A Penny Saved
by John Riggio
Saving money is a valuable life skill. We save in order to purchase something we can't afford right away. We save in case of emergencies. We save for retirement. This cross curricular song will get your students thinking about the wisdom of saving up!
This is a march, but with a show tune or musical bent to it. The vocals on the verses should reflect the bounciness of the tracks during the verse. However, they shift to legato during the dream-like section at measure 13 for contrast. If your students are unfamiliar with the concept of a whole-tone scale, measures 17 and 18 demonstrate it, with both ascending and descending lines, and a harp for added dreaminess! This is also a good time to explain the idiom "saving for a rainy day," where the rainy day is a day of trouble or need.
There is an optional solo spoken line in verse 2: "financial plans that could save the day." We include that on the full performance of the song. But if you want to skip the solo, you can find a full performance of the song without that spoken line on our web site.
Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.