Song Conversion Sunday: Pon De Replay

It's that time again. Time to go to the iTunes account, set the play controls to Shuffle, and see what comes up to use as a therapeutic music experience. I start up the program and, voila! The song that comes up is Pon De Replay, performed by Rihanna, written by E. Rogers, C. Sturken, A. Brooks, and V. Nobles and on my iTunes account from the album Radio Disney Jams, Volume 8.

Basic Information about the song:
  • the song is 3 minutes, 36 seconds long.
  • starts with a percussive pattern that forms the foundation for the piece - approximately 98 bpm (according to my new favorite website Get Song BPM - seriously, why haven't I heard about this site before???)
  • there is a primarily vocal timbre to go with the percussion and electronic sounds - chorus of voices support the front singer
  • the lyrics are primarily concerned with movement and offer some directives for moving in a specific manner, but there doesn't seem to be a set pattern for dancing offered
  • released in 2005
  • was Rihanna's debut single, released by Def Jam Records
  • style is listed as Reggae/Pop
  • Rihanna is from Barbados
  • the form is AB with a bridge
I already use this song as a dance-instigator. There is something about the rhythm and the tempo that just lends itself to moving, even with kids who were not alive when the song was released. I find that this song is easy to choreograph with basic movements and the length of the song is enough to keep my clients moving and helps them to tire out. I haven't really spent much time encouraging my clients to sing the lyrics at this point, but I can see a way to use the theme of this song to encourage my clients to do some dreaming about what type of song they would want the DJ to feature and play on repeat. The steady beat lends itself well to movement practice and free improvised movements as well. The tempo is a bit faster than my groups tend to interact, but that is good to know. The 98 bpm tempo is a good one for getting my clients to move but not give up because the tempo is not too fast. We could easily move in patterns of 8 or 16 to complete specific movements to increase gross motor skill and patterning. 



I will add this to my Song Conversion Sunday playlist and will challenge myself to use it at least once this week in my therapy groups. 

 Happy Sunday!
 

Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pon_de_Replay 
https://getsongbpm.com/

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