The Complexity Of Kids' Music: We Talk To Juno Baby's Adam Adelman
Last Wednesday, we told you our quick take on Juno Baby's line of educational entertainment products for kids (the long and short: cute, cool, and engaging). Adam Adleman, one of the founders of Juno Baby, took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to answer some questions:
How long have you been a Bay Area resident? What precipitated the move?
We moved to the Bay Area from New York City three years ago and have been loving it ever since. After years of life in New York and the birth of our daughter, we were ready for a dramatic change in our lives. The Bay Area suited us perfectly. We love living so close to a wonderful and progressive city while being surrounded by exquisite natural beauty.
To us, one of Juno Baby's distinguishing characteristics is the live orchestral music, versus the electronic simulation favored by other producers of kids' educational materials. Why was this distinction important to you?
Using live orchestral music instead of synthesized music was essential for us, especially considering Belinda's background as a composer. An infant's ear is entirely capable of hearing and appreciating the full textures, dynamics and colors of a symphony orchestra. In fact, research has shown that babies prefer more complex sounds such as speech and music to simple tonal sounds and that an exposure to such complex sound patterns actually helps to develop parts of their growing brains. There is no way that a simple electronic melody could ever represent the music as it was intended. To reduce the greatness and worth of a musical score to an electronic melody minimizes the complexities and artistry of the piece. An electronic sound can not replicate the richness in tone, nuance, and expressive qualities of a bow drawn across the strings of a violin or convey the performer's motive and emotion. We feel that children are capable of appreciating so much more than what's offered to them.
So now we know a little of what you guys think about music for expanding young minds -- what sort of music are you into today (for yourself)?
We definitely enjoy a very eclectic mix of music in our house. We have an enormous collection of classical music but also own everything from world music to pop. Right now in our CD player we have Puccini's Madame Butterfly, African lullabies, Cuban songs, an 80s compilation disc, and our daughter's Mary Poppins album.
All the characters are amazingly cute (we're particularly fond of Buzz; our wife is partial to Murphy). Who are your favorites in the Juno Baby cast?
The Juno Baby cast is a pretty diverse and quirky group of characters. Each puppet has their own distinctive personality, style, strength, and shortcoming. The characters embody both the good and bad qualities we see in our own personalities. I'm partial to Indie while Belinda loves Bunny.
Starting a business is not easy, and (according to the site) you and Belinda did it basically as you were welcoming a child into the world. Do you have any advice for such an undertaking? What are a few things about doing it yourself you didn't count on? In what ways has it proved especially rewarding?
You are right about starting a business not being easy!! I guess the fortunate thing, in retrospect, is that when we started this business we had no idea what Juno Baby would entail (or maybe we would never have started such an endeavor)! The best part of creating our own business is that we get to create something together as a family that is totally us -- our vision, our style, and something that we feel is important. As much work as it's been, it's also been a total blast.
Our advice is to find something that you truly enjoy and love to do. Enjoy the process and don't look for immediate results. As long as you love what you're doing and have a passion about it, something positive will come of it -- and maybe not what you originally thought.
Anything else you want to tell SFist readers?
One of the things that we owe our growth to is our customers. We consider them to be part of our family and take what they have to say very seriously. We always welcome an open dialog with our customers and as a result, we've created a blog ( www.junobaby.typepad.com ) to connect more directly with parents interested in raising children in a musical family. We invite every parent to contribute.