Somos el Barco and Ukuleles!

This week we’ve been singing a perrenial Lower School favorite,  Somos el Barco by Lorre Wyatt. Not only does this song have a beautiful message of how we’re all in this life thing together, the chorus is great for Spanish learners as the Spanish is directly followed by the English translation. It’s an easy song to add echoes on the chorus, too, which makes it sound “fancy.” It’s one of my most frequently requested songs!

Somos el Barco

By Lorre Wyatt

The stream sings it to the river, the river sings it to the sea
And the sea sings it to the boat that carries you and me.

Somos el barco, somos el mar, yo navego en ti, tu navegas en mi
We are the boat, we are the sea, I sail in you, you sail in me

And the boat we are sailing in was built by many hands
And the sea we are sailing on, it will touch every sand.

CHORUS

The voyage has been long and hard, yet we are sailing still
With a song to help us pull together if we only will.

CHORUS

So with our hopes we raise the sails to face the wind once more
And with our hearts we chart the waters never sailed before.

CHORUS

3rd and 4th-years have started ukuleles! Third-years have learned the playing position, names of the open strings, and have played patterns using our mnemonic “Good Cows Eat Apples” (or, as a student suggested this week, “Graham Crackers Every Autumn”). Fourth-years only had one class due to Fall weekend, but they still had time to review the strings and play the first part of “Kookaburra” on the open strings.

Many families have asked about buying a ukulele to play at home. It is absolutely not required, but it’s a wonderful instrument to have around and not very expensive! Super cheap ukuleles, however, can be frustrating—they often are poorly set up with misaligned frets, so they sound out of tune no matter how well you tune/play them. In my classroom, I use Kala’s Makala Shark/Dolphin soprano ukuleles and they are high quality beginner instruments! Kala also makes intermediate- and professional-level ukuleles that are very good—I think you can’t go wrong with the brand.

More about ukuleles next week!

A Kala Makala shark ukulele