Joggin' Jig

What a fun and lively song! Our annual tribute to green, spring, Ireland, March, and St. Patrick's Day comes in the form of a movement song that's oh-so-singable by any of your students, no matter how young. You will want to use the recording for this one as it features our amazing drummer Dane Clark playing a wonderful shuffle rock beat your kids will absolutely want to dance to. You will also hear penny whistle, viola, violin, and some neat percussion, among other things, on the recording, Together, they keep things rollicking along nicely.

Though the tune for the instrumentalists is written in 12/8 as indicated in parentheses on the piano/vocal, it can and should be taught in 4/4 to your singers. The vocal line is written accordingly.

Since the idea is for your students to move while singing, the melody, rhythm, and lyrics easily stay out of the way. In fact, once your kids have sung along with the recording a couple of times, they will know the tune well enough to add the movement readily.

There are a couple of ways to approach movement for this song. First, you could just let students do what comes naturally as they sing - a bit of improvised movement. The words inspire jogging, jigging, and moving up and down. So a second thought might be to actually plug in the actions as the words are spoken. For example when singing "jog-gin'," let students jog in place. When they say "jig," have them do a sort of little jig. (You can help them with this part.) When they sing "up" and/or "down," they can go up on their toes and squat down accordingly. Come up with a pose for them to freeze on for the last beat, and you have a choreographed tune!