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Hap Palmer
Past, Present & future
by Pat Simms-Ellias
HAP PALMER, legendary singer/songwriter of some of the most adored songs for kids, is
being brought to Long Island by Kids concerts and Overland entertainment, on Sunday May 17,
for two shows, (1:00 and 3:30), at the Malibu in Lido Beach. In a phone interview from his
home in California, Hap related how the transition from teacher to the famous voice behind the
popular Babysongs videos came about.
Born Harlan G. Palmer III, and nicknamed Hap by his parents, he first became involved with
music and children teaching special education. "When I first started doing music activities with
the children, I would play the guitar and try to get them to sing folk songs of the day. they
wanted to jump up, move and run around, and I kept trying to get them to sit down and pay
attention. So, I wondered if I could somehow create songs that allow the children to get up and
move - that's how I started writing. I put them on tape so I wasn't chained to the guitar and
could get up and move with the children."
"The principal of the school was at t convention and told a representative of Educational
Activities (of Baldwin) that she had a guy at her school who had stuff that was as good as what
he had, so I got started making my first records." Initially Hap's music was used in the
classroom by teachers to help children learn concepts in an enjoyable manner.
Hap feels the making of the Baby Songs audio tape into the video was the catalyst that brought
his music into people's homes. The Baby Songs videos began when two mothers, who had
been formerly employed in TV production work met in a pregnancy workout class. They loved
Hap's audiotape and approached him about making the videos. After being turned down by
many companies, Hi-Tops finally said yes. Now looking back on the success of the videos, I'm
sure they're glad they did.
"I certainly was not trying to get into the home market or become a children's performer. I was
very interested in the aspects of movement." Hap has a Masters degree in Dance Education.
"We have a new video coming out called Follow Along Songs that incorporates the activity type of song into a children's video so someone can watch TV and be able to move along with
some of the activities. A lot of the parents were finding, even with the Babysongs
videos, children were were getting up and moving around, so it's kind of combining the ideas I've been
expressing for 25 years."
Hap still works in the schools with children and presents workshops for teachers showing
them how they can use music and movement with kids in the classroom. "I kept being asked to
do concerts and I kept saying I don't do concerts, I work with children in movement kind of
situations. I was apprehensive about doing concerts for kids at first because they would be in a
fixed seat and not really able to move around. I thought I'd have to entertain them somehow and
I don't really think of myself as an entertainer, but I've found I can involve the children actively
since there are things they can do standing p in front of their seats, so I've been pleased to find I
can incorporate a lot of what I have done into a concert situation."
Hap describes what we can expect at his concert at the Malibu in May--"about a third of the
concert will just be me and the guitar. then I also do things where I will play tapes in the
background and be able to get up and move with the children and show them different kinds of
movement activities they can do. It's sort of a low-key kind of thing that gets the kids involved
and actively moving. I always encourage parents to get up and move and families to do things
together." At the Malibu there will be carpet mats for the audience on the dance floor directly
in front of the stage in addition to the 300 seats right behind them. this arrangement could work
out well with Hap's desire to get everyone up and moving.
When asked about the proliferation of children's music lately, Hap relates, "it's a very
interesting phenomena. When I started out it was primarily Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins, Burl Ives
and myself. In some ways I think the proliferation of children's artists could be a positive thing
because with budgets shrinking in schools and music programs being the first to be cut, I think
children, in general, don't sing as well these days. You don't hear a lot of music on the radio
they can sing along with and there are not a lot of opportunities in school, so my hope is that a
lot of these children's music people will be getting around doing more live things and working
with children more and spreading arts in schools."
Hap has written and recorded over 300 songs for children and his recordings and videos have
received various honors including the Parents' Choice Awards, the American Library
Association's and the American Video Awards. Many of his recordings come with activity
guides to be used to augment the educational aspect of the music.
Hap produces and owns his recordings and does a lot of work out of his home. We discussed
the joys and frustrations of being self-employed, juggling playing with the kids and then running
into the other room to do some work. "I think there's value in children having some idea of
what kind of work their parents do. The kids see me at the computer and recording and they
have some idea of what work is like."
Hap reports on his future projects, "I'm coming out with two book/tape combinations for the
songs "My Mommy Comes Back," (For those parents not familiar with this song, it has helped
many children deal with separating in a positive manner), and "Today I Took My Diapers Off"
(which is about potty learning).
