Born To Make Music

This upbeat, country rock 'n' roll song will get your students on their feet and singing along in no time. Designed to be learned quickly, you will find the melody and lyrics easily memorized for that Music In Our Schools Month or spring performance. Of course, the subject is timeless and you could use it whenever and however you need!

You will want to select your soloists ahead of time to do the high and low notes during the section at 13. We used the same singers each time, but you could certainly alternate them. You could also choose a small group instead of a soloist. We used one of our older boys to do the low solo, as his voice was starting to change, and we wanted to give him the opportunity to use that new lower sound. You may find your guys with similar vocal characteristics will appreciate the chance to demonstrate their new range as well.

The instrumental background for this tune is a lot of fun to listen to and play. Our guitarist, Sandy Williams, definitely has a talent for playing electric country blues! Of course, we think you will enjoy using the recording for the tune in your performances, but this is one case where you might actually want to put together your own country group to perform. You could have them play it live, or they could play along with the recording for a solid background. This is especially important if you only have some of the instrumentation (such as just guitar). The chords are included on the piano/vocal score as usual. Tell your players to interpret them in a blues style, if possible. Listening to our rhythm section's interpretation will help them do this if they don't quite understand yet. For a live performance, we recommend drums, bass, piano, electric guitar, and acoustic guitar (for rhythmic strumming). An organ (or synthesizer with an organ sound) added at the key change would be appropriate, too. Have the player just comp and improvise as our player did. Again, listening to the example on the recording would be very helpful.

This is another song that would definitely be enhanced by movement. Just the style of it suggests a pulse which your students may already be moving to whether you ask them to or not! The claps, which are indicated on the music and played on the recording, will offer a natural outlet for movement merely through the execution of them. Add a side to side rocking or stepping, and you have instant movement. You can get more elaborate as you wish, adding hand jives or steps accordingly. As we mentioned before, asking your students to help with ideas is a great way to get them more involved in the process.

The claps have a varied rhythm at measure 13 and after the key change at measure 34. Use the "stop times" to do freezes with your students as the motion of the music freezes. This will be effective, especially since this is also the time the soloists are featured. A word of advice: If you have a large ensemble clapping, make sure the background music is loud enough that they can hear the beat and stay with it!