I’ve been confined to quarters as I’ve ‘done’ my back again. I’ve had to cancel classes which is something I really hate to do and so have spent lots of time thinking as I can’t do much else, especially if it means moving!
One of the things I’ve been thinking about (apart from how much of a pain is back pain!) is how to keep old, familiar songs vibrant and interesting. Children enjoy and need repetition but it’s also important to keep things fresh and varied, for the sake of the children and adults attending and also for the practitioner – nothing worse than a bored and lacklustre class leader.
Let’s take one song, say, Row, Row, Row Your Boat. It’s a great song, simple, repetitive, everyone knows it and can sing it with gusto. You can use it to emphasise pulse and pitch, it fits nicely into different themes (transport, seaside, holidays, animals) but if used in the same way it can become stale. I’ve been thinking of ways to keep it interesting.
These are the traditional lyrics:
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
For newborn babies I use this as a gentle rocking song, holding the baby in your arms and rocking them side to side. For older babies who have head and back control, you can sit them on your knee facing you, holding their hands and moving forwards and backwards in a rowing motion. This particular way of using the song can be continued right up through toddlerhood and into pre-school years. It’s a good way of emphasising pulse through movement.
With toddler and pre-schoolers you can start to introduce some other activities and props and change the lyrics. All my groups love the alternative lyrics below:
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream
If you see a crocodile, don’t forget to scream!
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the river
If you see a polar bear, don’t forget to shiver
Row, row, row you boat, gently back to shore
If you see a lion, don’t forget to roar!
A pair of earplugs comes in useful when you have large pre-school groups doing this but it does introduce changes in vocalisation so children can start to distinguish between different types of sounds produced by their voices.
As well as varying the lyrics you can change your props. When working with parent and child classes I introduce hoops for the toddler age group. The parent faces the child as in the baby version both holding the hoop, pushing and pulling forwards and backwards in time to the pulse. The child can sit inside or outside the hoop depending on the size of the child and the hoop. A similar activity can be used in large groups using a giant elastic scrunchie with the children holding the scrunchie.
I also use the song for pitch awareness, using the lyrics below.
Row, row, row, your boat gently up the stream
Up, down, down, down, life is but a dream.
Using the hoop and scrunchie props as above or a play parachute, start by gently shaking up and down to the pulse and lifting upwards as the pitch rises and lowering as the pitch falls. For an activity without props and especially suited to young babies, start with gentle bouncing then lift the child up and down to the changes in pitch.
And finally, you can use the song for introducing dynamic and tempo changes. You can do this with movement and vocal dynamic changes, or by using a simple percussion instrument playing on the pulse:
Row, row, row your boat, quietly up the stream
Row, row, row your boat loudly up the stream
Row, row, row your boat slowly up the stream
Row, row, row your boat quickly up the stream
So there are many ways to use just this one song, emphasising different areas of musical development. Using a varied approach should help keep the song from becoming dull and uninspiring but still keep that much needed familiarity.
Rhythm Express 