My dog has fleas?

One of my favorite “starter” xylophones songs is “I’ve Got a Dog,” using some of the suggestions in Diane Lange’s Together in Harmony. 

I’ve got a dog as thin as a rail

He’s got fleas all over his tail.

Every time his tail goes flop

The fleas on the bottom all hop to the top (stop!)

One bug, two bug, three bugs, four

Five bugs, six bugs, seven bugs, more

Eight bugs, nine bugs, oh my, ten!

Go back to the beginning and do it again!

After assuring the kids that my own dogs get monthly flea preventative, we learn several ostinati (repeated patterns) that fit with the song. The xylophones are set up with just five bars to make part of a minor scale—D, E, F, G, A. We make big, small, and giant beats (also know as macro/microbeats or quarter, eighth, half notes), learn about minor chords, and practice stepping up and down the xylophone bars with correct technique. 

3rd and 4th graders love this as a re-introduction to xylophones, too, as long as I acknowledge it’s a “little kid” song, heh! Many of them are also learning the D minor chord on ukulele right now, so they can make that connection and play together.

My kid’s service dog Tonks, cleverly disguised as a fire truck

Go in Peace and a Thanksgiving Song

Over the years, I’ve written quite a few songs to use with students, from silly to serious. I’d like to share two that have become part of our school traditions, and you are welcome to use them for your own purposes!

I wrote the first, “Go in Peace,” to be sung at the end of our Lower School Meeting for Worship. Our school is a Friends school, and Meeting for Worship--we retain the name from Quakerism, but it is not presented as a religious practice--is an important time of holding the silence and students speaking up as they feel led to respond to that week’s query. When I started teaching at CFS, we then asked the students to leave the gathering room in silence so we didn’t go straight from peace to chaos. Our children mostly do a wonderful job respecting the silence during Meeting, but once they pop up they are ready to make some noise! I was asked to find a song, but none of them seemed to quite fit our school—they were either too silly, too complicated, or too religous. Writing my own was the natural solution! Here are the words to my “Go in Peace,” and the sheet music is below.

Go in peace, go in peace

With this blessing in your heart

May your light shine brightly wherever you are.

Go in peace, go in peace

May this silence teach us grace

To help each other make the world a better place.

A lifelong Quaker friend and colleague has taught this song at Quaker conferences and in meetinghouses around the country, and I have heard that this song is now being used in multiple Friends schools!

Another song I wrote early in my career at CFS is a Thanksgiving round. I really wanted to have something to teach the kids to sing for Thanksgiving, but in this case all the songs were either about turkey, religion, or told a whitewashed story about pilgrims. Here’s my simple round, sheet music also included below:

For the blessings of the earth

For the gifts of love and friendship

For the beauty of life

We give thanks, we give thanks

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

Songs for Hispanic Heritage Month

A culturally responsive music curriculum can provide many opportunities for students to explore their own identities and learn about less familiar cultures, countries, and traditions. My home state, North Carolina, has well over a million Hispanic residents, and that number is growing rapidly. Our wonderful Spanish teachers incorporate singing into their lessons, but I like to also include Spanish-language songs in my curriculum for deeper learning and to emphasize that Hispanic culture isn't just for Spanish class! One of my favorites, “Vengan a ver," is a song that serves a similar purpose in the Spanish-speaking world to “Old McDonald Had a Farm” in the English-speaking world. The kids absolutely love this and delight in challenging me to name animals in Spanish. 

Vengan a Ver

Vengan a ver mi granja, que es hermosa

Vengan a ver mi granja, que es hermosa

El cerdito hace así: oinc, oinc

El cerdito hace así: oinc, oinc

O va, camarad’, o va, camarad’, o va o va o va

O va, camarad’, o va, camarad’, o va o va o va

Translation:

Come and see my farm, because it’s beautiful (x2)

The piggy goes like this: “oink, oink” (x2)

Oh come, friend, oh come, friend, oh come oh come oh come (x2)

Of course, the most fun part of the song is inserting the animals. I also like to make it additive—each verse, after adding the new animal, we go back through the ones we’ve already done. Here are a few animals we enjoy:

 

Pato/Patito (duck/duckie)

Vaca/Vacita (cow)

Gallina (hen)

Gallo (rooster)

Oveja (sheep)

Caballo (horse)

Perro/perrito (dog/doggie)

Gato/gatito (cat/kitty)

Cobaya (guinea pig)

Serpiente (snake)

Elefante (elephant)

Other songs we’ll be learning include the classic De Colores and La Araña pequeñita (the itsy bitsy spider).

