Necessitamos cantas en Espanol, por favor!

August 20, 2010 7:41 AM

There's been some great questions on children's music before, but I'm looking for a twist... Kids music in Spanish.

I'm trying to teach my (14 month old) son Spanish, and would like some songs to be able to sing along with with him. He/we love the They Might Be Giant songs, and he seems to be more into things like that than some of the more standard/classical kids music stuff, but he's not really that picky. It would be great if the CDs came with lyrics though so I can make sure I'm singing it right too : ) Any thoughts/recommendations?

posted by katers890 to media & arts (12 answers total)

Dan Zanes has done some Spanish language CDs... I'm not sure whether they come with liner notes, but they're pretty great.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:43 AM on August 20, 2010

Tish Hinojosa put out an album called Cada Niño a few years back. I seem to remember it receiving a lot of good attention at the time.
posted by pickypicky at 7:48 AM on August 20, 2010

You can find lyrics for just about any song by googling for it. My Spanish class did this as an exercise: find a Spanish song on YouTube (preferably SLOW!) then find the lyrics, replace some of the words with fill-in-the-blank lines, print that out, listen to the songs and try to fill in the blanks.
posted by CathyG at 7:59 AM on August 20, 2010

Jose Luis Orozco or Moona Luna? Lila Downs seems pretty accessible for kids. Maybe some Nueva Canción and folk artists would work too.
posted by serazin at 8:27 AM on August 20, 2010

Smithsonian Folkways has these awesome recordings of kids' folk songs from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Ecuador, etc. They are recordings of local children in towns and villages in Latin America by ethnomusicologists trained by Moses Asch (Henrietta Yurchenco), among others.

Here's one: Children's songs and games from PR, Mexico, Ecuador

I have this one: Latin American CHildren's Game Songs and it comes with a complete lyric sheet with the lyrics as sung in Spanish, and translated in English. Ambient noises are left in - listen for the cool car horns, etc.

Bonus: I learned a lot of grammar from these songs, especially proper use of the subjunctive (see "Arroz con Leche")
posted by toodleydoodley at 8:29 AM on August 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

In México, most children grow up listening to Cri-Crí songs. They are quite old, though. What's interesting about Cri-Crí is that his songs have different genres: tango, jazz, mambo, fox-trot, etc.

This website has mp3 with lyrics.
posted by clearlydemon at 8:36 AM on August 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

I have a simple Fisher-Price CD that I found at a local bookstore that has many songs that my wife (from Peru) knew. Whether this music style is what you are looking for is another question which I will leave for you to discover.
posted by mcarthey at 9:21 AM on August 20, 2010

The CD is called ¡Cantemos en español! and is available from Amazon.
posted by mcarthey at 9:23 AM on August 20, 2010

I like the Moona Luna stuff. I"ll have to test it out on the kiddo when he gets back from daycare. The Smithsonian stuff is cool too in the vein of "listening to kids singing". The Cri-Cri songs are great for traditional sorts of songs, but I"m not sure how long I can listen to those before losing my mind (always an important criteria for kids music).

I'm enjoying listening to these those, keep them coming!
posted by katers890 at 9:45 AM on August 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sones De Mexico is a great Chicago band with a folk tradition that has been around for some time now. They recently released a children's double CD with songs in Spanish & English. I have seen them countless times and music / culture education is an entertaining component of their performances.

Fiesta Mexicana.
posted by 10thmuse at 10:51 AM on August 20, 2010

Maybe Latin Playground from Putumayo.
posted by various at 1:57 PM on August 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

María Elena Walsh is great. Her songs involve some pretty clever wordplay and are amusing for adults as well as kids.
posted by dr. boludo at 8:14 PM on August 22, 2010