There is an artist named Zoë Badwi from Australia. She has a hot dance tune titled, "Release Me." As with many dance tunes, there are a bazillion remixes available. The one you want to look for is the standard "Radio Edit." This song is PERFECT for reviewing the "syncopa" rhythm pattern! What makes it even better is...it doesn't use any inappropriate language or sentiments - so it's an awesome choice for an elementary lesson.
The problem with this tune is it is in A-flat major. Unless you have a plethora of chromatic instruments at your disposal, you'll need to change that. A quick (literally 30 seconds) run through Audacity lowered the key to G major - perfect for classroom instruments! Save the MP3 and then add it to your library.
Using any classroom instruments, keyboards, etc. your students can play Gs (or octave Gs) to the rhythm "ti-ta-ti-ta rest."
You can literally repeat this pattern throughout the song and it will harmonically fit. There is a "raise your hands" section in the middle where I have the students raise their mallets and tap them to the beat. For contrast, you can have some students play straight quarter notes on drums (demonstrating the opposite of syncopation - "on the beat").
I did this with my third graders and even the most hard to please loved this lesson. After a quick introduction and review of what syncopation is, I had the students get out several Orff instruments and locate "G." We rotated through to give students a chance on different instruments. One student even asked the name of the song so she could go download it. Following this, we closed out the lesson by singing "Jamaica Farewell" from their textbook. An excellent example of syncopation as well!
Release Me (Radio Edit) is available on both iTunes and Amazon MP3 downloads.
Until next time...
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