Music Workshop is a free resource for music educators that has some excellent video content about musical cultures, instruments, etc. We’ve watched parts of the Latin American Music video in our Lower School music classes over the last week, and the kids have especially enjoyed seeing the wide variety of current/“cool” songs and modern concerts shown alongside more traditional music. They’ve also enjoyed a couple Mariachi excerpts from the fabulous Pixar movie “Coco.”

Let me know what other Latin American songs you like to sing!

This Little Light of Mine

My school has a lovely tradition of "settling in" (a Quaker/Friends School practice) at the start of each day and after transitions. The Lower School has an all-unit settling in every Monday, and we have a tradition of ending it with a song. Every year, I start and end the year with a familiar song that to me embodies our goal as a school: “This Little Light of Mine.”

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine (x3)

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine (x3)

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

We then pick other things to “shine,” such as “My teachers and my friends, I’m gonna let them shine,” or, “All around the world, I’m gonna let it shine.” In music class, we might even get a little silly and add things like, “These wiggly fingers of mine,” or “This messy hair of mine!” It’s a great song for getting kids used to clapping and body percussion, dancing, or marching around the room in music class. It’s an easy song to add countermelodies and harmonies in my older classes.

Though it is often listed as an “African-American spiritual," “This Little Light of Mine” was actually written in the 1920s by a white minister in Michigan as a children’s song. However, when it was documented by John Lomax in 1939, then adapted into a civil rights anthem in the 1960s by Zilphia Horton, it became associated with other spirituals and often mistaken for one.

No matter its origins, “This Little Light of Mine” is a wonderful reminder of our Friends belief of the “light” that exists inside everyone. All our other testimonies—peace, respect, service, etc.—can be linked back to this concept. 

And it’s really fun to sing!

I’m back!

Hello Friends! It has been several years since I’ve kept up with this blog, and after many requests from families to keep up with the musical scene at CFS and beyond, I’m reviving it. Here you can still find my beginner ukulele tutorials (wow, do I look young!) and information about the Recorder Interactive beginning recorder method, as well as all my older posts. Soon I’ll be posting activities and lyrics from 2023-24 music class, local and virtual music resources, and odds and ends from my life as a music director and performer. I’m also excited to share ideas and activities inspired by my Mindful Schools and Breathe for Change mindfulness and yoga teacher training, especially ways to integrate mindfulness into music class and music-making in general.

If you’re looking for my writing blog, check out my personal website: http://josiskpurvis.com. 

Keep on singing! 🎵❤️

Life has not been boring: my 13-year old pets a shark in August 2023!

Deep Blue Sea

This summer I learned a simple but beautiful old time song called "Deep Blue Sea" from the talented Christen Blanton. It is a perfect song for singing simple harmony, but the words are not so perfect... after a lovely, perky opening repeating "Deep blue sea, baby, deep blue sea," it ends in the inevitable watery death: "It was Willy what got 'drowneded' in the deep blue sea." Not so good for young kids. Or sensitive adults, for that matter.

So I wrote some alternate lyrics for the little ones, which especially work here a couple of hours from the coast, where so many kids look forward to going to the beach every summer. It's not exactly a work of art, but I like it better than anyone "drowneding."

Deep Blue Sea

Deep blue sea, baby, deep blue sea

Deep blue sea, baby, deep blue sea

Deep blue sea, baby, deep blue sea

I wish that I could go right now to see the deep blue sea

I’d jump and run in the big blue waves x 3

I wish that I could go right now to see the deep blue sea

I’d dig and build in the sparkling sand x 3

I wish that I could go right now to see the deep blue sea

I’d see the dolphins leap and play x 3

I wish that I could go right now to see the deep blue sea

I’d find myself some fancy shells x 3

I wish that I could go right now to see the deep blue sea

Deep blue sea, baby, deep blue sea x 3

I wish that I could go right now to see the deep blue sea

Here's a mistake-ridden video of a couple verses, if you haven't heard the tune, and a harmony suggestion:

Simple, right?