Songs
Of all my adventures, writing music is the most surprising. I’ve always been known as a “lyrical writer.” But since my grandbabies were born, I began to study the power of musicality (making music with the sound and rhythm of words) in language development. Lucia and Marina taught me that those books with high musicality instantly had an edge over those books that did not.
Last fall, I teamed with a Grammy-award winning writing team from Nashville to create music for kids. The music is lively, heartfelt and really really good--equally appealing to kids and adults. Some of our songs are connected to books, a few are not. It turns out, stories and songs go together like peas and carrots!
Our songs act as a “musical illustration” to my picture books. They don’t re-tell the story, but illustrate a part of the story. Our first story/song combination is Dog Parade (the book) and Doghouse Jamboree (the song). Dog Parade tells the story of seven rascally pooches, their owners, and each dog’s reaction to the costume he wears in a dog parade. One of my goals as an author is to leave the reader with such a strong sense of the character, that the story lives long after the book is read. After writing Dog Parade, even I couldn’t stop thinking about those goofy pooches. Where were they going after the parade? What were they doing next? To find out, listen to the song, Doghouse Jamboree by The Happy Racers.
Our songs are available as downloadable singles and album through our web page, DoubleCake.net, as well as Amazon and iTunes.
DoubleCake.net offers autographed books, music, videos and contests for kids and adults, teachers, home-schoolers, movie moguls and songwriters. We have enrichment packages for schools--a low-cost, innovative alternative for schools newly challenged with deep budget cuts. I invite you to peek at my new adventure!