It's Wednesday afternoon: do you know what your kids are listening to? Mike Haley of Tabs Out has started a Tumblr page dedicated to archiving instances where experimental music has appeared on children's television shows. The blog, aptly titled Experimental Music on Children's TV, features a variety of examples of these two worlds colliding, including guest spots by composer Bruce Haack onMister Rogers' Neighborhood, Herbie Hancock on Sesame Street, and The Residents on Pee Wee's Playhouse. Though the combination of experimental music and children's TV might initially seem a bit humorous and perplexing, there's actually something rather compelling about most of these clips-- young, open-minded listeners are being exposed to forward-thinking music and enthusiastically engaging with it in a way that many adults would never.
You can head over the the Tumblr page to check out all of the clips that Haley has compiled so far. Below are two of my favorite examples, both hailing fromSesame Street: avant-garde composer Joan La Barbara's “Singing Alphabet,” and famed minimalist composer Philip Glass' stunning “Geometry of Circles.”
