For the growing fans of our comprehensive Nursery Rhymes Collection, Aaron Schulman from Strumviews.com (a site devoted to honest guitar reviews) has teamed up to write an original series of beginner and intermediate guitar lessons so that you can now begin to enjoy our Nursery Rhymes Collection on an entirely different level!

Now, instead of just singing along, you will soon be able to learn how to play along with your favorite Nursery Rhymes as a free gift just for visiting our website!

For over 25 years, Aaron has been a musician, writer, guitar player (as well as performer on other instruments), and approached us this last year to offer many simple “bite-size” lessons to help you and even your children learn how to play songs, including your favorite nursery rhymes, on the guitar.

The lessons are written in a logical order to help any newbie learn how to pick up the guitar, understand how to hold, strum, and read chords, songs and chord charts. Additionally, the songs all have accompanying diagrams and visual figures to help make your lessons easy to understand and visualize.

Starting with the most fundamental lessons on understanding the guitar anatomy and all of it’s working parts (as well as the jargon or guitar “lingo”) he progresses with a series of lessons on holding, strumming and chording the guitar.

After learning the basic fundamentals of the guitar, the chording lessons progress from a series of the most common open chord forms (C-A-G-E-D) to some of the minor chords and then bar chords.

Once you work your way through all of these guitar lessons and continue to practice with your kids or students, you will be well on your way to being able to play many popular nursery rhymes or other popular songs. It’s entirely up to you!

With the simple, 1 theme lesson format, you will be able to easily pace yourself through each installment of the series. Best of all, each lesson is absolutely free.

In a few months, with some persistence and the right guitar, you will have the skills to be able to play along with any of our nursery rhymes, and more!

What’s more exciting, is that if you equip your children with 1 of the right kinds of kids guitars, he or she can learn to play along and enjoy nursery rhymes with you at an entirely new level of involvement! Who knows, with enough playing and practicing, your child may one day become a professional musician or instructor.

Regardless of your goals or ambition level, not only can you enjoy countless hours of your family’s favorite nursery rhymes, you can also now learn to play along with your children and a few guitars!

Hop on over to our series of guitar lessons, and be sure to bookmark them, share them and check back for new lessons and installments. You can even drop us a note to let us know how you are enjoying them!

So it’s a full year after the release of The Nursery Rhyme Collection – 33 Musicians Create A Masterpiece (Volume 1 & 2) and what a successful year it’s been. Since its conception in 2008, it’s 9 months in the making (just like having a baby) and its release on September 4th 2009 the album has gone on from strength to strength meeting and indeed smashing all expectations.

Distribution of the hardcopy album now happens in Germany, France and USA as well as the UK with all markets growing week by week and new ones being sought. Digital downloads of the album grow continuously even though this is still an up and coming medium with respect to children’s music. The public reviews of the album are just fantastic and have simply blown us away hitting upon every one of my initial conceived targets and ideas and all in all this has generated a very promising and pleasing start to this particular ‘little baby’s’ life.

It seems that the frustrations I had as a new father wanting to give my own child good music to listen to and not just run of the mill computer generated rubbish I kept purchasing time and time again are the very same frustrations other parents and grand parents have too. Deciding to create something of my own of absolutely top quality to the note to fill that obvious gap in the market was definitely the right card to play albeit a very ambitious one and the gap has been plugged perfectly. The afore mentioned reviews reflect this high quality with many comments on the fact that the premium price of the product is easily justified by the quality and quantity of the contents; some mentioning the fact that you get the full nursery rhyme and not just a snippet as per other products available today. Most encouraging are the reviews discussing the fact that the adults who bought our product for a child actually want to keep it for themselves as they enjoy the many styles and influences contained and can appreciate the high production and beautiful renditions of tunes they know so well from their own childhood; this reflects uncannily the original sleeve notes that say just that; I wanted the product to be something the adult could ‘put up with’ having to listen to over again. Well it seems as that particular goal has been scored well and truly square in the back of the net as they actually do enjoy it. In some cases reviews even state that they play it in the car to the children and then find themselves listening to it the next day on the way to work without the children present and just not wanting to turn it off in the house when the kids have gone to bed, etc. Wonderful that it has struck the right chord with these people who I will never even meet but it gives them pleasure; it’s a nice feeling as one of the creators to get this type of feedback
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The arrangements in the music were really thought through from the very start and were designed to inspire children to listen intently, get the tune quickly, sing along and even get the bug for performing music, of course we’ll never know if that actually works but what I can say for definite is that it has worked perfectly for my own first child Dominic (that the album was originally produced for) who is now three years old and knows the tracks so well and has even taken to bashing away on my very valuable vintage Ludwig drum kit and my youngest Alistair who already at one year old can swing and sway with the best of them to these tunes!

