Customer Reviews

Dance on a Moonbeam: A Collection of Songs and Poems

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My four month-old daughter got this CD as a Christmas present and my seven year-old son, my husband, and I all love it. The songs are so clever and not at all cloying like most children's music I've heard. I'll definitely by this for gifts myself.

What a treasure this CD is for the whole family. Great musicians, wonderful songs, beautiful artwork, and the lyrics are included too. Perfect gift for the holidays!

This CD is so good I can't wait to buy four more copies for my granchildren and tell every parent about this rare gem of a disc. If diamonds and gold never lose their value then invest in this CD. It will charm tots, tykes and parents. Such quality of artists, programming and performance is rare in any musical genre these days. This is one musical treasure that will last a lifetime and make the world a better place for hearing it.

I ordered this CD based on the glowing customer reviews that were posted a few months ago, and I am sorry to say it did not live up to its reputation. While the best music gets better and better with every new hearing (no small consideration when you have repetition-loving kids), I have found this overlong, overproduced album has instead become more and more irritating. The whole enterprise strikes me as highbrow pretension, from the Shakespearean interludes (nicely played by Ms. Streep but often hard to hear, and with a tenuous thematic connection to the songs) to the pompous spectacle of opera divas singing traditional children's songs. In our house, the classic recordings of Seeger, Guthrie, Leadbelly et. al. are still the favorites; the straightforward, simple, solid recordings of any one of these greats puts the artsy, precious "Dance on a Moonbeam" to shame.

This CD makes me smile everytime I listen to it. A great find :)

This is the CD we play all the time in our house, which is home to a nine-year-old girl and five- and three-year-old boys. The blend of music and poetry is just amazing, and keeps all of us (including Mommy) interested over and over again. Of course, we all love different things about it, but we agree on our favorite song: Mr. Bear! Buy this if you want a gentle, intellectual AND fun CD for your library. You will never regret it.

If you really love folk music, you'll love Bill Crofut; but not this album! I grew up listening to Bill Crofut (my parents' old record is all scratched up from me dancing around in front of the record player to the Chipmunk's Day). I love his voice, I love his poetry, I love the way he plays the banjo. I was so excited to see this album now that I have a child myself. But from the moment I turned it on, I loathed it. It's too operatic (I like Opera, but not when I want to listen to folk music), and it makes the very real and down-to-earth songs sound high-faluten and just plin bad. If your're looking for some great music for your kids (even very young ones), get some Bill Crofut music...but get it with Bill singing, not these non-folk singers.

I love what these performers have done mixing Shakespeare with folk,
classical etc. It is an especially big hit with my four year old. Kids
are much more receptive to this stuff than people give them credit
for...it's good to expose them early, when they are so open and
unhibited about the joys of music and language. Nevertheless I think
there are some valid criticisms from the other reviewers. Some songs are
more successful than others. It is hard to hear the spoken poetry (we
turn it up LOUD and then it is clear as a bell), maybe it wasn't "mixed"
properly. WE actually found that it appealed to us more and more with
repeated listenings, unlike the last reviewer (to each, his or her own).
My four year old especially loves the chipmunk song. My two year old
also loves the "Dance to your daddy" old celtic style nursery songs. The
ALleluia lullabye/carol is gorgeous (you can hear another version on the
beautiful Celtic Lullaby album). I love the selections of Shakespeare,
which stand well on their own out of context of the play and give
children an early chance to hear such lovely phrases as "we are such
stuff as dreams are made on." So I give it a four for doing all of this,
if not 100% successful, it still is pretty darn good and I hope it is
the first of many such efforts.

I love what these performers have done mixing Shakespeare with folk, classical etc. It is an especially big hit with my four year old. Kids are much more receptive to this stuff than people give them credit for...it's good to expose them early, when they are so open and unhibited about the joys of music and language. Nevertheless I think there are some valid criticisms from the other reviewers. Some songs are more successful than others. It is hard to hear the spoken poetry (we turn it up LOUD and then it is clear as a bell), maybe it wasn't "mixed" properly. WE actually found that it appealed to us more and more with repeated listenings, unlike the last reviewer (to each, his or her own). My four year old especially loves the chipmunk song. My two year old also loves the "Dance to your daddy" old celtic style nursery songs. The ALleluia lullabye/carol is gorgeous (you can hear another version on the beautiful Celtic Lullaby album). I love the selections of Shakespeare, which stand well on their own out of context of the play and give children an early chance to hear such lovely phrases as "we are such stuff as dreams are made on." So I give it a four for doing all of this, if not 100% successful, it still is pretty darn good and I hope it is the first of many such efforts.

I love what these performers have done mixing Shakespeare with folk, classical etc. It is an especially big hit with my four year old. Kids are much more receptive to this stuff than people give them credit for...it's good to expose them early, when they are so open and unhibited about the joys of music and language. Nevertheless I think there are some valid criticisms from the other reviewers. Some songs are more successful than others. It is hard to hear the spoken poetry (we turn it up LOUD and then it is clear as a bell), maybe it wasn't "mixed" properly. WE actually found that it appealed to us more and more with repeated listenings, unlike the last reviewer (to each, his or her own). My four year old especially loves the chipmunk song. My two year old also loves the "Dance to your daddy" old celtic style nursery songs. The ALleluia lullabye/carol is gorgeous (you can hear another version on the beautiful Celtic Lullaby album). I love the selections of Shakespeare, which stand well on their own out of context of the play and give children an early chance to hear such lovely phrases as "we are such stuff as dreams are made on." So I give it a four for doing all of this, if not 100% successful, it still is pretty darn good and I hope it is the first of many such efforts.