Since Christmas break, I have been working with my 4th and 5th graders on the marimbas. In my classroom, I have a bass, baritone, 2 sopranos, and a 3.5 octave, plus a metallophone. I also use a shekere, cajon, conga and a guiro. My kids are having a lot of fun learning a few new pieces. My dilemma is finding pieces to use the marimbas as accompaniment for the rest of the class singing. I know there are pieces out there arranged for such a group, but I haven’t found any yet, so I have been making some of my own.
Using our music textbooks, I found the Van Morrison song, “I Shall Sing”. It uses only 2 chords, F and C7. It’s in the key of F, and I have Bb keys. The kids are having a blast. The accompaniment is quite easy. I have the bass part played on the bass, bari, and bottom of the 3.5 octave. The other instruments play an easy quarter note pattern; two beats of F and A; two beats of E and Bb. I’m thinking about bringing a couple of my sax players from my high school jazz band to play and improvise.
We also just started a piece called “Caribbean Sea”. It’s from the 6th grade book, “The Music Connection”, by Silver, Burdett and Ginn. It’s played by a group called “Earth Tribe Rhythms”. We are using the basic rhythm and chords (C and G7) for the accompaniment, but I asked the kids to help me come up with words and melody to go with it. I asked them to give me some words that they think of when the hear the words “Caribbean Sea”. Wow, they came up with over 60 words and short phrases. When we get it performable, I’ll post a video here.
If you know of any pieces that I should look at for this, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at turnermarimbas@gmail.com.