Dem Whacky Bones

This old favorite has a lot of verses, some more religious, as this first arrived as a spiritual, and the more secular, tied to the skeleton. We chose the latter for this Boomwhacker® adaptation.

The arrangement is a relaxed hip hop style for rhythm section with pizzicato strings and various percussion, including the vibraslap and several different African instruments, including two different shekere, a log drum, and a talking drum.

The students are featured playing Boomwhackers® (BWs) and rhythm sticks. The BWs are divided into two groups, each with a note in one of the two chords in the piece. As is always the case, they will sound better played on Bass Boomwhackers®, but any diatonic set works as well. The rhythm sticks start playing their own part, but at bar 25, they are intended to play the BWs with their sticks. Ideally, the BW players will hold their instruments in front of them as the rhythm stick players play them like drums, being careful to not hit too hard and to hit just the BWs, not the holders!

You may certainly use simpler rhythms for your rhythm stick players, such as:

Q Q rest Q|Q rest Q Q    (Q = quarter note)

Also feel free to add other percussion instruments including Orff instruments playing simple ostinati. There are no rules!

At the end of this piece, you will hear a cacophony of sound called Boomwhacker® applause. For the uninitiated, this means that students are encouraged to let loose with their BWs after all the hard work and discipline required to perform a piece like this. This is, as always, optional, but we find that kids really enjoy doing it. You will want to practice cutting them off.

Note: Despite the enthusiasm of the final comment, "We'd better drink our milk!," remember that some kids are not able to drink milk. Alternative sources of calcium might be a noteworthy conversation for the class.