Ready For Tomorrow

With another year in the books, this rock song is the perfect way for your students to showcase what they've learned. "Ready For Tomorrow" has options galore: singing, patsching, ukulele, Boomwhackers®, bells, and various percussion instruments. Use one, some, or all of these parts with your students to make it work with your situation – our recorded tracks will support any combination you choose.

Vocalists sing a strong and confident statement: "We have come a long, long way. We're on the move. Ready for tomorrow." Underneath the vocals, the instrumental parts start out simpler – ukes play quarter note strums, Boomwhackers® and bells play downbeat chords, and non-pitched percussion have a repeating 2-measure pattern. Then, things get more challenging in measures 21-28 where the non-vocalists are featured. For this section, vocalists switch to patching, ukes have a more complex strum pattern, Boomwhackers® and bells change to single notes outlining the chord progression, and percussionists have a new rhythm that's slightly more difficult than before.

You may have noticed that the music calls for some unusual percussion: strikers, scrapers, and ringers. Strikers and scrapers could include hand drums, rhythm sticks, cowbells, Noodle Blocks, buckets, or anything else that you can strike or scrape in a musical way. Ringers include triangles, Chime Plates, tambourine, or antique cymbals – think "metal" sounds. (Noodle Kits™ include rhythm sticks, Noodle Blocks, and Chime Plate with Bolt Striker and are a perfect fit for this tune – visit MusicK8.com to learn more.) In lieu of any of this percussion, you could ask your students to bring "found" instruments from their homes to use (although, be sure all instruments are safe – no sharp or dangerous objects, please).

PDFs of the individual extracted parts are all available online. An MP3 of the full version with all the student parts sounding except for vocalists is also available online. We also have an MP3 of the accompaniment with no bell guide. As always, these extras are all free to subscribers.