A World Of Music

Every year, we publish a musical revue in its entirety within the first three issues of Music K-8. By the time subscribers receive their January/February issue, they have everything they need to perform all or part of this musical revue, including the songs, a script, and teaching suggestions.

This year, the title - and subject - of our revue is A World Of Music. As usual, our opening song shares the same name as the revue itself.

As you might imagine, the topic is an introduction to music all around the world. Our songs and script will provide a skeletal outline which you can follow, inserting your own materials along the way to make it a truly original production. Of course, you can adapt the songs or script in any way you wish to make it work in your situation.

The song, "A World Of Music," is a happy song, meant to introduce the revue, although it can certainly be used separately, if you prefer.

It begins with a simple ostinato on harp and piano which leads to an optional solo and then, duet. If you have singers who are capable of performing the solo/duet, it can be quite effective, as you will hear on the Performance/Accompaniment compact disc or cassette. The solo/duet may continue to measure 24, or, as we did on the recording, you may have the rest of your singers join in at bar 16, which is an optional divisi.

Each time at measure 24, the melody is sung in unison. On the repeat, it may split into divisi. At measure 34, it is unison again until the chorus at measure 44. Again, the first time through is unison, then divisi at the repeat.

Dynamics around measure 59 should be noticed, as they are different the two times they are sung. The first time, since the song is going back for the D.S., the dynamics are reduced to a mezzo-forte. The second time, the song goes to the coda and a dynamic of forte is indicated.

The divisi at the coda is optional, and can be performed as a unison to the end using either part 1 or part 2 as the melody. Be sure to point out to your singers that the section at measure 65 is sung four times. Again, the divisi at the very end of the song is optional. Consider letting only selected individuals sing some of the alternate notes.

If you choose to use the P/A recording, you will hear piano, guitar, electric bass, drums, congas, trumpets, horns, trombones, flute, saxophone and real strings. We also used some synthesizer sounds, such as the folk harp and FM Piano. The hand percussion you hear enter at various points in the song are all deliberately chosen from different places around the world. We included Venezuelan maracas, which are used for the joropo style of music, frenikiwa (African castanets), an African ashiko or djembe drum and a pandiero from Brazil. Be sure to let your students listen to the instrumental version of the song to see if they can identify the different sounds.