Three Branches Of Government

"If you really want to be a good citizen, you ought to know the three branches of government." Or so says our soloist at the beginning of this song. Truly, one of the foundational structures of our government is the balance of power among the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches. The song just touches on the basics – the fact that these exist. The script explains a little bit more, but again, it's by no means an in-depth lesson. The hope is that further learning about them might follow from this point, perhaps in conjunction with the classroom teacher who is doing a unit on history, civics, or government. We always say that music is a valuable reinforcement of cross curricular learning, and this is a great example. To help even more, we have created a "Diving Deeper Into The Music" lesson extension that you can download for free.

Since there are three branches to sing about, putting the piece in 3/4 seemed like a natural. It also lends a rollicking, lighthearted feeling to what could be a stuffy, serious subject. It's meant to be sort of a show tune, starting with spoken lines between two people, and going into a solo with limited response from a second soloist. These are all optional, but if you have performers with the diction and stage presence to do it, it's fun and effective. Our soloists on the recording are Emery Allen and Erin Cox. To use the spoken part, listen carefully to the drum set-up and learn where the downbeat of bar 1 occurs. The speaking needs to begin right away and the delivery should be snappy in order to be ready to sing by bar 9. On the repeat, the same situation occurs, but this time at bar 9, everyone joins in and there is now an optional part 2. Listen to the recording demonstration to hear how it all works together. Part 2 has been isolated for rehearsal purposes and put on our web site. If you are just too intimidated about making it through the spoken parts, you could skip them, shorten them (eliminate part 2), or for the first ones, even do them prior to the song entirely. Rehearsing with the recording several times should help though.

The repetitious part at measures 17, 25, and 35 is so simple and catchy, your audience could even join in! To encourage it, we have speaker 1 invite them in bar 34 by saying, "Everybody!" Turn to direct them, and they might take the hint.