Friends And Fans

by Teresa Jennings

Songs about friendship are always good options for celebrating Valentine's Day with kids. This particular one invites your learning guitar students (optional) to join in as well with a few basic chords. The chord diagrams are indicated on the music for the first iteration of each new chord. There are only 4 of them (C, Ami, G, and F) and the diagrams we use are simple, 4-string options. The new learning challenge will be the F chord, which uses one finger to cover two strings. Have players strum freely along with our recording, but let them play simpler rhythms like whole notes. Remember, it's in cut-time, so it moves along.

The vocal part is very simple and fun to sing, if our studio kids were any indication. They seemed to enjoy the music and the message. No doubt the current social networking trends have helped familiarize them with the terms "friends" and "fans." If this is Greek to you, ask your students. Or check out a social networking site, such as Facebook®, yourself. It's interesting to see how our social lives are evolving, right in front of our computers.

Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.