Your earliest childhood musical moment?

Subject: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: dulcimer42
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 08:31 PM

One of mine was listening to mom "harmonize" with the songs on the radio.... loving the sound, and trying to figure out just how she did it.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Bert
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 08:40 PM

I remember when I was three and I was going to marry Vera Lynn when I grew up.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Azizi
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 08:49 PM

Besides, "patty cake" and "this little piggy went to market" children's rhymes that my mother taught me, my earliest memories are singing in my church's children's choir.

I also remember this lady coming through our neighborhood and gathering children to go to summer vacation Bible school at another church other than the one my family belonged to. part of my memory of that summer is that the "vaction Bible school lady" {as I have come to refer to her} paired the kids up with a partner. And then she walked in front of us and led us in songs as we marched down sidewalks and across streets till we got to her church. One song we sang was:

B-I-B-L-E
That's the book for me
The Bible teaches right from wrong
So B-I-B-L-E

-snip-

After we finished that verse, the lady would say "Once again now!" And we'd sing that song again.

Whenever I sing that song now, I have to add "Once again now!" . That song doesn't feel right if I don't add that line.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 09:02 PM

I remember singing songs in first grade while the teacher played piano. All the classrooms in my elementary school had pianos. Being able to play piano must have been a prerequisite for being an elementary school teacher in the 1950s.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 09:52 PM

We sang "She'll be comin' 'round the mountain" and "Billy Boy" and "Golden Slippers" and "Yankee Doodle" and many, many more. I don't remember a time when there wasn't singing: as Grandma washed dishes or Granpa worked on the car, as my twice-great aunt shelled peas or as we kids played. My father, I'm told, had a fine voice and I remember him singing "Toora Loora Loora" as we were put to sleep. And after he died the music went on, but after we got a television (in 1954 -- we were NOT the first on the block!) we eventually did more listening than singing.

Then a couple years later Mom made us all learn an instrument: I was on trumpet, my brother Tony on trombone, Ted on saxophone and then classical guitar, my sister on violin -- and all of us took piano lessons.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 10:54 PM

The radio in our kitchen was almost always on my Mom's favorite station (WHLI - the voice of Long Island) which played Hit Parade music - Perry Como, Patti Page, that stuff. Years later I discovered a similar station in New Jersey - it's since changed formats - and realized I actually like that format. "Wayward Wind" is definately a favorite. As for actually playing music, that would be the accordian, thanks largely to the popularity of the Lawrence Welk Show. My older brother and I started out with a full size piano-accordian, which was bigger than either of us. My teacher was an old Swedish man who was a real virtuoso, and somewhat cruel. I was in the habit of keeping my right arm close to my side - your elbow is supposed to be away from your body - so he'd hold a sharpened pencil near my back, and if I relaxed my arm, my elbow got poked with the point. I suppose he'd be arrested these days for child abuse.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 12:20 AM

Listening to my parents sing, Ian & Sylvia -style, when I was little. Dad on guitar, Mom played piano and some banjo. They had friends who sang & played too and we often had guests.

Remember my sister could never keep quiet either; at the age of around 2, singing along to my parents harmonizing on I&S's "Hey, What About Me", but singing "Heeeeeeeeeeey! Bobbadooooooooooo!"

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 12:21 AM

So, my earliest mondegreen memory too.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 04:14 AM

When Mum sang Poor Dog Tray, I used to beg her not to sing the last part where the dog dies.. I would have been three or so.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 05:20 AM

Making up a song called "Car Bonnet Sat Carefully" on all the black keys of the piano when I was two. It was pretty crap, but it went: Car bonnet sat carefully, car bonnet sat again.

Not sure what that means?

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Davie_
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 08:19 AM

As a three year old, watching and following the local pipe band...dad caught up with me at end of street...been addicted to folkie music and pipes ever since

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Mark H.
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 09:58 AM

Belting out snippets from singles by the Monkees, the Dave Clark Five, and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch.
First things that blew me away were "Venus" by Shocking Pink, and "Na Na Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam. Possibly "Oh Happy Day" by the Edwin Hawkins Singers too.
Early experiences of folk music were all school-based and bad. You folks who heard good traditional music at an early age and enjoyed it are really fortunate.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Pistachio
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 06:21 PM

