2. I'm recording a CD and want to use your song(s). What do I do?

We have three Song Use Request Forms.

Not-For-Profit Song Use Release Form
(if you are giving the recording away, use this one!)

Not-For-Profit Song Use for INTERNET POSTING Release Form

For-Profit Song Use Release Form.
(If you are selling the recording for any amount, use this one!)

Click on the appropriate link, print out the form, fill it out and mail it to:
80-Z Music, Inc.
P.O. Box 20127
Worcester, MA 01602

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3. Is your site a secure shopping environment?

YES! We have developed an arrangement to fulfill orders safely and securely with vendors we personally trust and rely on, and we guarantee your experience will be a safe and good one. We consider your privacy & safety to be very important, and we will never sell or trade our customer information with any other outside entity.

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4. How can I find out if you are going to be appearing in my area?

We regularly update out concert calendar, as well as send out our monthly newsletter, Whole Notes, which highlights upcoming appearances. You can sign up at the home page!

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5. I am involved in organizing an event, and wondered how can I get information concerning your availability, and your fees?

The best way to learn more about booking Peter & Ellen is to call the office @ 508-798-5566. You will be contacted as soon as possible to help answer all your questions and give you the information you need.

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6. How long are your presentations?

We can adapt the length of our presentations to your needs. Typically they run anywhere from one to three hours. If the Tactile Make-&-Take Teaching Tools™ component is added to the SING! SING! SING! A Music-Based Approach to Math and Literacy In The Early Childhood Classroom workshop, we add an additional hour to allow for creating the make-&-takes.

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7. What goals do you have when presenting your keynotes and workshops?

Many Early Childhood teachers already use music in their programs. Our goal is to motivate those who don’t use music on a regular basis to do so, and to help those who use music to do so more creatively and effectively. We want to help everyone understand the important place that music has in the early childhood classroom.

By presenting accessible material (songs, fingerplays, singing games, chants) that is easy for teachers to learn and easy for them to teach to their students, we hope to provide teachers with a repertoire that they can “make their own”. We want to help teachers see that music is extraordinarily valuable in building the skills that all children need to grow. By looking at cognitive, language, social, and physical development through a musical lens, teachers will begin to see that the very skills they hope to hone in their young students can be strengthened and supported through developmentally-appropriate music education.

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8. How can you help our busy teachers, especially those with no formal musical background, learn the songs and, as importantly, then use them in the classroom?

During our 30 years of teaching and performing, we have individually and jointly collected and composed the music we share at our presentations. It has been child and teacher-tested and we KNOW it works. We have developed an extensive repertoire of songs, fingerplays, singing games, and chants that are extremely easy for teachers to learn. We realize that their time is limited. Teachers have many balls to juggle when it comes to their personal and professional lives. We have always known that if we can provide them with music that they can learn quickly (listen to a CD in the car on the way to school, learn the song in one or two trips!), they will be more likely to develop musical classrooms and they will be more likely to build their musical repertoires.

In this crazy “you-have-to-be-a-specialist” world we live in, some people have come to believe that you need to be a trained musician to successfully share music with students. This couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, there is an important place for music specialists in the early childhood classroom AND we also strongly encourage classroom teachers to sing with their students! Don’t worry about how you sound! What is most important is your willingness to sing and your enthusiasm for the music! And if your children laugh at you (which is doubtful), what a great opportunity for you to say to them “I know I might not sound like a real singer, but that's ok cause I LOVE to sing and I hope you'll sing with me!”. What a great model we can provide for our students when we help them bring music back into our lives. Its an old-fashioned and sweet concept!

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9. You both play guitar during your presentations. Do teachers need to learn to play guitar or accompany themselves on a musical instrument?

When we taught music in the classroom (we each taught on our own), we often shared songs that required the use of our hands and bodies. We would put down our guitars and sing acapella, with no musical accompaniment. It is not necessary to always (or ever, for that matter) accompany yourself on an instrument. If need be, you can pick up an inexpensive pitch pipe at a music store; this will help you find a starting note for your songs. But the music can stand on its own, without musical accompaniment.

However, having said that, we also encourage teachers to learn a new instrument. The autoharp is a wonderful and easy instrument to play. And you can learn just a few chords (two or three!) on the guitar and you'll be able to play dozens of songs. It takes a bit of practice, but it is manageable. And there are lots of instructional videos to help one learn any musical instrument.

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10. Can you customize a presentation to the theme of a conference?

Absolutely. We rise to the challenge! We'd be more than happy to make our presentations work with the theme of your conference.

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"Thanks for your interest, we hope
to hear from you real soon!"