Selecting Songs for Your Graduation Ceremony

Album Graphic:

Audio Upload:
      02pompandcircumstancemedium.mp3

Choosing a top-ten HIT for your elementary school graduation could be a top-ten MISS!

     Selecting songs for the graduating class (or chorus) can be tricky.  If you ask your students to suggest songs, they will most likely choose Top 10 Pop Songs of the day.  If you can find one with appropriate lyrics and message, it might work.  However, be aware of a few pitfalls of choosing a pop song the kids love.

  1. Some of your students may love it, and some may not.  Further, if the original version is sung by a female vocalist, your male students may object, saying it’s a ‘girl’s’ song.  The reverse may hold true if the original version is sung by a male vocalist.
  2. A song that sounds good when performed by a solo vocal artist may sound awful when sung by a graduating class (or chorus).  All the flourishes that a vocalist (such as Mariah Carey) does might sound awful when performed by 50, 100, or more students.
  3. If you are playing the accompaniment on the piano (or keyboard), your students will inevitably say "That’s not how it goes" or "It’s not supposed to sound like that!"  Children are used to the CD/MP3 they love, which was done with professional musicians, computers, and recorded in a million-dollar recording studio.  You can not match that with a simple piano accompaniment.

ALTERNATIVES:

     I suggest you choose songs your students have no prior knowledge of.  Since your students were mostly likely born around 1999/2000, that leaves a whole world of possibilities.  Personally, I love Broadway songs from the 1970’s.  By and large, they have a pop-rock feel, and they’re mostly unfamiliar to my students, which makes them fresh and new.  Of course, using a pop song from the 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s is also great idea.  If you’re feeling creative, try changing the lyrics of an old pop song, thereby turning it into a fresh, rhythmic, and exciting graduation tune.  For example, I once took the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons hit "Working My Way Back To You," and made it into a kindergarten graduation song called "Working Our Way Up To First Grade."  It was a big hit!    And finally, commercial octavos of original songs are always a good choice.

     If you are looking for some fun and original graduation songs, as well as all the standard graduation ceremony music, check out my
Graduation Complete Piano/Vocal Songbook with Accompaniment/Rehearsal


Listen to Pomp and Circumstance from Graduation Complete in the audio player, below.

 

Discipline In The General Music Class

Album Graphic:

Audio Upload:

When I tell people that I teach music to grades K-5, the response is uniformly the same: "You teach music?  Kids like music!  They must love your class!"  While it’s true that children do indeed like music, in a tough school, the general music class can be anything but fun.  That’s because, unbelievably, you could spend an entire period just trying to get the children in their seats with their attention focused on you! 

How is teaching possible if the children refuse to quiet down and behave?  As a New York City Elementary School music teacher for the past 25 years, I have had my share of out-of-control classes.  Here are a few ‘outside the box’ ideas for those music teachers who find it impossible to teach due to poorly behaved students.

 

MAKE YOUR MUSIC LESSON A GAME:  Children may like music, but they LOVE to play games.  Set up teams, points, prizes, etc… 
     For example, let’s say the aim of your lesson is: To understand the value of a quarter note and quarter rest.  Before your music class, prepare four flash cards:  two with quarter notes and two with quarter rests.  When the class begins, divide the class into two teams.  Explain and demonstrate both quarter notes and half notes.  Choose four students from a team and distribute the flash cards.  Play a rhythm pattern using two quarters and two quarter rests – instruct the students they must line up in the correct order of the pattern played.  If all four students are lined up properly, give that team four points.

 

LET STUDENTS WRITE ON THE CHALKBOARD:  Children love to come up and write on the chalkboard – especially if you have big ‘sidewalk’ chalk. 
     Any music lesson in which children write the answers at their desk, can be modified to let kids write their answers at the board.  For example, in the previous sample lesson of quarter notes and quarter rests, students can write the rhythm pattern on the board – with each of four students notating one beat each.

 

MOVE, MOVE, MOVE:  Children love to move around the room! 
     Again, most music lessons can be modified to allow for student movement.  Using the above example of the quarter note/quarter rest lesson, you could write four rhythm patterns (using quarter notes and rests) on cards and place each card in different areas of the room.  Then choose four students – play one of the four rhythm patterns – ask the students to walk to the corresponding card. 

 

     I hope the ideas I’ve outlined here are helpful to you.  If you’d like to explore more ideas for  discipline in the general music class, you’ll find them in my book, Winning Over Your TOUGHEST Music Class.