettwerk in support of children’s charities with songs by Sarah McLaughlan, The Barenaked Ladies, Sarah Harmer, Six Pence None The Richer, Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida, and others.

Even moving away from children’s songs, he gets exposed to lots of stuff. Mostly brit pop and alternative rock, but every night he goes to sleep to a mix of classical music (thanks Apple). So I think we’ve set a pretty good table for him — it’ll be interested to see what he eats.

Yesterday, after putting him to bed and then going back in to “deal” with him an hour later he asked to be sung to. Heart warming for certain, but those who know me know that I might have an ear for music, and reasonable rhythm (seriously!), my vocal skills are just about sufficient to get raucous laughter if I ever got the nerve to do karaoke. Anyway, I’ve been singing to him regardless and hopefully it’s not a sign he’s tone deaf. We went through a a few of the standards and he sang along with a few. Miracles of miracles, I didn’t hear a peep out of him afterwards.

Anyone out there have suggestions for music that both he and us will appreciate?