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The Newport Daily News - 10/5/94 - Page
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Poetry with a purpose
Couple wraps positive message
in merry music for kids
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By
R.E.Reimer
Daily News
staff
NEWPORT--Newport
parents Terry and Rick Grosvenor have gone treasure hunting and unearthed
a wealth of tadpoles, frogs, lobsters and pirates.
As a husband-and-wife songwriting and publishing team, the
Grosvenors have produced a tape of original children's songs called "Fun
Songs for Tadpoles to Frogs."
The 14 songs are intended as a cultural antidote to much of
the negative musical message bombarding kids today, they say.
"We believe there is great treasure to |
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be found in books and it is one of our
fondest hopes that our music will encourage children to read poetry," they
write on the jacket cover for the newly released tape.
One way to achieve that is to expose kids to good poetry, Terry
Grosvenor said. She's been writing songs, singing and recording them for
more than 20 years. But those songs were of the introspective variety that
only adults understand.
"As I got older and had children, they couldn't relate to the
songs," Terry said. "So I would read these poems to them."
Many were the same century-old poems she remembers her mother
reading to her when she was a child. That same lyrical poetry has inspired
her to write children's songs, she said. The results are now on the "Tadpoles"
tape, her second recording.
She has adapted well-known poems, such as "The Lobster Quadrille"
by Lewis Carroll, "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear and "Wynken,
Blynken and Nod" by Eugene Field, and set them to music.
She's also written songs from more
obscure poetry like James Whitcomb |
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playful frog enthroned on a lily pad.
"Today's music lacks the humor and the hope that older poetry
has," Rick said. Some rap music can be particularly brutal and offensive,
he said. The Grosvenors say they want their music to be a force
of hope for children as well as the adults who hear it. "I really want my
music to uplift people," Terry said.
"Not to be Pollyanna about it," Rick said, "but we want to
stand for positive things. So much of the music today stands for the wrong
things."
If sales of "Tadpoles" tapes is any indication, that message
is spreading. The tapes are selling well in Newport and throughout other
New England states, Rick said. They hope to market it nationally and possibly
internationally, he said.
The tapes sell for about $10 and are available locally at Papers,
Harvest Natural Foods, the Preservation Society of Newport County Shop on
Bannister's Wharf, the Newport Art Museum, Island Books and several other
spots. |
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Riley's "Little Orphant Annie" or "Little
John Bottlejohn" and "Dilliki Dolliki Dinah," both by Laura E. Richards.
"Musically, it's more sophisticated than Barney-style music
or the solo guitar folk-style tunes which I've done plenty of," Terry said.
She's incorporated many of the musical elements she's absorbed over the years
living in places like Brazil, Japan and England.
Two of the tape's songs are completely original. She wrote
and sings "Bus Driver" with her 12-year-old daughter Amanda. Bus drivers
are "sort of ignored but they play a very important role," Terry said.
The song "Jungle Fever" was written in collaboration with husband
Rick. He helps out with just about every aspect of their team work - except
the singing. "I just don't have a great voice," he said.
But he does the engineering and recording. And for the
"Tadpoles" tape, he created the cover art of a |
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