Mother Earth

by Teresa Jennings

This lovely song can be used as a celebration of spring, or in recognition of Earth Day, or any time you want to sing about good ol' "Mother Earth." If you have a good guitarist in your midst, you could perform this piece live, using just guitar and piano. The guitar solo is written out for your convenience. Our soloist, Sandy Williams, played the solo on his nylon string guitar, but it can be played on any acoustic guitar. Sandy also included a layer of 12-string acoustic guitar, and at the chorus, a 12-string electric guitar. The effect is very pleasant.

The song is unison throughout until the very end when it breaks into an optional divisi. The style is gentle and folk-like and should be pretty simple for your students to pick up. Again, listening to the singers on our recording will help. (We found that this was one of their favorite songs in the recording session. They said it reminded them of a 60's or 70's folk song, which is kind of neat!)

Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.