Hap's concerts are recommended for the 1 to 8 year old age group, and kids are encouraged to
bring their Teddy bears, and of course their parents. After Hap's 45 minute concert,
"Fritzle & Friends" will perform for about 20 minutes. the last time Hap Palmer was in town both shows
sold out, so if you want to assure your tickets, go to the local retail outlet listed in the add in
Long Island Parenting News or call Kids Concerts at 785-7748.
from LONG ISLAND PARENTING NEWS . April 1992 Page 12
Biography by Mary Miche
When Hap Palmer started teaching, he would often play the guitar and sing folk songs with the
children. It was a struggle to get the students to stay in their chairs and sing because they kept
wanting to get up and move. So after a few exhausting sessions, he said to himself, why not
work with this energy rather than against it? This motivated him to write songs which tapped
the natural desire of young children to move and be actively involved. Hap also found that
active participation was an effective way to reinforce the school curriculum, so he wrote many
songs which involved children in activities such as moving and naming body parts, identifying
directions as well as learning colors, numbers, and letters of the alphabet. After twenty years
of writing songs for use in classrooms and day care centers, he expanded into creating music
for audio and video cassettes that children and parents could enjoy in the home setting.
When he was nine years old, he told his mother that he wanted to play the drums. She said the
drums were too noisy and bought him a clarinet. This was in the 50's, when rock and roll was
becoming popular, so after a few years, he also took up the saxophone, which has a similar
mouthpiece to clarinet. In junior high and high school, he played in the orchestra, the marching
band, and the dance band. The summer before he went to college, his older sister Penny went to
summer school in Mexico. She came back with a guitar. Hap got really excited about this
instrument because he could sing a melody and provide harmonic and rhythmic accompaniment
at the same time. During the 60's, he started singing folk songs and leading sing-alongs as part
of his job with the Hollywood YMCA. He was also a member of the Chapman College pep
band, where he played sax and clarinet. Because of all these different musical experiences,
Hap was dabbling in a lot of different musical styles from folk music to Dixieland and jazz.
After he graduated from college and went into teaching special education, he was also
working part time as a musician. Since there were a million guitar players, and not much call
for clarinet and saxophone, he took up the electric bass. For several years he played with a
group that performed in night clubs and restaurants on the weekends. When he was in his
forties, he took up the flute just for his own personal pleasure but the guitar remains the
instrument he plays most, because it is so easy to bring into the classroom and accompany
himself as he writes and sings songs.
While teaching, he discovered he got more satisfaction writing for children, than being
limited to writing salable commercial songs for adults, mostly limited to songs about
relationships. With children's music, the possibilities are endless. He's written songs about
everything from a hippopotamus to a roller coaster and is still fascinated with the breadth of
topics about which he can sing.
EARLY CHILDHOOD MUSIC
A Parent-Teacher Resource
Hap Palmer: Composer
Hap Palmer has written and recorded over 200 songs for children. He is an instructor for
the University of California-Los Angeles Education Extension and conducts workshops
throughout the nation, as well as teaching classes in creative movement for children and tap
dance for all ages.
ECM: What is the role of music in the education of young children?
Palmer: The goal at the beginning is to have fun, but all this fun has a serious aim. Besides the
children's obvious delight, they learn to enjoy music and how their bodies move with music,
and that not all movement is competitive. It's one of my goals to establish a "movement vocabulary," a way to connect a world of
imagery to a vocabulary. This lexicon includes actions (walk, run, twist bend, shake), spatial
knowledge (up, down, far, near) discerning movement qualities (fast, slow, light, heavy, tense,
loose) and learning body parts. This improves children's understanding of language and its
relationship to music, enhances their creativity and expands their movement possibilities. Coordination and motor skills are strengthened; by the age of eight or nine, children will then
have enough general "movement knowledge" to make a more specific activity choice--ballet or
baseball, hockey or gymnastics.
ECM: How can music be used as an effective teaching tool in the classroom?
Palmer: I write songs that involve not only singing but moving, learning and the use of
imagination, as well. My records contain a wide assortment of activities and are varied in
approach, from specific tasks to problem solving and creative movement. The common element in these approaches is that all the activities are noncompetitive and
non-comparative. the idea is to remove the child's preoccupation with ratings and rankings and
encourage expression as an individual within the group. Al children can be involved and can
experience success--which results in a better self-image.
ECM: What influenced you to study a musical instrument?
Palmer: When I was eight or nine years old, I told my mother I wanted to play the drums, but
she said they were too noisy and bought me a clarinet. In the '50's, when rock and roll was
becoming popular, I also took up the tenor saxophone. I played in orchestra, marching band, dance band and small combos through junior high school
and the first two years of high school. Then I went through an adolescent male identity crisis
and decided that tooting a clarinet was not something "real men" do. I quit music, went out for
track, lifted weights and ate enormous amounts of bread trying to gain weight. The summer before I went to college, my older sister went to summer school in Mexico. She
came back with a guitar--and I got really excited about this instrument. I could sing a melody
and provide rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment at the same time, something I couldn't do
with the woodwind instruments. This was during the '60's. I started singing folk songs and leading sing-alongs as part of my
job with the Hollywood YMCA. In college I joined the pep band and started playing the sax
and clarinet again, so I was dabbling in a lot of different musical styles, from fold music to
Dixieland and jazz. After I graduated from college and went into teaching, I had aspirations of becoming a
professional musician. Since there were a million guitar players (and not much call for
clarinet and saxophone), I took up the electric bass. For several years I played with a group that
performed in night clubs and restaurants on the weekends. My latest challenge has been learning to play the flute. I've always loved its sound.
