Make A Difference

Every year we publish an entire all-school musical revue in the pages of Music K-8 magazine. Typically, you will find all of the songs in the first three issues. The third issue will also contain a teacher's guide and (when applicable) a suggested script. We also usually give you some neat graphics to use for posters or programs, if you're so inclined.

This year's revue is called Make A Difference. As you might guess, its focus is on helping others. Though it is an all-school revue, it is designed to be flexible in order to work with various situations. For example, you may choose to perform the entire revue with just one grade level, such as fourth grade. Or you might combine a few grades or classes, like third, fourth, and fifth grades. Or perhaps you want to use your whole school, kindergarten through sixth grade or eighth grade or whatever your school is. The songs and narrations provided should give you plenty of options to work with to tailor the program to suit your needs. The one thing we usually suggest is that you not try to tackle the whole program with just your youngest singers, as it might prove to be too challenging. But that's your call. No one knows your students and their abilities better than you!

The title of the revue is a well-known phrase that most folks would instantly connect with thoughts of philanthropy, generosity, charity, compassion, and so on. To make the most of the revue, consider getting your school involved in special projects that help others, such as food drives. You could even ask your audience to contribute food, clothing, toys, etc., as an admission fee to your performance. Not only will the recipients benefit from their actions, but your students will also learn some valuable life lessons. And, oh yeah - they'll get to sing some cool music while they're at it!

And speaking of music... The opening song of the revue is also called "Make A Difference." It's a happy, positive, and enthusiastic song. And to make it as usable as possible in all your venues, it is all in unison. It's easy to teach, easy to learn, and if we may say so ourselves, downright catchy. The lyrics are memorable and state the case of the whole revue quite clearly right up front. (Note: For ease of learning, you can substitute the first verse for the second one when it repeats back to measure 9.) We would also like to mention that given the topic of the song, it is a great stand-alone which you can use outside of the revue as well.

If we had to label the style, we would call it shuffle pop. Though it is written in 4/4 time, it feels more like 12/8. Don't worry. You don't have to even think about that if you don't want to. Just listen to the Performance/Accompaniment recording and you (and your students) will feel it naturally. But if you do want to think about it, just realize that all eighth and sixteenth notes in the tune are supposed to swing. That is, they have a triplet based feel instead of the usual duple feel.

As always, we want to recommend that your students listen to our recording on the CD as we have gone to great lengths to make it quite excellent. Our players are world class and our engineers are pretty dang talented as well. You could say that the quality of these good people "makes a difference" in our music! (You're allowed to groan here.)