HOMEWORK FROM GMEA AND OMEA!
I gave teachers at GMEA and OMEA some homework after their first session… and YOU DELIVERED!
I have attached all of your original songs RIGHT HERE. These songs were created to teach students with autism to safely cross the street.
What I love about them is the similar lyrical themes (holding hands, looking both ways, being safe) as well as the melodic nature of them. REMEMBER! If these songs don't work exactly how you would like… EDIT THEM!
Check out an edit I did to a song written by Ally Feicht ( @allycfeicht ) during OMEA… Here's the original song she submitted:
I LOVE the nursery rhyme/sing-song nature of the first two bars. It flows naturally off the tongue, and it easily hummable! It was so good, in fact… that I stole it for the second half of my edited version!
I didn't get to speak to her about her writing process, but looking at the finished product - I can see that she had some lyrical ideas she really wanted to put in there to drive her points home (looking left, right, and holding a buddy's hand.)
If you look at this edit I did:
…You can see that I got all the same points across, but I was able to not only simplify the rhythmic structure (bars 1 and 3 have the same rhythm, as do bars 2 and 4) but also employ the melodic rise to end phrase 1 and employ the melodic fall to end the whole song.
I took her “nursery rhyme” feel and just rode that out all the way through. I also cut the word “First” from bar 3 to make the rhythm same as bar 1.
These are very simple edits that make this song functional FOR ME. For Ally or for you - this song might work perfectly as she wrote it. GREAT! I just wanted to show you how easy it is to take an existing song and shift some small elements to make it work for your kids in your class!
Great job Ally! And thank you to all of the teachers who submitted their original songs!
To check out more of my thoughts in the February “Music Teachers United” newsletter - GO HERE. Thanks!!! -Kevin