Song Conversion Sunday: It's An Insect World

It is Sunday again, and that means a Song Conversion is in process here at my computer. Last week I selected It's An Insect World, a piggy-backed song that I found in The Flying Pig Campfire Song Book, and that is a brief song about some insects. My rule is that I choose a song randomly and then make it into a therapeutic music experience (TME) to use with clients somewhere. So, here we are.

The lyrics of this song are not complicated. They list eight types of insects - centipedes, moths, katydids, wasps, beetles, fleas, caterpillars, and bees. That's it. All the song does is list these insects. I think this song could do so much more!!

The song is designed to work with the musical format of It's a Small World, so the musical analysis is pretty easy. Form - A/B. Melody - varied contour, clear differences between chorus and verse, tessitura - about an octave, maybe a bit more (I'm not looking at the sheet music - maybe I should do that...be right back...). Sheet music reveals that the tessitura is actually nine notes. As written (in The Illustrated Treasury of Disney Songs), the key is C Major with notes ranging from E to F an octave higher. The tempo is described as "March tempo" - so I interpret that as about 120 bpm, but the tempo can be changed, of course, so clients can interact. The harmonic progression is I, V7, I, I7, IV, ii7, V7, I.

The nice thing about piggybacked songs is that you can base any type of lyrics on the same musical format without difficulty. The thing to remember, though, especially when using piggybacked songs is that you want clients to remember specific facts, so it is important not to stack too many groups of lyrics onto one song. So, if your client already has an important sequence of information set to the melody of It's A Small World, then you don't want to use that melody again for different information.

So, the words that I have to work with from The Flying Pig Campfire Song Book, are very simplistic. As I mentioned above, there are simply some insects named. To make this a TME for my clients, there need to be more things included in the lyrics. My intention is to make this into a song that will carry academic information about insects so my clients can recall the information and use it to accomplish science standards.

So, now I am going to find the state's science standards to see what is required when... This will take some time, so bear with me - I'll be a bit more ready next week.

Here are the lyrics to the first verse as originally printed:

It's a world of centipedes, a world of moths,

It's a world of katydids, a world of wasps.

There's so much that we share that it's time we're aware,

It's an insect world.

Already, I can see some need for expansion to the lyrics to make them more appropriate for learning about insects. How about something like, "Insects roam all over the earth, they fly and crawl and swim and ..." One thing is for sure - I am going to have to learn much more about insects to complete this TME.

Here's what I have going for me right now.

Desired Outcome: Recall of facts about insects to accomplish educational standards through use of musical mnemonic.

Format: Piggyback song - It's a Small World. Verse/chorus format to convey information at various learning levels.

Information Source: State Science Standards

Not much going on for me at the moment, but the music aspect is the biggest part of any type of TME, so that's all done. All I have to do is arrange the information to fit the structure that I already have going for me. I'll be doing some research on insects this week to finish up this conversion process. I also get to do something I enjoy - draw - as I make some visual aids to go along with the song for another project of mine!!

I know, it's not an insect, but here's one of my visuals!!