Pat Carfra: "Perfect Pitch"

Do you know who the "Lullaby Lady" is? For nearly four decades, UVic Child Care Services volunteer Pat Carfra has been sharing her musical magic with children at the campus day care services.

This service to the community began when Carfra's son joined a co-operative pre-school: Carfra offered to sing to the children, and when the pre-school teacher moved to UVic's day care, she invited Carfra to continue her visits there.

"The children and staff alike have been engaged and entertained by Pat's music, puppetry and story telling," says Jack Lalonde, manager of UVic Child Care Services. "The children always look forward to the day when Pat comes. Her cheerful and gentle manner draws children to her and she warmly welcomes them all."

Carfra worked as a public health nurse before her own two children were born. When her son and daughter were in their early teens, she began recording. Inspired by a Canadian musicologist who referred to the "tragedy" of parents not singing to their children, she began to visit pre- and post-natal groups to explore who wasn't singing and to encourage them with easy songs.

"I couldn't visualize a world where parents weren't singing to their kids," she says, and her first tape-produced when albums were double-sided cassettes-was a teaching one. "It was a lovely, natural progression," says Carfra. The double-sided format also allowed Carfra to produce all three tapes with one side for sleepy lullabies and another for "bouncy" play songs.

If you ask Carfra's favourite song for kids, the answers come without a moment's hesitation: "Snake Baked a Hoe Cake" … "Wheels on the Bus" … "Meatballs and Spaghetti" … "The Dinosaur Song…" Her three award-winning albums are: Lullabies and Laughter; Songs for Sleepy Heads and Out of Beds; Babes, Beasts and Birds. You can't help but wonder if Carfra dreams in rhyme.

But her tone is also measured and thoughtful, a careful metronome for the serious play of child education. She knows music is crucial for the teaching curriculum. "When we don't sing, we really cut off part of our humanity," says Carfra. And she's convinced there are very few people who are truly tone deaf. "We are born and built to sing. We carry that instrument around with us everywhere."

Carfra herself was born in Montr&e#180;al and her musical father played the mandolin and clarinet. She remembers him leading family singalongs en route to ski trips in the Laurentians. One brother, now in India, is a musician. Her sister sings and her other brother plays the banjo.

If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands? The applause likely won't ever stop for UVic's very own Lullaby Lady.