Why Do You See Your Shadow?

We've done a number of songs about Groundhog Day here at Plank Road Publishing. You could describe them as clever, hilarious, fun, etc. But this is the first time we've put a groundhog song to a House EDM (electronic dance music) groove, and it's sick. In a good way! Of course, John being John, he couldn't leave the style alone and incorporated a rock-ballad section (with an improvised Rachmaninoff-style piano part) where singers ramp up their message. They even result to bribery by offering the groundhog alfalfa, a known delicacy in groundhogdom!

We think your singers will have a good time performing this. There is an electric piano guide to help them, and if you're looking for performance inspiration, just let your singers hear the full performance of this song. You'll want to have them pay attention to the scoops because it really serves the style of the tune. At the rock ballad section (bar 33), singers should be almost pleading with the groundhog, 'cause it's funnier that way. And on the repeat at measures 9 and 13, we have the singers echo themselves (Why? Why?). Just sing the second "why" a little softer than the first one, to emulate a delay effect used in pop music.

We don't normally do things with our audio that you and your classroom can't do, but just for fun we put together a web extra of this song featuring one of our studio singers, Megan Gorrell. We effected Megan's voice with what is known as the "Cher effect," or the "T-Pain effect," so she sounds super auto-tuned and robotic, and it sounds amazing on a song like this. We've seen devices that can produce this effect (the T-Pain Mic comes to mind), but for the best results you would need an audio engineer to run your soloist through an auto-tune plug-in. Even if you don't end up doing this, consider letting your singers at least hear it. However you use this song, we think it will be a hit with your students!

Club Moves - If anything makes you feel like dancing, it's this groove. You can almost see yourself on the dance floor. To make it even more of a reality, our choreographer Melissa Schott has created some fun steps for your performers to plug in. Her video and teaching notes can be found on our web site. As usual, she encourages you to adapt freely to suit your situation.