My Dads' records of The Vienna Boys Choir, Kathleen Ferrier... and endless classical music were always on the turntable. Dad had all five of us learn Piano, Mum took us to church and I discovered that I didn't have to sing the same as everyone else ... and now I harmonise to almost every/anything. Singing songs at Brownies and Guides evenings - and yes, the Sound of Music was a family favourite. My Dad was a naval Captain and we'd all sing!! Spot the similarity? Happy memories.
Hazel.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: maire-aine
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 06:29 PM

My dad used to sing the song about the Preacher & the Bear-- I think he got it from a Phil Harris recording, maybe. But the way he did it was really funny.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 06:31 PM

I remember that one from an old New Christy Minstrels album. My Dad used to sing it too.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 06:37 PM

Hearing 'Obla di, obla da' on the radio - not sure if it was Marmalade or the Beatles, but I was no older than 4.

LTS

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 06:51 PM

Not really one of my own memories, nor really a musical one, but a good friend of mine told me many years ago she was on a car trip with her parents as a young girl, when a bee flew down her throat as she was sitting in the back seat with the window open, belting out "Ramblin' Rose" at the top of her lungs (she is a few years older than me).

A few years ago I brought the incident up when we were talking about something else and she remarked that she couldn't believe I'd remembered that story.

"Remember it?" I said. "I can't get the image of it out of my f___in' head!"

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Tootler
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 07:12 PM

Hearing my Grandmother singing as she went about her housework.

"Music while you work" on the radio. (For those in the US, Music while you work was a programme on the BBC which started during WWII and went on until well into the 50's - I can still hum the theme tune to this day)

Listening to my Grandparents' shanty records on their wind up gramophone. I always wanted those shanty records but my Grandmother got rid of them, together with everything else from her house after my Grandfather died. I know there were things my Mother wanted as well which she did not get.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Bugsy
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 08:59 PM

4 years old, in my courduroy suit and beret singing "too young" at the Winter Gardens in Ramsgate. I still have a photo of it somewhere. The story goes that my Nan was in the audience when a woman next to her said "That's not a little boy that's a midget" and my Nan hit her with her brolly!

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST,IBO
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 10:06 PM

Thinking my dads tuba was a toilet and crapping in it,aged 3

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 10:26 PM

And listening to my uncle sing about when he was a boy and Ol' Shep was a pup. I thought it was the saddest thing I'd ever heard.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 11:07 PM

I don't remember a specific song they sang but I loved to listen to my mother and her best friend sing together. My mother's voice was warm and mellow but her friend Anna had a silvery quality to hers. Together they were magic.

I also remember singing with the brother just older than I a song I didn't realize was a hymn. We sang lustily, Rass cue the pear ishing.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 12:21 AM

Earliest? My mom and dad taking turns singing me to sleep with Prairie Lullaby and Toora Loora. Earliest singing along with the whole famdamily to the radio Catch A Falling Star and Green Grow the Lilacs. We always had music from classical to cow songs to hit parade and everything in between. We all took piano and at least one other instrument, too. Mom and dad played for dances, we didn't have a tv until I was eight so Saturday nights we usually gathered round the piano and sang.

We had a piano in every elementary classroom, too. As I got into the upper grades, the students vied for the coveted accompanist position instead of the teacher playing along.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: MG John
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 03:41 AM

My Father used to sing a song of which the chorus went "Over the mountains over the sea, that's where my heart is longing to be,please let the light that shines on me, shine on the one I love".This may have been the chorus from the song called the Happy Wanderer as he used to also sing it. I think he learnt it during WW11 when he was in either North Africa, or later Italy, when he also learnt more than one version of the D-Day Dodgers, which used the tune of Lili Marleane.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: MG John
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 03:50 AM

To add to the last message: They are different songs. The Happy Wanderer was adapted from a German song

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST,Sapper on MENTOR; just past Miliken park
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 05:37 AM

We had record Joseph Locke sing "The Goodbye Song" from the White Horse Inn when I was very young and I was singing it at about 3yo!!
Also used to critisise my Mum as she couldn't reach the high notes when she tried!

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 05:55 AM

MG John, that's from I see the Moon the Moon sees Me. Previous thread here.
Giok

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 06:49 AM

listening to THE FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST,as i entered the world via cesarian

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST,Teachers Pest
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 12:20 PM

My mum's 78's were Lonnie Donegan and the Skiffle sounds of the day.My dad was different altogether and it was Jimmy Shand and the White Heather Club we hadto endure.Glad i spent more time with Lonnie than Jimmy.Mind you for fun we had Charlie Drake to keep us giggling with Please Mr Custer and My Boomerang Won't Come Back.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 12:59 PM

From an early age, I learned harmony singing with my mother, and for a period of time when we lived at Grandma's house, I had access to a piano on which I learned to pick out melodies by ear with one finger. (Never learned to really play with both hands, though.)

