Amali Escobar will turn 4 later this month, and she can add Free Moral Agents to the already long list of grown-up bands she’s seen perform live.
It was during Free Moral Agents’ short set at Saturday night’s Fingerprints event promoting the S.O.S. (Save Our Studio) benefit CD for The Compound Studio that I noticed her. She was hard to miss, perched on her daddy’s shoulders as the pair moved in rhythm to FMA’s groove-heavy brand of psychedelic rock.
Roberto and Veronica Escobar have been feeding their preschooler “real” live music all of her life. “Actually, since before she was born,” smiled Veronica, patting her stomach.
With father Roberto long active as a bass player in the local scene (formerly with The New Fidelity, currently with California Lions), Amali had an inside track to live shows, and her parents have seen no reason not to bring her along when the atmosphere is right.
“We try to take her [shows at] to open[-air] day festivals and parks, so…as much as possible,” said Roberto on the sidewalk in front of Fingerprints. “There’s rare [indoor] circumstances [that work]. Like this is a good one. Sometimes there are shows…You know {open} books[tore]? We’ve gone there for the Christmas shows.[1] She loves that.”
From what I saw, Amali was the youngest person at Fingerprints Saturday night by well over a decade; and her parents confirm that it is extremely rare for her to have coevals at such shows.
Considering that a significant percentage of 30- to 40-year-olds have young children, and further considering that a significant percentage of that percentage enjoy seeing “adult” music performed live, presumably the rareness of youngsters at such events stems from a preconception that such music is not for kids.
But preconceptions often have nothing to do with truth. A small study conducted by Dr. Alexandra Lamont of Keele University, for example, found that babies show a preference to whatever sort of music they heard most frequently while in the womb; and that infants generally prefer upbeat, louder music to the lullaby-type stuff. Lamont’s study came on the heels of numerous larger studies that consistently found young children preferring up-tempo music to the slower stuff.
Of course, music that is too loud is no good for children (or anyone, for that matter), but that’s a variable the Escobars keep well in mind.
“We were concerned [about the volume],” said Roberto of Saturday’s show,[2] “but she said she liked it, so we stayed. […] This was perfect. If it’s too loud, we’re vtttt [i.e., outta here].”
Watching Amali stroke her parents’ hair as she shared their enjoyment of the music, witnessing her pick up from the rest of the audience the custom of applauding the musicians (and liking it so much that at one point she clapped straight through the break after one song and 15 seconds into the next), I imagined how nice that would have been for me — and would be for any child. Perhaps as older generations are succeeded by newer ones, antiquated ideas about what constitutes proper environments for children will be supplanted by notions that keep in view only the important factors (e.g., safety), laying aside otiose concerns such as musical style. Such a shift will open up aesthetic horizons for the very young, as well as expanding the realm of pleasures parents and children can share. Then, perhaps, Amali will not be such a unique case.
“I like the singing,” Amali told me after Free Moral Agents had finished. “And the music. And the songs.”
Your young’un might have told you the same thing.
[1] For the past three years or so {open} has thrown a holiday/anniversary party featuring the Greater California Xmas Choir performing such songs as The Kinks’ “Picture Book” and John Lennon/Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”.