Rock & Roll Valentine

This is a very tongue-in-cheek piece about a person who wants, nay, believes he deserves a valentine. Yes sir! This person believes himself to be the quintessential rocker du jour, worthy of all the attention and accolades that go with that position. In other words, this is a silly song.

Rock & Roll Valentine is an eighth note driven piece where the most prominent instrument is a double layer of grunge electric guitar. The vocal line is very simple and repetitive, again using eighth note movement. What's more, only four notes are sung (F to B flat), so it really is easy. (Even for those hard-to-please, too-old-for-valentine-stuff older boys of yours.)

Our studio singers enjoyed this piece, not only because of its driving rock sound, but because of the humor factor. The piece features some amusing effects on the recording, as well as several spoken lines which your students may enjoy incorporating into a performance. There is one effect, a gargle, which will require your effect artist to have a cup of water on hand. Also there is a group effect - the Uh huh! - (performed in an exaggerated high voice) in measure 12 of verse two. Probably the most effective way for students to perform the individual spoken lines/effects is to have a microphone or two set up just for your soloists.

One possible idea for costumes for this song is to have students come out dressed as hearts. The heart costume could be a large cardboard cut-out with holes for the arms and face. Or you could make it smaller and have it hang around the neck via a piece of string. Have them wear sunglasses - after all, they're cool! Maybe have cardboard guitars as well, even shaped like hearts. During the guitar solo, they could all pretend to be jamming.