Come on, Baby Einstein, help a new mom out

I'm about to say something not-so-revolutionary: I'm a new mom, and I want the best for my baby.

I want him to like all the best things, know all the best things, experience all the best things. My ultimate hope for him is that he is smart. Okay, funny and smart. Well, cool, funny, and smart. If pressed, I guess I'd take any two of those things, but mostly I just want him to know stuff. Cool, funny, and smart stuff.

Before I had a baby — even before I knew a baby was a thing I might ever be interested in putting together — the world had already told me about how to make a baby smart: classical music. It might not make my baby cool or funny (whoa, Beethoven superfans, I'm not saying it won't), but a little Mozart, a little Bach? Those would be just the ticket to make any ol' baby the smartest in the room.

Okay, it might not do that, either. As it turns out, science still can't agree on whether or not classical music is the big red smarts-switch for all babies, but that hasn't kept what seems like 100% of children's toy companies from including classical music in every piece of plastic possible.

Even if they don't come with an ironclad guarantee of an IQ boost, the classical tunes are a welcome addition around the house. They make things just a little more pleasant and are probably more palatable to my infant son than my previous musical predilections (Misfits, Samhain, Danzig). Sure, sometimes the luster of classical music in our tiny apartment is a little tarnished when a bouncy sonata turns an infant meltdown into a grotesque funhouse, or when just ten seconds of MIDI Beethoven's 5th Symphony conjures scenes from A Clockwork Orange, but on the whole, yeah, it's good.

Here's my main problem: I don't know anything about classical music. You might read that sentence and say to yourself, "Come on, Courtney. I'm sure you know more than you're giving yourself credit for." It's very sweet of you to say, but that's just not the case. Anything I might have learned about classical music I left behind in grade school. However, thanks to one Baby Einstein toy, there are six songs that I've become well versed in. Or, rather, I've become well versed in exactly 30 seconds of each of them.

My son loves these songs. He pushes the flashing buttons and dances to each one, smiling up at me. I smile back at him but I feel kind of, well, embarrassed. I'm supposed to be teaching him about this world, and it's great that I bought a toy with music that he enjoys, but I don't know what these pieces are. How is he supposed to learn stuff that I can't teach him when he can't even Google things yet?

The toy in question is Baby Einstein's Musical Motion Activity Jumper, and as far as I can tell, there's no information about what those six songs are anywhere, on anything related to the company that makes it. This strikes me as odd, and missing the mark in terms of an edutainment toy. The song titles and composers should be front and center — especially if I want my baby to know stuff.

Luckily, mommy has sick Google skills and an amazing community of Internet moms to turn to in times of need. Thanks to help from — believe it or not — the Walmart website, here is the list of where my son's favorite 180 seconds of music come from:

Georg Philipp Telemann — Water Music: Harlequinade

Bedřich Smetana — The Bartered Bride: Furiant


Frederic Chopin — Minuet Waltz

Gioachino Rossini — William Tell Overture


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Sonata in D for Two Pianos


Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture mashed up (!) with Modest Mussorgsky's Great Gate at Kiev

Now I know some stuff, and I can share that stuff with my son in a cool, funny way that makes all my dreams come true.

Courtney Algeo is a writer living in Minneapolis. She has worked with awesome literary arts organizations such as Paper Darts and The Loft Literary Center, and is the current brand communications specialist at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Interested in writing about classical music for Classical MPR? Have a story about classical music to share? We want to hear from you!

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