Also while we lived at my grandparent's house, from the time I was age four to ten, I had the incredible musical experience ~ and a quite rare expereince for a little white kid in that time and place ~ of living next-door to a tremendously musical African-American church. Not only was the congregation composed of many talented and exuberant singers, the pastor regularly booked the greatest gospel groups of the day to appear as guest artists and lead the assembly in song.

This was an ongoing experience, starting at the tender age of four and lasting for an additional six years or so. My cumulative memory of these twice-weekly events is vague and blurred, although the total effect of all that listening absolutely informed by musical taste and vocal approach, etc., for the rest of my life. There is one particular moment that stands out quite clearly in my memory; it occurred at about age nine or ten, best as I can figure, so it's not my "earliest" musical moment, but it does stand as the high point of an ongoing six-year experience that did begin at a very early age, and that provided the basis of my musical personality.

I've written about this before, at some length, here.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: MG John
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 01:13 PM

Geok, Thanks. for that info. I'll put it into my newly aquired song book.
J.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Alice
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 01:24 PM

Early 50's, the kitchen radio, me in a high chair, and the
sound of the Lone Ranger coming
.. da da da, da da da, da da DA DA DA!

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST,lefthanded guitar
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 05:37 PM

I think it was, of all things,
"The Old Lamplighter" on the radio

and my dear Austrian grandmother singing: "You are my sunshine" at home.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 07:08 PM

Back in the early 50s when I was aged 4 to 9 or so, my mother used to whistle a lot while she worked (she never thought she could sing and wouldn't so I don't know what she would have sounded like). Her brother was a local country/old time singer that had a taped show on a local radio station (AM) for a time. I remember he came to our house one time to make his show tape and tricked my mother into talking with him while the tape ran. She hated the sound of her speaking voice so much on tape she wouldn't even consider singing anything with him. Between my uncle's music and listening to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night (before we got a TV), I learned a lot of older songs though I only sang to myself until I got to college and learned to play a little on the guitar.

SC

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: skipy
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 07:20 PM

My earliest accutal memory is of a friend & I clubbing together to buy:-
"Please, please me". However I was in cubs before that & I know we sang around the camp fires, but there is no true memory. It stayed with me because my friend had an older brother. We were playing it over & over again, his mum came up to his room & asked me to leave, I thought the repetion was driving them mad, but sadly his brother
( several years his senior ) had been killed on his motorbike.
I hear that song now, all those years on & it comes back to me straight away.
Another memory is that I was brought up in the Methodist church, my father was a lay preacher we had a very strict regime on a Sunday so we always ate at the same time, when I hear the theme tune for family favorites I can smell custard!
Strange bit of kit the old grey matter!
Skipy

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Bee
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 09:14 PM

My mother played guitar and sang to us to put us to sleep, from the time I was born. I think she knew every train wreck song there was, but she also played Bluebird, Wildwood Flower, Rubber Dolly, Your Yard, Listen to the Mockingbird, and other old tunes, along with some gospel. I remember listening from two or so.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: dulcimer42
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 10:59 PM

How can I recall songs from Kindergarten, back in '48? But I can:
Come with me to the candy shop. While i buy a lollipop. Caramels, peppermints, chocolate drops. What shall I buy at the candy shop.'

And:
Oh, camels and bears, and ponies are found
Prancing around on the merry go round
Toodle e oo. Toodle e oo.
On the merry go round!

And I can hum the tune to which we skipped around the room, while Mrs Conley played the piano.    I've always had a love for music, and once a tune is in my head, it's there for good

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Alice
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 11:51 PM

My mom singing
Once a giant went a wandering
Late one night when the moon was full
Searching for a stool to sit on
He climbed a little green hill.

And King of the Cannibal Islands

And "Any bumberellas, any bumberellas to fix to today?" (any umbrellas, but my older sister had said bumberellas)

Lone Ranger on the radio

and at age 4, making up my own "songs" on the piano keys

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 04:04 AM

Being told I couldn't dance "Old Mole" (aged around 4) because it was too difficult.

