Rain Forest Daydream

This one is a little different, and we hope you will enjoy it. With a lush intro of strings, synthesizers and percussion, this tune is a laid-back piece of latin jazz. Of course, while the orchestra is playing rich, tightly voiced jazz chords, the kids are playing their pentatonic melodies based on D, E, G, A, and B. You will note that the recorder part is mostly made up of long value notes. Feel free to alter them to suit your teaching needs. As a matter of fact, they can serve as good opportunities to practice rhythms you are studying. For instance, on the bridge section at bar 31, all of the half notes could be changed to dotted quarter/eighth patterns. You may also want to use this tune (or parts of it) to practice simple improvisation based on the five notes used. At the very least, consider letting your players do a short improvisation under the final fermata, hopefully coming to rest on either the E or the A.