So what are we doing to celebrate this milestone year? Well we have decided to release some very nice and informational high quality videos on Youtube, Facebook and our own Nursery Rhymes blog that look at the songs individually and contain interviews with myself as the Producer and the many talented musicians who took the time to perform on the tracks and give their hearts, souls and personalities to the music defining the vast array of feels and styles that make up this album and keep the 70 (yes seventy) tracks from sounding monotonous. They all duly turned up once more to a remote location and sat in front of a very intimidating professional film crew who interviewed them about their parts on the albums. Films on each track and each musician will be released giving an intriguing insight into the making of this album and the people involved. Some of them have fun with the medium and jokingly poke fun at the project and me and their illustrious Producer, some speak intently about how honoured they were to be invited to take part but most importantly each and every one talks fondly and openly about their involvement with the album and their experiences at Comfy Towers Recording Studios whilst recording their parts and a mood of genuine love and passion for the project is most certainly conveyed to the audience.

My good friend and colleague Mike “Wilbury” Doering and I have also set down a plan and schedule to have the ‘next baby’ starting October 2010 and create the next two Volumes of The Nursery Rhyme Collection; another double album of equivalent exceptional quality. There are many more children’s tracks and fun music to perform in a plethora of varying styles and genres and it would be a criminal offence in my opinion not to do this after such a great reception to the first two volumes. So to add to the four sections of Volume 1 & 2’s Time To Dance, Time To Play, Time To Learn and Time To Sleep we will tackle four more; Time To Travel; favourite Children’s tracks from around the world, Time To Laugh, Time to Act and Time to Relax, or at least that’s the plan, but let’s see where it takes us! Again my partners on the project will be involved at core level including the talents of Mike Wilbury, Rebecca Leivers, Ian Cunningham and Gary Holmes and many of the other key musicians involved have shown great interest in being part of the mix once more including Pete Bradbury, Mat Williams, Mark Sansom, Brian Hudson plus John Raynor of the Billy Fury Story and Danny Gould of My Mate Kate. Other musicians and bands that have crossed my path at Comfy Towers during the last year have also shown enthusiasm for being involved too, notably an Oasis Tribute Band called Ohasis, a Lily Allen tribute called Smile, Nottingham’s’ Paper Lace and the one and only Jess Conrad from early sixties fame. There will be a couple of new original tracks as per the first album too so it looks an immensely exciting prospect to take on once more. We hope to have the album available by May or June 2011.

If this is the first you’ve heard of this collection of Nursery Rhymes and Children’s songs then please take a look at our website www.nursery-rhymes-collection.com to listen to free samples of each track and see the videos or check out the album on www.amazon.co.uk www.amazon.de www.amazon.com or www.amazon.fr. The album and individual tracks can also be downloaded on digital download outlets worldwide including Apple iTunes, Amazon MP3 plus many more (just search for “singalongasong band“).

It makes me immensely proud to talk about this album, like any father…

Ian Watts

Unlike typical children’s music CDs the Nursery Rhyme Collection was recorded by real musicians. The recording sessions at Comfy Towers studio started on the first October weekend back in 2008 and were finished in April 2009, followed by a 3 months period of mixing and mastering. More than 30 top class musicians are featured on the most ambitious Nursery Rhymes project ever. The stunning result was released in September 2009 – almost a year after the recordings started. Then, within just 4 months the Nursery Rhyme Collection became one of the best selling Nursery Rhyme albums in the UK.

More about the recordings and the musicians involved

To celebrate the first anniversary of a timeless Nursery Rhymes Collection we decided to provide some detailed information about the recordings, the songs and the musicians involved (see below). During the next months we will upload plenty of audio and video files. Hopefully you will enjoy our Making Of series. We would like to encourage you to leave a comment or publish your personal album review on Amazon. Thanks to everybody for the great support!

as released on the Nursery Rhyme Collection by The Singalongasong Band. Here you find an audio sample of the song, a detailed list of the musicians involved in this particular song, a video with some background information, and a link to print out the lyrics in a printer friendly format.

The musicians

Drums: Gary Holmes
Bass: Ian Watts
Guitar: Mike ‘Wilbury’ Doering
Hammond Organ: Rick Benbow
Lead Vocals: Rebecca Leivers

The recording

This was one of the first tracks for the Nursery Rhyme Collection. The backing track (drums, bass and guitar) was recorded live on the very first recording session for the Nursery Rhymes Album on Oct 4th 2008. The Hammond and Vocal parts were added some weeks later. When Mike received the finished files to mix them back in his German studio he added the Lead Guitar fills on his Gretsch Duo Jet.

Lyrics

See the full lyrics for One Finger One Thumb in a printer friendly format here

as released on the Nursery Rhyme Collection by The Singalongasong Band. Here you find an audio sample of the song, a detailed list of the musicians involved in this particular song, a video with some background information, and a link to print out the lyrics in a printer friendly format.

The musicians

Drums: Gary Holmes
Bass: Ian Watts
Guitar: Mike ‘Wilbury’ Doering
Piano / orchestral arrangement: Rick Benbow
Lead Vocals: Rebecca Leivers / Chris White

The recording

This was one of the first tracks for the Nursery Rhyme Collection. The backing track (drums, bass and guitar) was recorded on the very first recording session for the Nursery Rhymes Album on Oct 4th 2008. Absolutely outstanding: Chris White, performing as Old MacDonald himself. The song also features Rebecca on Lead Vocals and Rick Benbow on Piano. Rick also did the orchestral arrangement.

