In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, little Oskar loves music and associates music by the Beatles with his father. Some of the songs that Oskar mentions were "I want to Tell You", "Fixing A Hole", "Yellow Submarine" and "I am the Walrus". Introducing these songs was an interesting way for the author, Jonathan Foer, to further envelope the reader. It's likely that most of us have heard of at least one of these songs and even ran through the lyrics just a little bit upon reading the title. I know I did.
Another other piece of music that was mentioned was "The Flight of the Bumble Bee". This was the piece that Oskar was very proud that he could play on his tambourine. I have always liked "The Flight of the Bumble Bee" (though never thought of it for a tambourine solo) but I don't think it's very soothing at all. It's actually very funny to me to imagine this little guy busily shaking his tambourine to this composition in an attempt to stay calm. I hope you'll watch this video link. This girl plays it so well her hands are literally a blur.
You'll want to check out this teenage boy (Tim Scaletta) playing "The flight of the Bumble Bee" on a drum set complete with Zildjian cymbals. Maybe Oskar would have learned to play this on his drum set. I'd like to think so.
(Each underlined song is a link to play the selection - Enjoy!)