Music
for Kids: KidsTunesOnline is a smashing local project for youth
Interview with KIDZink Magazine 12/17/07
Music
for Kids:
KidsTunesOnline is a smashing local project for youth
By: Emily Rea
Anyone
with children knows the appeal of music, animals and hands-on crafts to keep
their little ones happy and preoccupied, while enhancing their creative
abilities at the same time. Thankfully for parents in Wilmington, or anywhere
for that matter, Chuck Agresta—composer, producer, studio musician and recording
engineer—met and teamed up with Sarah McAlear—ballet teacher at the Wilmington
School of Ballet—to create KidsTunesOnline. The brand-new project for children
features a 14-track CD called Animals and its corresponding coloring and lyric
book. To emulate the sounds each animal makes for this fun, entertaining and
educational album, Agresta and McAlear used modern orchestra instruments, as
well as native instruments to the geographical location of each animal. Complete
with delightful illustrations by local artist Fleetwood Covington, Animals is a
real treat for families to enjoy together.
KidsTunesOnline is the only project for children produced by Agresta and
McAlear’s company, Wyckham Hall Music and Publishing; yet, it proves to be an
astounding first attempt at reaching a youthful audience. Eighteen months in the
making, their efforts have paid off and their talents made known. I caught up
with the busy duo to get some answers to my many questions about this
fascinating collaboration.
How did the two of you meet?
[Sarah] We met when we both played in a country music band about 7 years ago!
[Chuck] My studio was heavily involved in Forensic and Post Audio and wanted to be around music again so I joined a band where I met Sarah.
What sparked the beginning of your working together and creating KidsTunesOnline & Wyckham Hall Music & Publishing?
[Sarah] After we both left the band we had another little group of 4 of us and we planned of playing out and writing music together, when one of them moved away, we decided that instead of playing cover music, we would write our own. As a duo, we have written over 150 songs together. Chuck has written music for a long time. He’s done a lot of music and orchestral pieces for libraries and he’s scored for several movies recently.
Is KidsTunesOnline the first collaboration by Wyckham Hall Music & Publishing for children?
[Sarah] Yes, it is the first for children. We are also animating our animals to the music for a DVD and Chuck is preparing sheet music for piano and guitar.
What was the catalyst behind creating a project specifically for children?
[Chuck] I’ve had the idea for about 15 years. The way the music industry has changed, it made sense to release something that has such a widespread appeal rather than a niche product.
[Sarah] I work with children all day and listen to children’s music most of the day. After listening to so many children’s CD’s we decided that we wanted to write and educational, fun and energetic CD that would not only appeal to the kids, but parents and caregivers would enjoy listening to the tracks as well.
Whose idea was the focus on animals for this CD, and how was it inspired?
[Sarah] Once we wrote the first song (kangaroo) and realized how much children could learn from the music, we then decided to write a whole CD of animal songs. We tried to pick out animals from all over the world and our goal was to use as many authentic instruments indigenous to the animals’ habitat, or emulate the movement of the particular animal with certain instruments.
What do you feel is the importance of having a book to go along with the CD?
[Chuck] It’s extremely important from a sales and marketing standpoint.
[Sarah] Not only can you read the lyrics in the book, but young children may not know what a certain animal (like porcupine) looks like. To hear the music and hear the words to the song they can then see what the animal looks like. They will also have a lot of fun coloring Fleetwood’s amazing pictures.
You mention the project was 18 months in the making. What percentage of that time was devoted to research and what percentage to composing, production, etc.?
[Chuck] We spent a good amount of time researching the project to see if it was viable and if we could deliver the kind of product we wanted. Writing the music and lyrics was the easy part. The business end of things and setting up the publishing company took the most time. Looking back, I wish we could have spent more time on the music and production.
What animal was your most favorite to emulate? (Which did you have the most fun with?)
[Chuck] They were all fun to emulate. The difficulty was walking the fine line between keeping it simple and memorable for kids from taking it to where I’d normally want to take the arrangements and production.
[Sarah] My favorite track is “Snake”. There are so many interesting facts in the lyrics and the music is really expressive. I also like “Butterfly”, the girls will really like that song.
