Moving Ahead

This anthemic song with vocals and body percussion is perfect for any turning point in your students' lives, such as graduation, promotion ceremonies, awards banquets, or any situation where your students are moving on to new challenges.

Body percussion is a highlight for the song, and sets up a strong, rhythmic foundation upon which it is built. The part itself can be tricky, but there are many measures that repeat the main rhythm, so it can be learned with some practice. If it's too hard for students to perform both the body percussion and the vocal part, you can divide them up amongst your students with some on vocals and some on body percussion. You could also divide up the body percussion with one group performing stomps, one team doing the claps, one group patsching, and some snapping… or any combination that works best for your situation.

There are multiple audio tracks available for this song. The usual full performance and instrumental accompaniment versions can be found with the rest of the audio for this issue (tracks 3 and 17). This accompaniment track does not have any of the body percussion, and can be used if your students are confidently performing these parts. Just in case, we have also created an alternate online option for an accompaniment track that includes body percussion to either enhance your students' performance, or it can be used if you want your students to focus on the singing, and skip the body percussion altogether.

There is also an isolated track for your students to use when rehearsing the body percussion. This version has a drum track with only the body percussion to make it easier for your students to hear the body percussion rhythm. Additionally, we have created a PDF you can download so performers can see the rhythms they are using/learning. (This is the same as the body percussion line on the piano/vocal score.) These extras can all be found at our web site for free.

The body percussion will wow your attendees. We feel that the singing is pretty great, too… nice and catchy and not too difficult. However you decide to perform this song, it will be fun for everyone.

But wait! There's more!

Our wonderful dance expert, Melissa Schott, was so inspired by this piece that she decided to choreograph it, too! So now you have even more options to make this piece super special. She has created a movement video with ideas and suggestions for you to use as is, or alter any way you like to work with (or without) the body percussion. You can find her video and teaching notes at our web site for free!