Friendly Sounds

by Teresa Jennings

In this song, as in all of our "sounds" songs, the idea is to start with one melodic or percussive line and add to it, one line at a time to a given point. Then, remove the lines one at a time till the ending. Sound simple? It really is.

For "Friendly Sounds," we started with rhythm, then body percussion, and then added our highly exaggerated 1950s-style nasal singing layers. Our singers got a huge kick out of doing this. Let your students hear our version for style.

This is an excellent tool for learning rhythms and part singing, and for keeping track of the form of a tune. Our suggested form is printed at the bottom of the music, but you can adapt it anyway you like.

Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.