Music has been a part of the children's television show Sesame Street since its debut on PBS in 1969. For the first time, music was used as a teaching tool on a TV program for children; the songs written and performed on the show fulfilled specific purposes and supported its curriculum. The music on Sesame Street consisted of many styles and genres, but was consistent and recognizable so that it could be reproduced. The producers recorded and released dozens of albums of music; many songs became "timeless classics". In order to attract the best composers and lyricists, CTW allowed songwriters to retain the rights to the songs they wrote, which allowed them to earn lucrative profits. Sesame Street Book & Record, recorded in 1970, went gold and won a Grammy. As of November 2019, Sesame Workshop has partnered with Warner Music Group's Arts Music division to reform Sesame Street Records to make the music of Sesame Street fully available. Sesame Street's songwriters included the show's first music director Joe Raposo, Jeff Moss, and Christopher Cerf, and scriptwriters like Tony Geiss and Norman Stiles. Raposo and his musical team created a huge amount of music for the show, including dozens of unique songs per show. Raposo was inspired by the goals of Sesame Street, especially in the early days of the show's production, and composed hundreds of curriculum-inspired songs. Raposo won three Emmys and four Grammys for his work on the show. The show's theme music, "Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?", which has been called "a "siren song for preschoolers", was written by Raposo, director Jon Stone, and writer Bruce Hart. Raposo also wrote "Bein' Green," "Somebody Come and Play" and "C is for Cookie". "Sing" became a hit for The Carpenters in 1973. Moss wrote "I Love Trash", which was included on the first album of Sesame Street songs, and "Rubber Duckie", which was performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra and hit #11 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1971, "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" and "People in Your Neighborhood". Artists like Barbra Streisand, Lena Horne, Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Simon, and Jose Feliciano have recorded Raposo's Sesame Street songs. By 2021, Sesame Street had been honored with 11 Grammys.
Purpose Sesame Street, from its earliest planning and development stages before its debut on PBS in 1969, has used music as a teaching tool. The show's creators recognized that children responded to commercial jingles, so they wanted to use their characteristics, which included repetition, clever visuals, brevity, and clarity, in what they presented to young viewers. For the first time in children's television, the show's songs fulfilled a specific purpose and supported its curriculum. The show's creators understood that music and sound effects provided a direct means of teaching children basic skills, and that children learned more effectively when new material was accompanied by a song. Co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney observed in her proposal for the new show, written in 1967, that children had an "affinity for commercial jingles", so many of the show's songs were constructed like television ads. Critic Peter Hellman put it this way: "If [children] could recite Budweiser jingles from TV, why not give them a program that would teach the ABCs and simple number concepts?"
The music on Sesame Street consisted of many styles and genres, but it retained its own distinctive sound, which was consistent and recognizable so that it could be reproduced. "There was no other sound like it on television", Jon Stone, the show's first director, said. Music was used to encourage children's dual-attention abilities by allowing them to attend to the show's action even when not actively watching. In order to be effective, however, Gerald S. Lesser, who supervised research for Sesame Street, stated that because music and sound effects naturally evokes physical participation, they need to be carefully integrated with visual movement. As a result, the songwriters avoided pairing music with static visual presentations. Auditory cues in the form of music or sound effects signaled the entrance of a character or the end and beginning of a sequence. The producers recorded and released its musical content early in the show's history, to reinforce its curriculum lessons for children when they were not watching it, and for entertainment. Recording albums of the substantial amount of music written for the show, along with publishing books, was the first attempts to generate income and to fund the show and other projects of the Children's Television Workshop (the CTW, later renamed the Sesame Workshop, or the SW), the organization that oversaw the production of Sesame Street. Many of the songs written for the show have become what writer David Borgenicht called "timeless classics". In order to attract the best composers and lyricists, CTW allowed songwriters to retain the rights to the songs they wrote. For the first time in children's television, the writers earned lucrative profits, which helped the show sustain public interest. Sesame Street Book & Record, recorded in 1970, the first of dozens of albums made up of Sesame Street songs, was also the show's first cast album. The album went gold and won a Grammy. The final track "Rubber Duckie", written by Jeff Moss, was released as a single, appeared on the United States' Billboard Hot 100 chart, and was nominated for a Grammy. The Boston Pops performed with the show's cast in a television special that aired in 1971.
Songs and songwriters
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
