Song Collection - A Jolly Bunch Are We Archives - Donna & Andy

I Really Need to Know

Andy Duinker — Thu, 09 May 2024 01:27:25 +0000

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I Really Need to Know

by Donna Rhodenizer

Audio & Lyrics

Follow along with the lyrics as you listen to the accompaniment with melody guide for I Really Need to Know.

Part of a Song Collection

I Really Need to Know is one of 10 songs from the song collection "A Jolly Bunch are We". Donna Rhodenizer and Andy Duinker have written these songs in a variety of styles and skill levels for singers from ages 5-12+.

Learn more about this fun collection for elementary-aged kids, choirs and solo vocal students.

Stream and purchase Audio tracks

Stream or Purchase I Really Need to Know from many streaming sites including:

Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon, Pandora, Deezer.

The A Jolly Bunch Are We CD (Donna & Andy performance and instrumental) tracks (20) are available for download or physical CD on this website.

Teacher Tips

Warm-ups

Try some spoken tongue twisters and sung tongue twisters to warm up before singing this song.

Introducing the song

Ask the students what they are curious about.

What things do they like to learn about?

Does anyone know any facts about the things listed in the verses of the song?

Why/how do lightning bugs light up?
What do the students know about dinosaurs?
Can anyone share any information about stars or galaxies?
What animals roar?
What are some famous ships?
Does anyone know any ships that are famous because they sank?

Expressive Singing

Explore the lyrics of the song and discover what words to emphasize to create an expressive performance.
Use clear diction and dynamic changes to create an expressive performance.

The 5 Ws

Choose a topic and discover the answers to “who, what, where, when, and why” relating to that topic. Another question, not included in the song, is the question, “How”.
Write a song, a poem or a story about your topic using the answers you have discovered.

Character Education

How does curiosity affect what happens in our every day lives?
How can curiosity help us learn?
Is curiosity always a good thing?
What are some things that have happened in our world because someone was curious?

Score Study

Many accidentals have been included to create the melody of this song.
Discuss how an accidental is used to change the pitch of a note.
Provide students with the vocal score and find bars where accidentals have been added.
Discuss which pitches are affected and sing those bars to see how the melody sounds.
A one-page explanation of accidentals used in this song is provided in the Teaching Tips PDF download.

Colouring Page - Download

Download (pdf), print and have fun colouring this page while you listen to the song I Really Need to Know.

Composer's Notes

I Really Need to Know

My students all know that I talk quickly and even when I try to slow down, it doesn’t last very long. When I get excited I can really get going! In addition to talking quickly, I also like tongue twisters and interesting word combinations. The idea for I Really Need to Know came when I was thinking about how it feels to say the 5 w’s: Who, what, where, when, why. The tricky word combination: “why did who did do what they did” also popped into my head and it seemed to me to be a fun group of words to navigate. The swinging style of the melody is a favourite feel I like to use when writing for young singers. It is cheery and it suits the natural rhythms that we use when speaking. That makes a song easier to sing and it feels very natural as well. It felt like the lyrics needed to examine things we might want to explore when asking all those questions. Andy & I wrote down some things we thought were interesting like lightning bugs and dinosaurs, stars and galaxies, world explorers in boats (with a reference hinting at those ships that were famous because they didn’t float!) and the verses fell into place. I categorize this type of song as a “list” song which is not my usual mode of writing. I usually write more story songs, but as a composer, I try not to turn down the creative ideas that come my way. After all, a list song is still a song!

I introduced this song to my school choir around 2011 and we sang it at a good clip with a tongue twister kind of vibe. Later, Andy and I were asked to submit a song for a commercial project and we tried this as a slower, swing style piece and that seemed to work well, so that is the style that we kept for the final version. Now you really know “who, what, where, when and why”!

You Are Invited

When you have enjoyed singing this song and doing the activities with your students - please drop by again and leave a Review on this page. Thanks!

Please send us your performance video - we might be able to post it on this page!

Send us your video of I Really Need to Know and perhaps we can post it here.

The post I Really Need to Know appeared first on Donna & Andy.

My Kaleidoscope View

Andy Duinker — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 00:15:30 +0000

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My Kaleidoscope View

by Donna Rhodenizer

Audio & Lyrics

Part of a Song Collection

My Kaleidoscope View is one of 10 songs from the CD "A Jolly Bunch Are We". Donna Rhodenizer has written 9 of the songs in a variety of styles and skill levels for singers from ages 5-12+.

Learn more about this fun collection for elementary-aged kids, choirs and solo vocal students. Enjoy!

Stream and purchase audio tracks

Stream or Purchase from many streaming sites including:

Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon, Pandora, Deezer.

The Computer Cat CD (Donna & Andy performance and instrumental) tracks (24) are available for download or physical CD on this website.

Teaching Tips

Discuss the jazz elements of the song:

Switching between minor and major thirds is a stylistic element used in jazz. Find the spots in the melody where these notes occur.

Other notes are changed by adding accidentals. Discuss how accidentals work. Once they have changed a note in a bar, every note that is the same will also be changed, without adding another accidental. However, once you leave that bar, the accidental is no longer in effect unless it is added again. Remembering which notes are changed and which ones are not takes practice!

Look at the vocal score and find the tied notes and syncopations that give the song its swinging jazz feeling. Sometimes the syncopations are created by starting a phrase on beat two with a rest on beat one.

The metronome marking at the beginning of the piece states “swing the eighths”. This means that eighth notes will not be sung as two notes of equal value even though that is how they are written. Swinging the eighth notes means that the first eighth note will be held longer and the second eighth note will be shortened. The music will have a lilt or a “swing” because of this.

Performance suggestions

Add visual colour to the performance by adding colourful scarves as props, or if there are multiple members in your ensemble, dress in a variety of colours that are mentioned in the song.

Composer's Notes

My Kaleidoscope View

I remember one Christmas when we received a brand new colouring book (not handed down from one of my two older sisters!) and a big box of 48 crayons. I think it even had a sharpener in the back of the box. Midnight Blue was a favourite colour for my sisters and me. There were various shades of blue, including multiple turquoise options, and enough reds to make that Christmas colouring book vibrate with our colourful choices. What fun we had colouring at our big dining room table. I expect it also was lovely for our parents to have us quietly occupied during our extended colouring sessions!

In language we also have a large palette of colours that are sprinkled throughout our language we can be green with envy, feeling blue, tickled pink, etc. I started jotting down all the different idioms that involved colours and started organizing them into lyrics for a song. When I ran out of the idioms I could think of off the top of my head, I did an online search to see if there were more that I had missed (and there were!). Remembering my joyful childhood colouring sessions I thought all those colourful emotions might be like that big box of crayons with its 48 colours!

I set all the colourful idioms to music using a jazzy, swing style. Although there is a range of emotions from “black as thunder” to “as good as gold” I liked focusing on the optimistic attitude of viewing the world with “rose-coloured glasses” and the fact that “as a friend I am true blue” so I repeated those lyrics for a bit of positive reinforcement. Since there were so many words, I wanted to include a few breaks here and there. Whistling a phrase has always been a fun challenge for my students so I added that in as well. It seemed fitting to combine all those colours from my “box of crayons” into one big, colourful attitude, and voilà! I ended up with My Kaleidoscope View.

I was delighted to have retired high school band teacher and long-time friend, Richard Bennett, create the amazing big-band style arrangement of this song for me. He captured the feel of the song and helped add even more depth and colour to My Kaleidoscope View!