The Comet

As any knowledgeable young dinosaur aficionado can tell you, one of the theories about how and why the dinosaurs died out revolves around a heavenly body (so to speak). Some scientists believe that a large meteor or comet collided with the earth some sixty five million years ago - give or take a few million - causing widespread destruction and fallout. This fallout is thought to have altered the conditions on the entire planet so extensively that it eventually caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, as well as a few other species. (Note - Be sure to also see page 64 for special information in a sidebar entitled "Comets and Other Heavenly Bodies." Also, keep an eye out for the "Apocalypse Asteroid" episode of Public Television's NOVA. Some shows are available as separate video tapes, though we have not seen this one offered that way yet.)

In this, our latest dinosaur song, we bring the Mesozoic era to a close, musically speaking. Again, our veteran subscribers will recall that we have published quite a few songs with dinosaur themes, which students seem to enjoy. (Refer to the Music K-8 Index included with this issue for more information.) This time, however, the subject is not a particular type of dinosaur, but rather the extinction of all of them.

The recording of "The Comet" is critical to its performance and enjoyment and the piano/vocal score is provided mainly for reference. Invite your students to follow along as you listen together.

The first sounds you will hear are a combination of "dinosaur ambience" and "other worldly ambience." We've combined multiple special effects to achieve this rather cool blend. The melodies, countermelodies and harmonic structure are created mostly with synthesizers, though we do use piano, bass, and guitar as well. The drums are prominently featured throughout the song, though your students will no doubt notice that they have been electronically "altered" in strategic spots for effect.

Your first reaction to seeing or hearing this music is that is might be too difficult for your students. However, we believe that it can be readily altered to work as a unison piece or a limited divisi piece, if you so desire. The important lines include the chant, the melody at measure 25 (which is wonderfully doubled in English horn, the only wind instrument on the recording), and the top vocal line at measure 38. There is only one overlap, but if you want to do it as a unison, you can have the singers finish their "goodbye" in measures 46 and 47, then catch the chant in 48 and 49 just before it goes back to the D.S. This will work out just fine.

The divisi parts in part 1 are optional, too, of course. You can pick one or more of them to use as you wish. You might consider having a soloist or small group do some of the divisi work as well. Change, adjust or alter any of it any way you want to in order for your students to be able to perform it.

There are two outstanding features of this song that will absolutely get your students' attention. One is the impact and series of explosions at measure 56. The other is the abrupt stop four measures later. To get the most out of these effects, we highly recommend you turn your stereo as loud as you possibly can get away with (without having neighboring teachers pound on the walls to turn it down). The sudden absence of sound will be very dramatic and symbolic going from ffff to nothing. The caesura has a fermata over it to indicate a long pause, which actually comes out to about 6 seconds on the recording. If you perform this live, have your singers freeze until the last segment resumes.  You will notice that the last segment is titled, "The End." This is significant, as the pulse is a little slower and gets softer and eventually fades back into the ambience and then into nothing.

Again, we encourage you to play just the tracks of this song for your students so they can really hear the nuances of the music behind them. There are many different layers of very neat stuff, including synthesizers, sound effects, percussion, and that beautiful English horn.