Mister Frosty Winter

by Teresa Jennings/arr. Paul Jennings

Partner songs are great fun, and they have a real wow factor for your audiences. With this new winter tune we bring together several favorite things: a swinging partner song in minor mode, a great old jazz style, a cool big band playing the recorded tracks, and a new choreography video for the tune. This is a song you can perform on any winter concert. It is composed in the "hot jazz" style of the '30s and '40s, a style you hear in many period movies, including the wonderful animated movie, The Triplets Of Belleville.

When you first hear the song, the double time feel may sound a bit intimidating, but as you listen you will hear that the vocal parts are not moving so fast. Still, your best bet early in your rehearsals is to listen to the song, keeping an ear out for style, articulation, and the careful enunciation which will help your performance move forward.

As with all partner songs, you start by hearing each individual part singing its own melody to the background. Then, on the third verse, the two melodies combine to spectacular effect. If your singers have not sung a partner song before, practice just the two melodies separately until they can be performed confidently. In this song, we recommend starting slower without accompaniment, then once you are up to tempo, sing with the tracks.

When you are ready to do that third time through, with both parts together, have the singers for each part grouped together – closely at first, so that they can gain confidence from others doing the same part.

As mentioned, we have a really cool extra that you can access to enhance your performance – a choreography video designed by Melissa Schott and performed by her young dancers. It includes a broken down, slow motion version of all the steps with Melissa demonstrating and teaching, as do all of her choreography videos. There is also a PDF of teaching notes to help you create just the right movement for your students.

Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.