Movin' To The Beat

Also part of the revue, We're Making Music!, the hip hop groove of this funky tune will appeal to most of your students right away. They will not only respond favorably the moment they hear it, they will start to physically move somehow, even unconsciously. We've seen it again and again. Take advantage. Use the opportunity to teach them a thing or two about rhythm and the beat using this style of music.

You will notice that on the music, there is an indication of body percussion: heels on floor, patsching (thigh slapping) with the bass rhythm, and later on, clapping. We did not incorporate this body percussion on the full performance version of the music on the CD. We found that the sounds and the actions were so all-encompassing on their own that they upstaged the synthesized groove. So, we did a recording with just the groove, the melody, some ad libbed guitar and synth funk, and the vocals. There is a two measure set-up before measure 1. To help your students feel it, listen for the whistles in the groove. There are four of them.

We had all the kids sing part 1 in unison. For part 2, we selected one soloist (Katy Hoyt) to sing in response to part 1. You will hear that she sometimes sang the part as written (with embellishments), and sometimes sang a bit more freely. This is absolutely fine for your soloist (or soloists) to do as well.

Since the song is about the beat, break it down and define it. The song is in cut-time. What does that mean? Cut-time can also be counted in 4/4 time. What does that do to the beat? This type of analysis will help when students are reading the body percussion rhythms.

Even though we did not include the body percussion on our full performance for the CD, we did record it in a special performance that only includes vocals and body percussion. You can find this performance on our web site. (See note below.) Instead of a soloist, we had a group of older girls do part 2 together. They had a blast! To do it this way, you will need to establish a tempo for the body percussion and you will also need to establish the starting pitch for the singers. A pitch pipe or note plunked on any keyboard would work. Of course, you can combine the performers singing and doing the body percussion along with the CD as well.

To make it more enjoyable, consider adding movement to the song, too. Though as we said, kids will be moving to this groove naturally. There is a note at the bottom of the music with one suggestion for adding specific movement. Use this, or come up with your own movement. Kids will have ideas.

Online extras - You will find a free, downloadable MP3 of the a cappella version of this song under the "Graphics and Extras" for Volume 16, No. 2 at MusicK8.com