Seventh Inning Stretch

This piece is what you might call a multipurpose piece. It's a movement song, it's very easy, it could be an audience participation song, it's seasonal, it crosses the curriculum to sports (which could in turn cross further into character via teamwork and good sportsmanship), and it features a phat jazz band, which is always a good tie-in to your music studies. Oh, and one more thing. It's essentially just a swinging boogie woogie that uses mostly three basic chords. That means your young guitar students can strum along, too! Didn't realize you had such a valuable gem here, did you?

The recording also includes some neat-o sound effects of a baseball/stadium setting to get your students and/or audience in the mood. As we said, this is easy - so easy that once your audience hears it, they could join right in with no trouble. In fact, we can imagine stadiums across America singing this ditty during the real Seventh Inning Stretches... (Hey, you gotta dream big, right?) Back here on earth though, it's more likely it will serve as a break in the action that allows students to stand up and stretch, literally. You could use this in your own class, but wouldn't it be great if the classroom teachers also used it to give students a breather while studying or taking tests? Exercise and good breathing are essential to clear thinking!

Since the idea is to stretch, discuss this with your students before doing the tune. Stretches should be slow and easy. They can include everything from legs and arms to fingers and toes. But allow no rapid moves, no stretching beyond reasonable limits. You might have to keep your athletic kids in check here, so watch them. The idea is not to show off or do anything too strenuous. You're just getting the blood flowing. At measure 13, have them go sort of "neutral" for a moment. Then they can stretch upward with their arms, reaching toward the ceiling, during the "stretch up high" part. For "stretch down low," a slow, gentle bending at the waist, knees bent, reaching to the floor should feel relaxing. There should never be any pain whatsoever.

To help with the relaxed vibe of the stretching, let your students relax their enunciation as well. Really. Lips, jaws, face muscles - keep them a little slack and even lazy for the best results.

As for the guitar, the body of the song from measure 5 to almost the end uses three chords: G7, C7, and D7. If students want to try to play any of the other chords, they can. Or they can play simplified alternatives or just rest. At the bottom of this page on the left, we have diagrams for three simple fingerings for these three chords using four strings. Your more advanced students can use more difficult chords/fingerings if they like.

Of course, this would also be a fun piece to do in performance. (Hence the audience participation notion.) Costumes are obvious, movement is obvious - does it get any easier?