Learn how Jenny adjusts to students and shares how Eminem’s Mockingbird inspires ukulele students to try transposition.

As a General Music Classroom teacher, I am always looking for ways to engage students. What better way, than to teach music they listen to? Rap and hip-hop are genres of choice for today’s youth, but teaching rap in an authentic way can be complicated, due to lots of inappropriate material in many of the hits.

Our book, 21 Songs in 6 Days: Learn Ukulele the Easy Way, has the tune Hush Little Baby presented in two different keys. My students get to learn Hush Little Baby and then transpose the song. Because they physically do the transposing, they actually understand the meaning of the word!

Mockingbird was a hit in 1996, and is still popular. In this rap, Eminem speaks of his feelings of regret from being away from his two daughters as they grew up. There is no profanity in the song, but it is sad. Eminem uses the melody and lyrics of the folk tune Hush Little Baby in a creative and artistic way.

My students sing and play Hush Little Baby in two keys. Then, they get to watch Eminem’s video and reflect on the connections between the folk song and the rap hit. The students learn about transposition and the connections to poetry and literature. They also get to see how modern artists borrow from our shared history and speak to today’s realities. They love the lesson and are very engaged! It was fun to realize that Eminem’s Mockingbird inspires ukulele students to try their hand at transposition.

I wanted to share an experience at school that taught me to never make assumptions based on ethnic backgrounds and that music bridges cultures.

One of my observant Muslim students told me at the beginning of the year, that because of his religion, he could not play instruments. Then, he told me he could not sing any songs, unless they were prayers to his god. At this point, there are only two options: talk to your friends and get in trouble or read a book. As his teacher, I sent him to his classroom to get a silent reading book, so that I could teach my class.

I decided to call home and see what was up. Apparently, this child walks around home singing all the time, which bothers his parents. He is a serious and respectful child, so when his mom told him to save his singing for prayers, he thought that meant at school too!

I called his mom to talk to her, and she said, of course he can sing fun songs at school!

Fast forward two months. My student comes up to me in the hall after building snow forts at recess and tells me how much fun he and all his friends had singing “Jingle Bells” and “Winter Wonderland” while building their forts.

My lesson: Never make assumptions based on anyone’s ethnic background!

Students work together with ukuleles and other musical instruments in a band and learn teamwork.

For our upcoming Winter Sing, the 5th graders have learned several songs on their ukuleles. Many of these songs also appear in beginning band and orchestra texts, but in different keys than we use on the ukulele. The band and orchestra students love the challenge of learning to transpose and play by ear, so they can play while their friends sing. Here are some of the many benefits to students:

• The instrumental students get to re-visit familiar and well-loved songs from 4th grade
• The band students need to figure out how to play these notes by referring to fingering charts in the backs of their books
• The string students teach each other how to figure out the songs by ear
• The ukulele students get to learn three chords and sing
• The students who have missed several classes still get to sing a fun song

The students have also developed empathy and communication skills. One student wants to sing Jingle Bells fast. His clarinetist friend explained to him that the big range of the Dashing Through The Snow part of the song crossed the break on the clarinet and was difficult to play. The singer now understands and respects some of the difficulties for the instrumentalists.

I love seeing the students work together to make music, each at his or her own level! By playing together with their ukuleles and other musical instruments, they develop teamwork. They also learn to empathize and communicate better.

Check our other blog where I share about how students learn about ukulele blues and improvisation.

In 21 Songs in 6 Days: Learn Ukulele the Easy Way and in my classroom, I use songs from the public domain for many reasons:

• I want to teach my students to respect intellectual property laws. While my orchestra is playing “Pirates of the Caribbean,” I explained to them that I bought that piece. I did not steal it.
• Public domain songs teach our common American heritage of folk music. We have become a multicultural society; learning these songs is a nice way for newcomers to learn our heritage. I have many immigrants in my classroom. It’s also a great way to support English language learners.
• These songs are classic and many are timelessly funny.
• Many great composers have quoted folk music throughout time. After all, Mozart wrote variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
• These songs also tend to have appropriate lyrics for all age learners

What Are Public Domain Songs?

These are songs which are not protected by copyright or intellectual property laws. Songs can be in the public domain in several ways:

• the copyright has expired,
• the copyright owner placed it in the public domain, through dedication or copyright abandonment, or
• the song never had rights applied to it, for instance because it predates intellectual property laws.