Quite A Quandary

There are actually only four lines to this song. And you would think that made it easy. But not so fast! This cross curricular gem is a challenge on more than one level. First, it's a bit of a tongue twister. Second, it goes through a tempo change on each repeat – accelerando for the first four bars, then a new, faster tempo at measure 5. By the time your singers get to the coda, they're really zipping along! Expect a few collisions and giggles along the way.

Besides being fun to sing, it's also a lesson in alliteration. That is, most of the words begin with the same letter or sound. In this case, it's the letter Q (obviously). And though the "tale" it tells is very odd, there's almost one in there. You could further consider this cross curricular in that it will take a bit of doing for students to read and learn some of the words. And if you go for memorizing them, that's just another feather in their educational caps.