I Know an Old Lady

I can usually get children to sing. But I could not make a hit with the song "One in a Million!" from The Friend when it came to getting the kids here to sing that tune from the February 2011 issue.

I went back to the song the next day and looked at it carefully -- formatas, changes in tempos, even instructions to clap during one of the eighth rests ... and then I could see we were fighting with a song that is more difficult than one I usually pick up to try with them.

So ... never to give up, while Naomi was doing her valentines, I began to sing phrase after phrase, finally getting her to lead the song and using the formata at the end of the second line as a hook.

She could lead and I would hold the note until she made a loop and then the downward stroke to take me into the beginning of the syncopated next line.

Now we were having fun!

After that it was easy to move into the Reader's Digest Canadian Songbook. Who would have known that "I know an old woman who swallowed a fly," was written by a Canadian.

Nor who would have known how much fun it is to sing ... and to listen to the solemn parody on a funeral dirge at the end of the song.

So far we have learned "Four Strong Winds", "The Huron Carol" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" -- all songs by Canadian musicians.

I predict it won't be long until we are singing songs from the Bare Naked Ladies.

Arta