Siting under my great aunt's kitchen table in Devizes (~ age 3) and undoing everyone's shoe laces - including Pat Shaw, and (I think) Peter Kennedy.

Paws

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Jeanie
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 04:46 AM

I remember, as a baby & toddler, being carried up to bed every night as the signature tune of "The Archers" played on the radio, with my parents singing "Yum-tee-yum-tee-yum-tee-yum". Then, once upstairs, I would stand on the bed, hold their hands, and bounce up and down while one or other or both of them sang "The Galloping Major" - ("Hey,hey, clear the way..") I suppose the idea was that it would tire me out - and I certainly never complained about bedtimes !

Other very early memories: in my pram for a morning sleep, listening to Edmundo Ross on the radio. Being in an isolation room in hospital aged 2, with the ward cleaner singing "Mountain Greenery" to me.

From aged 2 on, tons of memories. It's amazing and wonderful how a snatch of a song or a tune can take you back.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 05:39 AM

Bing Crosby and Grace kelly singing "True Love"

I had a wind up Gramophone on my third Christmas -the first record I played on it was "Down on Misery Farm".

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Surreysinger
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:38 AM

I'd love to say it was listening to "Singing Together", but I have a feeling it was dancing round the house to Guy Mitchell and "She Wears Red Feathers (and a hooley hooley skirt)" which I'm told was my favourite song when I was knee high to a grasshopper. I can remember being in a primary school choir and singing a choral arrangement of Schubert's "The Trout" (with English words added, obviously) in an inter-school competition.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 02:57 PM

I'd love to say it was family singarounds by the old Joanna, or singing harmonies in the back seat of the car in the traffic jams on the north circular, but the first musical moment I can distinctly remember was hearing "Staying Alive" by the Bee Gees on the old Grundig radio in our dining room one sunny day when I was 4 and loving it..

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 03:43 PM

My adopted mother, who came from a Mennonite background, sang Brahms' Lullaby in German, along with some other traditional tunes. I always "heard" music, mostly through radio, even if my parents were not particularly musically inclined. Probably the fondest memory is of listening to records on an old hand-crank "Victrola" in a mountain cabin in the Sierras during and just following WWII. My favorite was "The Merry Go Round Broke Down" (the old Warner Brothers cartoon theme song).

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 03:47 PM

I was taught union protest songs at the age of 3.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 05:11 PM

On other threads on Mudcat I have told the story of how my mother sang me train wreck songs instead of lullabys. I am sure that I learned Jim Blake, Wreck Of The 97, and Wreck Of The # 9 before I could speak. Bee says much the same thing in her post as well. Perhaps it has something to do with the Inverness Co. air or water. :-}
                      Slainte,
                           Sandy

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Old Grizzly
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 05:34 PM

On the BBC light programme : -

Sing Something Simple with Cliff Adams and the Cliff Adams singers

Potty and bath time on a Sunday night in the late 50s ... soap in eyes and the smell of talcum powder....

Dave

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 06:23 PM

My Dad singing what had been the song him and my mum adopted as their song when they fell in love......."Loves Old Sweet Song"

Just a song at twilight,
When the lights are low,
And the flickering shadows,
Softly come and go.........
etc etc

Lovely song...lovely tune.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 06:34 PM

I was going to say my solo debut, standing on a chair at infants' school singing Que Sera, Sera! But then I saw TJ's post and remembered that my mother sang me Brahms' Lullaby in German too. And "Hoppa Hoppa Reiter"!

Kitty

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: GUEST,Joseph de Culver City
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:01 PM

I remember my grandfather singing "Inka Dinka Doo" in imitation of Jimmy Durante and also my father singing his own composition "By the Way of the Santa Fe" as a lullaby.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Gulliver
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:28 PM

Getting a toy xylophone at age 3 (which everyone called a "dulcimer"). Every time we took the bus into town and passed the flowers at O'Connell Bridge I felt compelled to sing--I didn't know any words, but I sang a makeyup song every time. That feeling remained with me for years. Don

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: topical tom
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:16 PM

I guess my earliest childhood music experience would be in the 40's. Not yet having a radio at home, we would be invited by my uncle to go listen to the WWVA Jamboree from Wheeling, West Virginia on his battery-operated radio.As a young boy I found this awesome and looked forward with great eagerness to the next invitation.Also, on occasion, my uncle would play the fiddle for us.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Joe_F
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 09:11 PM

