A Pied Piper Who `Makes Something Happen'. Bob Schneider's message of tolerance and self-confidence leaps all kinds of barriers. MUSIC: INTERVIEW

BOB Schneider had an itchy guitar-finger. As he sat on his hotel-room bed the other day, the instrument was a like a third party - a gently assertive presence constantly being tuned (``traveling loosens the strings, you know'') or strummed to create an apt and pleasing obligato to the conversation.

Sure, he's glad to talk about his work, but he'd much rather demonstrate. And once he does, you know instantly why this Toronto-based performer has become a kind of kiddy culture hero all over Canada and the United States. His sample songs filled the hotel room with a benign and bouncy folk sound so fetching you could all but see an audience of tots responding to simple, inviting numbers like ``Listen to the Raindrops'' or ``I Dreamed a Dream.''

Schneider writes all the songs himself, music and words, and for some 12 years children have been plunging joyfully into their pantomime spirit - moving their hands like birds, wiggling them like fish, shouting responses.

But Schneider is more than an award-winning artist of stage, recordings, TV, and video. Behind his shows - which lure kids 3 to 12 years old - lies an implicit message of tolerance and self-confidence that has leaped over ethnic barriers and turned handicapped audiences into eager show-and-sing choruses.

For one thing, there's the Rainbow Kids, an integral part of Schneider's performances. Drawn from local schools in each city he visits, they are not pros - usually not even hopefuls - but a true sampling of children from the area representing every kind of background. After a mere 90-minute rehearsal, they self-assuredly join him on stage - in jeans and ``Rainbow Kids'' jerseys - forming a happy link to people in the seats.

``The kids are looking up and maybe seeing their classmates,'' Schneider points out. ``I always feel with the Rainbow Kids there's an energy that comes off bigger than me, bigger than any one of the kids. It works so beautifully with audiences of multi-ethnic kids, including new English-speakers, because the language is simple enough to be accessible to the very young, yet hip enough for 11- and 12-year-olds.''

Just a few minutes of a Schneider concert proves his point. He walks on stage in a baseball cap, face beaming, singing and clapping and exhorting kids with a deliberately goofy friendliness that turns them on in seconds. His songs touch the basic realities of their lives - how they feel, what they see - and lets them react in song and movement.

Watching the small faces at moments like these, you feel you're stealing a piece of a child's own wonder. When Schneider launches into a song that uses signing, for instance, the kids are soon making hand movements as they sing ``I can feel.... I can see.... I can dream.'' The show is like a tribal celebration, with Schneider leading them in song rather than merely performing for them.

``I never try to write a preachy song,'' he says ``but the Rainbow Kids are communicating something just by being up there and performing. It might not knock the audience over the head, but they're saying, `Hey, guys, you can do it, too.' The kids responded beautifully, for instance, the time I did a Special Olympics show in front of 20,OOO people, with my chorus drawn from the mentally retarded. My greatest attribute is my ignorance. I didn't study kids or the handicapped and don't what they're supposed to be able or not be able to do. I treat them the same as adults or any other children.''

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