Music and Music Resources by Stephanie Douglass
Who’s feeling festive? Oh yeah!
Did you know that Jingle Bells was written as a Thanksgiving song? Did you know that, living in coastal California, my students had no idea what a one-horse open sleigh even is?
It’s challenging to find easy Disney songs to share, but I think this is a sweet one, and fun to sing! Please don’t sue me Disney! I’m just a Joe Schmoe trying to help people be good at music!
You know when you’re at a birthday party and someone starts singing “Happy Birthday,” but they started too high and you have to change keys in the middle of the song?
Don’t do that. Start low. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk ;D
Anyway, I procrastinated making this chord chart, but now that it’s made I’m going to probably use it forever. My brain really wanted the chart to be the other way with the keys on the left and the I/V7/IV as columns, but it just didn’t work out if we wanted to be efficient with our space. Which we do – save the trees and all that.
Well hello. “Happy Birthday” is a great song for singing to anyone, especially on their birthday. 😉 It’s also great for learning which chords are related to each other, and for getting more fluent playing in different keys.
And many more…
This song is so much fun to sing because of its modal character. The chords move quickly, but it’s okay because they’re easy chords and there are only 3 of them (G, D7, em).
This is my favorite song to teach with only 2 chords!
Why did I chose to teach it C-G7 for this video? I seriously have no idea, because when I was teaching this to young kids it was much easier to teach this song using F and C7. Ah well. Maybe I’ll make an F-C7 version if there is demand.
Also included: Two strumming patterns!
This is “Blue Skies” by Irving Berlin. I love this song so much. I love the emotional meaning of the color blue (my favorite color), his use of mixed major and minor tonalities, and the melody itself of course. Kids love this song, too!
One of my favorite songs from childhood. Raffi is truly the master of the children’s song.
Have fun with this song that is an excellent example for teaching AABA form (both within the verses and in total) and a great introduction to The Beatles.
This song by Woody Guthrie is so good for kids – not only is the message and history so deep and nuanced, but the chord progression is easy to learn because if you lose your spot, you can always go back to C!