In my baby book, my mother recorded that I "swayed to music at 9 months, keeping time, changing when music changed". I could carry a tune at 2 1/2, and knew more than 40 songs. That would have been in 1940.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Joybell
Date: 01 May 08 - 12:39 AM

My most vivid early memory is of the Salvation Army Brass Band -- with singers and ladies dancing with tambourines -- playing on our street corner. (In Melbourne's inner suburbs). I was about two.
Not actually my first memory because my father sang Stephen Foster songs to me at home. "Old Dog Tray" was a favourite in our place too.
I knew a lot of songs by the time I was 3 but nobody was counting. It was just regarded as something I could do.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Gedpipes
Date: 01 May 08 - 04:16 AM

before I was conceived I heard Planxty

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: CupOfTea
Date: 01 May 08 - 09:31 AM

Through my childhood, my father was always singing and whistling his very small repetoire to the point where I felt I might murder someone if I heard "My Blue Heaven" one more time.

The first music that spoke to me as something I'd want to particpate in were camp folksong. From first grade through 6th, endless camp bus trips included endless singing, so I'm not sure what came first in that era, it's all jumbled together in a diesel fume boucy bus eau de Sea&Ski haze. It also surprises me, in retrospect, how many of the songs were Christian gospel in a public school run camp in a neighborhood that was likely about 40% Jewish. (And may account for why you see Jewish folkies gleefully singing gospel arond here)

Prime memories:
Wheels on the bus
Rise and Shine
The Ship Titanic (complete with 'Uncles and aunts, little kids lost their pants' variants)
Ezekiel saw the Wheel
Joshua fit the battle of Jerico
On Top of Old Smokey/ On top of Spaghetti
Johnny Verback's Machine
Ashgrove
The Other day I met a Bear

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Padre
Date: 01 May 08 - 11:49 PM

Age 4 - Pre-school concert where I got to lead the rhythm band in 'Mary had a Little Lamb.'

In grade school, we had a monthly radio program called 'Musical Pictures' - we would hear a piece of music, and then we had to draw or paint a picture describing what we saw. My favorite was 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' where I drew an ogre-like king (one eye, etc) and my teacher would not put it on the board; she said it was too ugly.

Somehow I survived those experiences, and later actually enjoyed playing music.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Banjiman
Date: 02 May 08 - 09:17 AM

2 stand out.....

1/ In the late sixties in the back of a Morris 1000 Traveler going over to Applecross on the west coast of Scotland(I was about 4) singing "3 score and 10" with my sister and Mum and changing the "battle with the swell" line to "battle with the smell". My Dad pulled over and threatened to make us walk up the hill if we couldn't sing it properly....he was such a purist!

2/ My Dad playing assorted dance tunes on his big old accordion (family legend is that it once belonged to Jimmy Shand, must check that out) with our scruffy mongrel howling along. I thought accordions came with the dog howling sound effect until I was about 16 (....and maybe I was right!).

Paul

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Rasener
Date: 02 May 08 - 12:29 PM

My first vivid memory of communal singing was in 1957 when I was 12.
My brother used to take me to see Aston Villa, and that year they got to Wembley in the FA Cup and beat Man United's Busby Babes.
In the early rounds of the cup, they introduced a song to the tune of "It's a Long way to Tipperary"

It went

Its a long way to go to Wembley
Its a long way to go
Its a long long way to go to Wembley
But we'll get there, yes we know
Goodbye Bristol City,
Goodbye Middlesbrough,
It's a long, long way to get to Wembley,
But we'll get there, I know!

Thats when I decided I couldn't sing LOL

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 May 08 - 05:22 PM

Let's hear it for photography - I have of pic of me at too young to remember wearing huge sunglasses and attempting to strum daddy's guitar.

And I remember learning a French song phonetically by guessing and going along before I spoke French, and being laughed at when I sang it at home - did nothing to sour me on singing (perhaps unfortunately!)...

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 03 May 08 - 04:36 PM

All sorts of things from my parents collection of 78s and The Light Programme. My mum and dad had Bing Crosby, Jolson and a 12" 78 of Tcaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 amongst others.

Subject: RE: Your earliest childhood musical moment?
From: glueman
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:33 PM

My parents singing comic music hall songs they'd presumably learnt from their's. Choir polyphony at mass. The Beatles on Sunday Night at the London Palladium. Football chants heard at infant school.