The song "Happy" from "Despicable Me 2" by Parrell Williams is a very catchy tune. I feel it's a great teaching piece for many reasons. For one, it's a catchy, popular tune with lyrics you can actually play in the classroom! Another reason I like it for teaching is that it illustrates a very important concept when learning music. So often we tell students "major" songs sound "happy" and "minor" songs sound "sad." Well...here is an example that flies in the face of that logic. When you hear this song you can't help but feel "happy" even though it's actually in the key of F minor!
First: BUY THE SONG. Please don't use a free service to play the song. It's available from most music services of your choice (Amazon, iTunes, etc.). Now, if you have a plethora of instruments at your disposal with a full compliment of chromatic notes, then by all means, transpose what I've provided here and use it as-is with the original. Most folks with Orff instruments are limited with the only accidentals available being F-sharps and B-flats. For this reason, I needed to transpose this song down a half step to E minor. Not to mention my fourth graders do not have any idea of how to play A-flat or B-flat on the recorder and I have no desire to confuse what we've already started by teaching those pitches. The way I have it here fits beautifully with the fact that my fourth grade students have just learned the pitch E, so this will be excellent (and fun) practice.
"But...how do I get the recording in the correct key?" you may ask. There are options. I transposed mine with a program that I love called "Wavepad." Transposing it down took a little trial and error (it goes by percentage rather than actual pitch or half steps - 94% did the trick) and yes, the result sounds slightly different than the original - but as I find myself saying so often when I have to make do "It's close enough for this side of town!" They do have a free version available here: Click here.
Another option that many music teachers like is to use Audacity. You can download Audacity completely free here. To get you going on how to transpose music with Audacity there are several resources available on the Internet. Simply Google "transpose with Audacity" and you should be well on your way if you need help figuring that task out.
So here's the play-along notation for the transposed version in E minor. If you have instruments at your disposal with lower pitches (for example, I have some of the bass Joia tubes) I recommend changing the pitch B in the bass xylophone part an octave lower - but that's just a personal preference. The unpitched percussion part can be anything you have - sticks, hand drums, tambourines, etc. The alto xylophone part also provides a great opportunity to teach the famed "syncopa" rhythm pattern in the second measure.
The ostinati laid out here can be played throughout and the wonderful thing about the original recording is that it gives you a nice set-up count-off at the beginning.
Enjoy and...be HAPPY!
