Move to the Beat!

Here's a fun song to get a group moving!

I love to use this song, or Sometimes I like to Clap My Hands after singing a Hello song at the beginning of each session. The students get used to this order and really seem to like the predictability. I adopted this order a couple of years ago and I feel like it really starts the group off with positive and fun energy.

Some of the students I work with are working on performing the basic motions mentioned in this song. Many of them require hand over hand assistance to clap, pat, etc. So to help address the time needed for this, I opted to write this song with repetitive instructions. This gives the student time to see the modeling of each action and perhaps try the movement himself/herself. If more time is needed (in sessions), I do repeat some actions more than others.

This song is also great with higher functioning students also. Many times, after students have had several experiences with this song, I will ask students to show me ways they can move to the beat. Sometimes I ask, "What can we do next?" or "Show me how you move to the beat." The students come up with some pretty neat ideas!

The next step would be to pair this song with instruments and allow students to creatively create a rhythm to go with this song, or the music therapist could go one step further and assign certain instrument groups (drums, shakers, rhythm sticks,etc.) easy rhythms to play.

The lyrics can be tweaked to fit different students and/or instrument turns (i.e. "We're gonna play the drums, you and me. We're gonna play the drums and move to the beat.", or "We're gonna listen to Sarah, you and me. We're gonna listen to Sarah move to the beat.").




I hope you are having a good week! If you have any comments or questions, I'd love to hear from you! morewithmusic@gmail.com