Surfin' The 'Net

What better way to break up the winter blahs than with this fun and upbeat song with a timely subject? "Surfin' The 'Net" is a beach rock song (you must admit that the expression "surfin' the 'net" or "surfin' the web" begs for a clever musical comparison to this style of song...) designed to get your students excited about the wonders of the internet. E-mail, newsgroups, web pages, on-line games - they're all a part of our lives now!

You will definitely want to use the Performance/Accompaniment CD or cassette for this piece, unless you have your own early 60's style rock band - complete with background beach guy vocalists - to help you out. (And if you do, please send us a tape of the performance! We'd love to hear it.)

The intro is played by snare drum and guitar only. Although it is short, it will give the starting pitch, style, and tempo of the song to your singers Once they have practiced with the accompaniment CD or cassette a few times, they'll be able to come in easily (on the "and" of 3).

Although the tempo of this song is 162, don't let it fool you - it isn't tough to keep up with, as long as you keep part 1 and part 2 sung by different groups of students. (If your students try to sing both parts, they won't have much opportunity to breathe!) Each part is unison, and the vocal range for both is middle C to the C above.

As a performance suggestion, you might want to have your students wear colorful shirts, leis, swimsuits, and/or sunglasses. This is, after all, a beach/sun/surfing song. For movement, you could incorporate different types of 60's dances, such as "the swim, " though your students are sure to be moving on their own from the moment the song begins. There is plenty of opportunity for them to ham it up completely with retro beach moves. You could also have them clap on beats 2 and 4 to match the snare drum hits.

During the guitar solo, you could implement a "surfing sequence," where students come onstage with surfboards (real or cardboard) and computer keyboards (detached from their computers). They could lay the surfboards down, step onto them and pretend to be playing the keyboards like guitars, thus cleverly incorporating both aspects of the title "Surfin' the 'Net".

Special thanks to Randy Melson, Sandy Williams, and Dane Clark for their adding their "good vibrations" to the song; and to Mike Wilson for providing his ingenious recording technique and singing and "Beach Guy" consulting on the background vocals.