ECM: How do you write your songs, and do you write the words of the music first?
Palmer: I've written songs in every way they can possibly be written. Sometimes I start with
a lyric, sometimes with a melody. Sometimes they both come at the same time. I'll often
start with a movement activity or a specific educational goal and work from there.
ECM: What musicians and singers have influenced you most?
Palmer: When my dad was in college he used to provide music for parties, so he had a great
collection of swing. When I was a child I used to love taking these records to my room and
listening to them. People like Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Glenn Miller were my earliest
influences. When I took u the guitar, I was influenced by singers of the folk era, people like Harry
Belafonte, Odetta and Joan Baez. Later I got more into jazz and pop, listening to performers
like Nancy Wilson, Herbie Mann, Nina Simone and Linda Ronstadt. Then I went through a
country-music phase with singers like Merle Haggard and Ricky Skaggs. Recently I received a master's degree in dance and was introduced to new or
avant-garde music, which uses a variety of scale modes and time signatures and sometimes an atonal or
arithmetic quality. Basically, I like music of all kinds and have tried to incorporate different
styles in my education records, depending on the goals of each song.
ECM: How --and why--did you begin making albums for young children?
Palmer: My first teaching job was at a school for the trainable mentally retarded in East Los
Angeles. I would often play the guitar and sing folk songs and traditional children's songs with
the students. My second year, the principal asked me to become the school's music
teacher, and I had a different class coming through every 20 or 30 minutes. It was a constant struggle to
get the children to stay in their chairs and sing, because they kept wanting to get up and move. During this period I started writing songs that tapped this natural desire of young children to
move and be actively involved. At the time I had no ambition of using this material beyond my
own classroom, but the principal recommended submitting the tapes to an educational record
company. I remember when the area representative from the Educational Activities Record
company came to visit my class to see a demonstration of my material. I said, "Class, we're
going to do that song about colors now." One of the students groaned, "Oh, no, not that one
again!" Somehow I survived this initial meeting and have been making records for the company
ever since. I started creating music for a broader spectrum of children after my first record received
interest not only from special-education teachers but also from preschool teachers, teachers at
early elementary levels, and teachers of music and physical education.
Early Childhood Music Vol. 4, No. 2 Holiday Issue
November/ December,
1987
How to Develop Your Child's Gifts and Talents
During the Elementary Years
by RaeLynne P. Rein, Ph.D. and Rachel Rein
A Conversation About Creativity With Hap Palmer
Hap Palmer is an innovator in the use of music and movement to teach basic skills and
encourage the use of imagination and creativity. Hap is a musician, singer and educator whose
goals are to write and record songs that reflect children's experiences and make learning
enjoyable. For more than twenty years, Hap's recordings have been widely used in schools and day care
centers. His recordings and videos have received numerous honors, including the Parents'
Choice Award, and American Library Association Notable Recording designation, and the
American Video Award. He also conducts workshops and presents concerts throughout the
nation and has taught courses for various education extension programs. His educational
background includes a master's in dance education from UCLA.
Q: How and why did you start writing and performing music for children?
A: As a classroom teacher, I wanted to create music that children could participate in
actively--music they could sing and move with. I also found that active participation was an
effective way to reinforce the school curriculum, so I wrote many songs which involve children
in activities such as moving and naming body parts, identifying directions, as well as learning
colors, numbers, and letters of the alphabet. After twenty years of writing songs for use in classrooms and day care centers, I expanded
into creating music for audio and video cassettes that children and parents could enjoy in the
home setting.
Q: Why is music important in children's lives?
A: Music is an important part of the human experience and children should be exposed to music
at a young age, along with other creative activities such as art and dance. we need to introduce
children to a variety of artistic forms, then allow them to choose to pursue what catches their
fancy. The arts are not isolated subjects. they relate to other areas of a child's growth and
development. Music can involve the whole child--mentally, physically, and emotionally. It
can also aid in the development of motor skills, language, and creativity.
Q: What does creativity mean to you?
A: Flexibility, curiosity, open-mindedness. The ability to see different options and solutions to
problems, and to see a variety of ways tasks can be accomplished. It's a way of thinking that
includes not only the arts and literature but also science, mathematics, and everyday life
situations.
Q: Did you exhibit qualities of creativity as a child?
