Listen Friends

Introducing the Song

Ask the students if they have ever heard bells ringing in a nearby church or other location.

Bells were used to help tell the time for people who lived nearby. Churches and schools would ring their bells to let the people know that a church service was ready to start or classes were ready to begin.

Students can be encouraged to move their bodies to simulate the movement of a large bell ringing its message. It is a slow, swaying motion.

Students may know another song about the bells. The traditional song Frère Jacques/Are You Sleeping is about brother John needing to wake up because the morning bells are ringing.

Listen Friends is about bells ringing to signal the end of the day. Children will be in their beds, dreaming pleasant dreams.

Expressive singing

Listen Friends could easily be considered a lullaby. The gentle melody is accompanied by chords that mimic ringing bells.

Discuss how the song should be sung to portray the feeling of calm and quiet preceding the time when children are sleeping.

The English lyrics ”Ding dong ding” and the French lyrics “din, dan, don” represent the sound of ringing bells. Decide how you will use your diction to make the words sound like bells. Singers may want to gently accent the beginning consonant and let the end of the words be soft and gentle.

Simple Chord accompaniment

Handbells/handchimes

The accompaniment for the A sections of Listen Friends is written using two chords that alternate. Use handbells or handchimes to create the two chords: D-F#-A and A-C#-E-G.

Older students can discuss how these chords are built by adding intervals of a third above the base notes of the Tonic/do and dominant/so notes from the D major scale. Younger students can be assigned a bell to create the chords and simply be instructed to play when it is their turn (either group 1 or group 2). Ideally, if two octaves of the same chord can be generated, playing the lower octave and then the upper octave in each bar creates lovely movement.

Arrange students in four groups. D chord – lower and upper octave, and A chord – lower and upper octave.

Place the lower octaves together and the upper octaves together so hand signals can be used with no confusion as to which group is supposed to be playing.

Group handbell/handchime details are in the download.

Orff instruments

Using Orff instruments is also an option for creating an accompaniment. Keep a steady, open-fifth “bordun”. Metallophones and/or glockenspiels are preferred as they will have a lingering bell-like tone. Orff instrument scores are included in the download for this song.

The metallophone score is the suggested arrangement if there is only one octave of instruments playing with no alternating between lower and higher octaves. If the option exists to alternate between lower and higher octaves, use the metallophone/glockenspiel score.

It is expected that students will most likely learn the Orff accompaniment parts by rote or with teacher signals (similar to the handbells). The Orff scores are included as a reference and an aid for teachers.

Language Study

A French adaptation of this song provides the opportunity for a language study, or to use this song with young French immersion students. With the ABA form and lyrics that repeat in the A section, the lyric load is accessible for young singers learning a new language. The vocal score is provided with one verse in English and one verse in French, creating a longer performance piece with both languages represented.