Lyrics

See the full lyrics for Old MacDonald Had A Farm in a printer friendly format here

as released on the Nursery Rhyme Collection by The Singalongasong Band. Here you find an audio sample of the song, a detailed list of the musicians involved in this particular song, a video with some background information, and a link to print out the lyrics in a printer friendly format.

The Musicians

Acoustic guitar (Picking): Ian Watts
Acoustic guitar (counter melody): Mike ‘Wilbury’ Doering
Fiddle: Mat Williams
Lead Vocals: Rebecca Leivers

The recording

This is one of the tracks that was not recorded during the first recording weekend (Oct 4/5 2008), but it was recorded some weeks later. The track features a great folk musician from the Nottingham area: Mat Williams. He plays the wonderful fiddle part on Hey Diddle Diddle. Mat did a lot more work for the Nursery Rhyme Collection. Apart from the fiddle he played many mandolin, banjo and flute parts all through the album. He also did the Lead Vocals on Little Liza Jane. When he performs with his original band “Jig Oth Dub” he also plays guitar and keyboards. Apart from Mat this song features Rebecca Leivers’ smooth vocals, Ian Watts with a great acoustic picking in the style of Paul McCartney. The second acoustic guitar was added some months later by Mike in his German studio.

Lyrics

See the full lyrics for Hey Diddle Diddle in a printer friendly format here

as released on the Nursery Rhyme Collection by The Singalongasong Band. Here you find an audio sample of the song, a detailed list of the musicians involved in this particular song, a video with some background information, and a link to print out the lyrics in a printer friendly format.

The Musicians

Drums: Ian Cunningham
Bass: Ian Watts
Guitar: Craig Hudson
Orchestral Arrangement: Rick Benbow
Trumpets: Peter Kalff
Lead Vocals: Rebecca Leivers

The recording

The first session for Polly Put The Kettle On took place on Oct. 5th 2008. The backing track was played live (drums, guitar, bass). Mike’s guide guitar part was replaced later by Craig Hudson. The trumpet parts of Peter Kalff were recorded about 5 months later in Germany.

Lyrics

See the full lyrics for Polly Put The Kettle On in a printer friendly format here

as released on the Nursery Rhyme Collection by The Singalongasong Band. Here you find an audio sample of the song, a detailed list of the musicians involved in this particular song, a video with some background information, and a link to print out the lyrics in a printer friendly format.

The Musicians

Drums: Ian Cunningham
Bass: Ian Watts
Acoustic guitar: Mike ‘Wilbury’ Doering
Fiddle: Mat Williams
Mandolin: Mat Williams
Banjo: Mat Williams
Low Whistle: Mat Williams
Lead Vocals: Mat Williams

The recording

The first session for Little Liza Jane took place on Oct. 5th 2008. The backing track (drums, bass, guitar) was played and recorded live at Comfy Towers Studio in Nottingham, Linby. Some weeks later Mat Williams, a fantastic folk musician, came along and turned the song into kind of a one man show. He did the vocals and played most of the instruments (fiddle, mandolin, banjo, low whistle).

Lyrics

See the full lyrics for Little Liza Jane in a printer friendly format here

as released on the Nursery Rhyme Collection by The Singalongasong Band. Here you find an audio sample of the song, a detailed list of the musicians involved in this particular song, a video with some background information, and a link to print out the lyrics in a printer friendly format.

The Musicians

Drums: John Raynor
Bass: Ian Watts
Piano: Ian Watts
Guitars: Mike ‘Wilbury’ Doering
Lead Vocals: Rebecca Leivers

The recording

This track was added to the setlist some weeks after the first recordings took place. It features John Raynor on drums. He is one if of Billy Fury’s original band members and he is still touring with the Billy Fury Story. The Slide Guitar fills were added some weeks later by Mike in his German studio.

Lyrics

See the full lyrics for Looby Loo in a printer friendly format here

as released on the Nursery Rhyme Collection by The Singalongasong Band. Here you find an audio sample of the song, a detailed list of the musicians involved in this particular song, a video with some background information, and a link to print out the lyrics in a printer friendly format.

The Musicians

Drums: Ian Cunningham
Bass: Ian Watts
12 String Electric Guitar: Ian Watts
12 String Acoustic Guitar: Mike ‘Wilbury’ Doering
Keyboards: Rick Benbow
Trumpets: Peter Kalff
Lead Vocals: Rebecca Leivers / Chris White

The recording

The first session for There’s A Hole In My Bucket took place on Oct. 5th 2008. The backing track (drums, bass, guitar) was played and recorded live. The other instruments were added some weeks later. The funny vocal dialogue is another great collaboration between Chris White and Rebecca Leivers. Both of them also perform together on Old MacDonald Had A Farm. The trumpet parts of Peter Kalff (as an echo of the dialogue between Liza and Henry) were recorded about 5 months later in Germany.

Lyrics

See the full lyrics for There’s A Hole In My Bucket in a printer friendly format here