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Thursday, February 20, 2014

Fun With Two Chords for Ukulele

We've entered the realm of two chords in our ukulele playing in my classroom, after a brief hiatus due to this that and the other thing. 

One fun song we just finished up using C and G is "There Ain't No Bugs on Me."

Here are some verse examples, but due to the nature of funny folk songs, there are eight million versions out there.  The chord pattern for all of the verses is the same, so I'll just share the chords for the first verse.


C
Oh, there ain't no bugs on me, on me.
                                      G
There ain't no bugs on me

There may be bugs on some of you mugs
                                           C
But there ain't no bugs on me.

Oh there ain't no flies on me, on me.
There ain't no flies on me.
There may be flies on some of you guys
But there ain't no flies on me.

Well, the Juney bug comes in the month of June
The lightning bug comes in May
Bed bug comes just any old time
But, they're not going to stay

Well, a bull frog sittin' on a lily pad
Looking up at the sky
The lily pad broke and the frog fell in
He got water all in his eye.

There ain't no frogs on us.
There ain't no frogs on us.
There might be frogs on some of you dogs,
But there ain't no frogs on us.

Mosquito he fly high
Mosquito he fly low
If old mosquito lands on me
He ain't a gonna fly no mo'

A peanut sittin' on a railroad track
His heart was all a flutter
Along come a choo-choo on the track
Toot! Toot! Peanut butter!

A cow walked on the railroad track,
the train was coming fast.
The train got off the railroad track
to let the cow go past!


After we worked with the different famous version (the peanut version is alllllwwwaaays my kids favorite), we then broke into small groups to write our own verses.  I remind the kids of the required rhyming pattern and that the text must fit into the same space as the verses that we already know.  Then, we perform and share out. 

Every year, I end up with some really fun things from the kids.  They love the opportunity to create while practicing known skills. 

Composing, Singing, and Performing on Instruments All in One Lesson = Standards Whammy!

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