Which track was the hardest to make, and why?
[Chuck] They all had some degree of difficulty. This project took more effort to finish than any other project I’ve ever done. The arrangement process was difficult trying to make every track different yet authentic sounding while still working together as a whole. The orchestra tracks were produced differently than normal and I tried to make the ensembles larger and bigger sounding than they would normally appear so that took quite a bit of manipulation. The live recordings were also very tedious trying to perform and engineer such a wide variety of sounds and instruments by myself. Some of the instruments on this CD I rarely play so there were lots of headaches along the way. Crickets and dog barks also found their way into almost every recording I made so I’d have to start over often. I can laugh about it now.
How did you acquire Fleetwood at your illustrator, and what attracted you to his style?
[Chuck] It was a long and hard search and we’re extremely fortunate that Fleetwood wanted to partner with us. He is an incredible artist.
What do you think will attract kids to "Animals" the most?
[Sarah] I think that when they hear the music and listen to the lyrics, they will really see a picture in their minds that will take them on a musical adventure that they will want to experience again and again. Take for instance Bee. In that particular song, all of the children I have seen pretend to be chased around the room by a bee. Even the youngest children ask for the ’Bee Bee song’.
[Chuck] Kids will have a great time with these songs. My main goal was to make a great album for kids that parents would not get tired of listening to. I have about 50 popular kids CD’s here and wanted to do something completely different.
Do you plan to do more projects for children in the future? Explain.
[Sarah] Hopefully in the future there will be a demand for more children’s songs from us. It took over 19 months to write and record, but in the end, we were really pleased with the results and we are confident that children of all ages will enjoy the music
[Chuck] If it sells well, there will definitely be more. There’s so much more to it than a just a music CD and a companion book. The “Animals DVD” and sheet music are scheduled for production. In addition to the writing, recording and mixing, there was much additional work. We wrote a detailed business plan and spent a long time preparing sales and marketing plans and promotional materials. There was lots of graphic design and lots of work setting up a server, shopping cart, a forum, a blog and more for the website. There were many legal issues and contracts to write. The good news is all the foundation has been built to enable Sarah and I to create, finish and market additional products quickly.
What, in your opinion, make the KIDsTunesOnline project so unique?
The amount of instruments that were used are just one of the things that make the project so unique, and the variety of styles there are on the CD is another. We have a mix of Country, Jazz/Big Band, Orchestra, African, Middle Eastern, Calypso and Gypsy styles, just to name a few. The lyrics are also fun while being factual and educational.
What do hope families get out of "Animals" the most?
[Sarah] We hope that families can listen to the CD together and both the children and their caregivers learn things they didn’t know about all the animals.
[Chuck] Hopefully, this CD will give families some quality time together and lots of great memories.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
[Sarah] No
[Chuck] Yes. I underestimated the time and amount of work that was needed to get this off the ground but many aspects of this project were a learning experience.
What are you most proud of with "Animals"?
[Sarah] We have a collection of songs that are all thoroughly enjoyable and “Animals” contains music that children may not hear in everyday life. I think that we have accomplished a CD that is certainly different than most of children’s CD’s on the market today.
[Chuck] That it’s very unique. There are some aspects that fell short of what I wanted, but we did all the research and the work ourselves and that was a huge accomplishment. There are also a few songs like “Snake” that I’m extremely proud of.
What is a favorite memory from working on it?
[Chuck] All the amazing comments and compliments that I have received from people around the country.
What can we look forward to from Wyckham Hall Music & Publishing in the future?
We already have several projects written so it will be a matter of which one to release next.
“Animals” is currently available from the website and locally at the Wilmington School of Ballet and Blowing In The Wind in the Cotton Exchange.
Keep checking our site for a location near you. We should be live on I-Tunes USA, Japan, Canada, UK &EU and Australia & New Zealand by February 1st.
Want a free copy of the Animals CD? Win one today! Be the first to contact Emily Rea at emily@encorepub.com, by January 28th, and you could bring home a copy for your family! Visit KidsTunesOnline in the meantime at KidsTunesOnline.com.