free music for kids?

May 17, 2007 10:31 PM

I'm looking for free, legal kid's music for my three year old little girl. Ideally mp3s of stuff that is past copyright, like old folk music, kids classics, or anything else that might appeal to a three-year-old who likes to dance.

I'm familiar with many of the commercial offerings but money's a little tight right now and I'd rather not violate any copyrights. Ideally stuff we could sing along with!

posted by mecran01 to education (13 comments total)

Check out the internet archive, particularly the 78 RPM collection.
posted by phrontist at 10:59 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Kiddie Records Weekly should keep her going till she's too old for kiddie records.
posted by omnidrew at 11:06 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

folktunes.org has some tunes that might fit your requirements as well, but omnidrew's recommendation is very impressive. I'm loving By Rocket To the Moon.
posted by demiurge at 11:14 PM on May 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Free? Bah. Give They Might Be Giants your cash. No and Here Come The ABCs are both the best of the genre. The latter even comes on DVD.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:40 AM on May 18, 2007

On the subject of TMBG, Singing Science, while not formally out of copyright, seems to be abadnonware.
posted by caek at 2:51 AM on May 18, 2007 [2 favorites]

Free? Bah. Give They Might Be Giants your cash. No and Here Come The ABCs are both the best of the genre. The latter even comes on DVD.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:40 AM on May 18 [+] [!]


I've got "NO" already.
posted by craniac at 5:59 AM on May 18, 2007

Go to Amazon, hit the free music downloads section and check out the kid's music category. You'll have to wade through a lot of crap, but I've gotten a couple of dozen good songs this way in the past. Often you'll find free tracks from published albums of recognized artists.
posted by mikepop at 6:13 AM on May 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

You can get free downloads through the TMBG web site.
posted by jrossi4r at 7:40 AM on May 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

The Virtual Gramophone has some oldies in English and French. Sound quality isn't great, songs have to be downloaded individually, and some entries consist only of a picture of the record, but there are some treasures there.
posted by Chuckles McLaughy du Haha, the depressed clown at 8:24 AM on May 18, 2007

There is always your local public library.

Most of them have been lending music CD's for years - yes, I know you stipulated MP3 - but you must have a CD player somewhere?

And - to keep it legal, you don't HAVE to rip them to MP3 ;-)
posted by jkaczor at 1:19 PM on May 18, 2007

Will Stroet - a musician from Vancouver - has some of his songs available for download on his website:

http://www.willmusic.ca/?p=tunes

The song "Let's All Dance" seems like it would be appropriate.
posted by kechi at 2:36 PM on May 18, 2007

On closer inspection, only a clip of each song is available, not the whole thing.
posted by kechi at 2:43 PM on May 18, 2007

Those singing science tunes are great. Thanks all for the suggestions!
posted by mecran01 at 11:43 AM on May 19, 2007