Ring In The New Year

This terrific little piece is a great way to combine voices, recorders, Boomwhackers®, unpitched percussion, and pitched percussion in one easy tune. It's quite brief at only 16 bars, so you may want to play it more than once.

The beauty of a piece like this is that everything is optional instrumentally. You can assemble your own mix of accompaniment to the vocal melody. Use what you have. Adapt as you need to. You could also just use piano with singers, though it's not as much fun.

The tune is also flexible in its topical use. "New Year" implies January 1, but it could also imply the Chinese New Year, which has a variable date from year to year. In fact, the words and serene pentatonic flavor easily lend themselves to this latter interpretation.

We have extracted two student parts which you will find on pages 64 and 65. One is for all pitched instruments, the other is for the unpitched instruments.

Note that the recorders include low C and D in the last few measures. You can substitute F's, which the vocals also have, if the C and D are too challenging.

On our web site, you will also find a neat mix of just the student parts put together. You can really hear what each part does. This is useful for teaching, but also might inspire your own live mix. All versions of all recordings include a count off to help players start on beat one in the first measure.