Introducing songwriting in elementary music can be overwhelming and scary. Honestly, I don’t remember covering much about composing in elementary music class (though, I also had like, three classes on teaching elementary music as a whole. That could be a whole other topic!) So when I got a class of fifth graders who were antsy and needed something creative to do, I was scared to give them the freedom! Well, I’m happy to say that elementary music songwriting doesn’t have to be terrifying or make you anxious. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming for your students. It should be fun! And we’re going to talk about how parodies help make that happen.
Writing a Parody
What is a parody? Are they actually songs? Yes! A parody is a work that uses something already created and puts a humorous spin on it. In our case, a parody would be a song we already know with new words. Weird Al Yankovic is a great example of someone who writes parodies (and this gives me another listening example in my goal of expanding our listening horizons this year!) Parodies are great because they take some of the freedom and guesswork out for our students. Rather than making our students the composer and the lyricist, which can be overwhelming, it gives students a place to start and feels more manageable.
So what are some examples of parodies that you could use? Well, to show students how fun and easy it can be, I usually create my own. I use the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and make a song about my dog, Lenny (short for Leonard Beaglestein, after Leonard Bernstein). It usually goes something like this:
Lenny, Lenny Beaglestein
How I love that silly dog
Floppy ears and freckley face
Loves to run and jump and chase
Lenny, Lenny Beaglestein
How I love that silly dog
A couple of other examples that I’ve found in books that my toddler owns and loves are Twinkle Twinkle Dinosaur and Rock-a-Bye Dino. After you give an example, try one as a class! Pick a subject- it could be sports, a video game your kids love, or what’s for lunch that day.
Student Project
Now that the students know what a parody is and how to come up with one, let them create their own! You can do this a few different ways.
- First, do you want them to partner up with others or work on their own? I let them work together, but if you want to use this as some kind of assessment you may get a more accurate picture of how each student is doing if they do it by themselves.
- Are you going to give song lyrics to change or are you going to let them pick their own song? Again, that’s up to you. I let my students pick their own song. Some pick a pop song they know (which I check the lyrics to before I print for them!) and some students pick a nursery rhyme.
- Give them some ideas of what they might write about. They might write about sports, their pets, favorite foods, etc. I let them choose, but you could of course give them a few options to pick from.
Add Instruments to Your Parody
After the students have written their parodies, I have them add instruments to it. It could be as simple as keeping a steady beat on drums while they sing. They could make it a little more complicated by adding two different unpitched instruments and coming up with an ostinato to play. Or, you could have students add a bordun or accompaniment on xylophones. I’ll sometimes ask my students who choose a short nursery rhyme to do something more complicated on instruments.
If you have xylophones or pianos, you could use this as an opportunity to talk about chords. Students could look at the guitar chord sheets and learn to play these chords on a pitched instrument. For my upper grades, I would have them play the first and fifth tones of each chord- they could alternate between the two to make it easier.
Want to add in some technology? There are a couple of great options on Chrome Music Lab! You can create rhythm patterns to play in the background using the Rhythm extension. Or, you could use the Chords Extension to add in the chords that you would play on xylophones.
Transfer to Staff Paper
Last, let’s transfer this parody to staff paper. Now, this part can feel overwhelming to students, so it’s not something I would recommend doing all in one class. I would split this up into two classes- one day for putting in the note heads on the correct pitches and one day for adding in rhythms and words.
First, let’s transfer the note heads. The goal here is to draw the heads on the staff on the correct pitches, but not worry about anything else. For most of my students, this has been tricky enough! Ideally, your students will already know solfege and the relationship between different pitches. However, I’m admittedly not the best at teaching my older students solfege, and my kids still do this activity. I’ll give them a xylophone and tell them their first note or two. It should sound like the song they know! The amount I ask the students to do depends on what type of song they picked- if they picked a nursery rhyme like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I’ll make them notate the whole song. If they picked a pop song, they only need to do the chorus.
In the next class, I’ll have them add the words underneath the note heads. This should be relatively easy because each note head is a syllable. Then, they need to figure out the rhythms. Knowing how the song goes and the beat of the song, they can figure out how many syllables are in each beat and they can add the lines to make the rhythms.
Extensions
There are a couple more extensions you could do with this project. First, this is a great chance to talk about form. Students can learn about same vs. different and verse vs. chorus. You could also use this to talk about storytelling and mood within lyrics.
Last, you could use this activity and have your students create their own songs from scratch. This is a tough project, so I usually save this activity for my fifth graders at the very end of the year when they’re about ready for middle school. I make the song be 8-12 measures (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is 12 measures.) I break it up into the following days: lyrics/rhythm (this tends to work well together, but it certainly can be broken down more) and melody.
Conclusion
I hope these ideas helped you feel comfortable with the thought of elementary music songwriting! Writing a parody and extending it is a project that can hit so many concepts and standards! It can be as simple or as complex as you are ready for. If you want to chat more about how this can work in your room, feel free to leave a comment below or to DM me on Instagram (@caffeinated.j) and I’ll help throw around some ideas! I love chatting with people about teaching elementary music!
