Little Drummer Children

This lively Latin music and percussion-themed piece is perfect for your performance-based seasonal productions! While there is a lot of singing, the real stars of this show will be your percussionists. Even young ones who can't read music could participate if you're inclined to let them. The lyrics do tell of "little" drummer children, so why not?

As is often the case, we recommend letting your singers listen to ours on the recording to get the idea of how it all goes. And while you could do it all in unison, there is an optional second part that makes it even more fun, especially for older singers.

Essentially, there are four percussion lines. Percussion 1 includes rhythm sticks and drums. Percussion 2 includes cow bells and more/other drums. Note that drums can be any non-pitched instrument such as hand drums or buckets played with a stick or by hand. It can also include anything found or made, such as cardboard boxes or coffee cans. You can follow the parts exactly as written or alter them any way you like. Notably, there is a percussion interlude at measure 27 that shines the spotlight on players. First, percussion 1 plays, then on the repeat, percussion 2 joins in (drums with a pickup). After the interlude at bar 43, the patterns change/simplify, but you could let players continue the interlude patterns. Or again, alter them any way you like. The latter might be especially helpful with very young players.

To help with all of this, we have created PDFs of the percussion parts as well as a "kid percussion only" audio recording you can access at our web site. Additionally, you will find an isolated rehearsal track for vocal part 2 and an alternate full version of the whole song without any kid percussion on it. You can find all of these at MusicK8.com