Keep America Beautiful

This gentle tune has an important message for us all: Keep America beautiful! Those of us who are older may remember this as a campaign to stop littering in parks and on highways, on beaches, and any public place. It also brings to mind the beautification efforts we can and do make to create pleasant and attractive spaces everyone can enjoy. April is Keep America Beautiful Month, and that gives you the perfect opportunity to sing this song with your students. Though, of course, you can use it any other time as well. Make it the anthem of a classroom project or even an all-school event. Bring in other classes and teachers to work together to come up with ways to make your own little corner of America more beautiful.

As simple as the song is, it does have a few challenges. For example, it's a duet the first time through. This is optional, of course, as is the use of part 2 at all. But as you can hear on the recording, it's a very nice way to feature a couple of your talented soloists. The second time through, starting at measure 9, let everyone sing along as we did. Use the parts or just keep it unison if that's easier for you. Since both parts are sung all the time, we have isolated part 2 and created a rehearsal audio track for you to use. We also have a unison version of the song, as well as a "choral" version that does not have any solos/duets at all. You can find all of these extras on our web site at MusicK8.com