Sing A Little Song

Here's a happy little song that will get your toes tapping and your head bouncing for Music In Our Schools Month, or any time you just feel like singing about, well... singing! With a very simple melody, even your young ones can sing along, too. In fact, one of our goals with this tune was to allow kids to use scat, or nonsense, syllables typical in vocal jazz. Scatting is actually improvised, but getting kids to use scat words and phrases like this is a good first step towards improvisation later, if that's on your agenda. And if it isn't, it's just a lot of fun to sing them anyway. We have borrowed a number of familiar scat phrases, like "Scooby dooby doo," as well as coming up with a few silly ones ourselves. You and your students are welcome to invent others instead of some or all of ours.

As we often do with our big band tunes, we suggest that you let your students listen to the instrumental version of this song to really hear it well. Use it as a listening lesson to identify a swing tune and/or the unique sound that a jazz ensemble has. Help them pick out the saxes, trumpets, trombones, piano, etc., as they listen. If you do a unit on jazz, this song could be incorporated into that as well, including discussions of improvisation.

This song would make a wonderful addition to a spring concert or general performance as well. If you want to spice it up a bit in your presentation, consider adding some movement to it. Our choreographer, Melissa Schott, has come up with a video of creative dance moves you can share with your kids. Use them exactly as she presents them, or – as she always says – adapt them freely any way you need to. You can access her video for free at our web site MusicK8.com (See details in the box on page 66.)