A: I was fond of asking questions that began with "What if...?" Things like, "What if we
attached wings to the care and drove real fast, would we fly?" or "What if I wrapped myself up
in mattresses and jumped from the top of the house?" I would string these ideas together ad
nauseam until one of both of my parents would say, "What if you stopped talking and finished
your dinner?" I started lessons on the clarinet and saxophone when I was nine years old. by seventh and
eighth grade I was playing in bands and small combos. I really enjoyed improvising,
responding to chord progressions, and creating melodies. I was playing by ear and only later in
college began to learn the theory of harmony. I realized there is a balance between knowledge
and intuition; they are equally important in the creative act.
Q: What did your parents do to encourage your creative abilities?
A: I remember my parents encouraging creativity by not meddling or fussing over me much. I
had great amounts of unstructured time and a garage full of things that I could fiddle with, things
like tools, wood, wire, pars of old pinball machines, electrical gadgets (old motors, record
players, amplifiers, speakers), and screws, bolts and nails of every size. My father had all
these things organized sorted and labeled in boxes. Much to his understandable annoyance, I
never learned to put things away. We also had boxes of old clothes and a large collection of
records--jazz, swing, classical, and musicals--I was free to play. there were times when my parents would discourage creativity. I liked to invent and make my
own gifts, things like a flower inside an empty toilet paper spool attached to a wood base. My
mother finally told me one day that these were not real gifts. they were just junk.
Another time my sister and I were making up a play with some neighborhood friends. We
were laughing and jabbering away, wearing old clothes we'd found in the garage, when my
mother suddenly came in and got very upset. Her reason? We were ruining the things she's
saved to give away to Goodwill. Looking back on these memories, the main thing I would tell parents is to relax. If a child has
a drive to create, nothing you can do will stop it. so why not encourage creativity?
Q: What did your teachers do?
A: Creativity and imagination were not encouraged in my early school years. I struggled to
focus my mind and learn basic skills, which I realize as an adult are also necessary for creative
pursuits. My kindergarten teacher sent a not home to my parents saying that I was one of her
problems. She wrote, "Hap is interested in everything, and can apply himself to nothing."
When I was in third or fourth grade, we had a school talent show. I had nothing prepared, but
I had a sudden spontaneous urge to get up on stage. Claiming I had a comedy act, I got up and
started improvising. I ran over to a speaker and said, "This needs fixing." I got inside the
enclosure and pantomimed wiggling wires. Then I pretended to get an electric shock. I leapt
back and rolled all over the stage. As all the children laughed, the teacher came up and pulled
me off the stage, saying something like, "You don't know what you're doing." This, of course,
was true, but it could have been an opportunity to show how one moves from the brainstorming
phase of creativity to act on an idea.
Q: Was there anyone else who was a major influence on your creativity? How so?
A: I met the people who had the biggest influence through books. In junior high school I
enjoyed reading biographies, and many of them were about creative people. I was especially
fascinated with Will Rogers and Thomas Edison. I took hope from the fact that Edison, like
myself, was a poor student. Books gave me insight into how creative people worked.
Q: Are there any special activities you would recommend to parents to foster creative
though and action in their children?
A: Provide opportunities for exploring and experimenting. Have lots of materials available for
children to choose from. some examples:
Arts and crafts: paper, felt tip pens, clay
Drama: kitchen utensils, old pans, plastic dishes, old clothes in a costume box for playing
make-believe
Music: rhythm sticks, tambourine, drum, woodblock, triangle, bells, cassette player with
recordings of a variety of musical styles
Dance: provide young children with opportunities for movement exploration, rather than
emphasizing competitive sports and formalized dance training. As children mature, let them choose the disciplines that catch their interest. Take children to
classes and lessons when they are interested and when they ask for them.
Q: any other helpful hints for parents?
A: Recognize that creativity often occurs in stages. first is preparation, when children become
familiar with materials by exploring and discovering. this is followed by the generation of
ideas, or brainstorming. for a free flow of ideas, don't pass judgments during these processes.
Let evaluations come primarily from the child. Creativity is a peculiar paradox of both freedom and disciplining. There are techniques and
principles inherent in any pursuit, which enhance and guide the creative impulse, and creative
bursts often follow periods of patient, persistent effort. Ideally, the discipline should come from within the child. As children mature, let them delve
into what excites and interests them. Children are more likely to excel in those pursuits that are
chosen by them rather than those imposed by adults.
Q: Are there any particular resources you would suggest to parents?
A: There are many excellent books on creativity that will help you evaluate programs and
classes you are considering for you child. three I particularly recommend are:
Creativity is Forever by Gary A. Davis (1983, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.);
Imagination by Harold Rugg (1963), Harper & Row); and
Teaching ; From Command to Discovery by Muska Mosston
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