If you're not familiar with complaints choirs, here's a primer. And here's a children's edition that works fairly well, I think:
This spring, my choir learned the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, "My Favorite Things." I soon realized that I couldn't ask for a better excuse to compose a complaints choir piece than the fact that "My Favorite Things" fairly screams out for some kind of counterpoint (cuz ya gotta take the bad with the good, right?).
So I am now writing a rather sullen, fully-customized thing called "My Least Favorite Things."
Yesterday I got the ball rolling by asking my students for items that could be included in the lyrics to our song. My question: "What are your least favorite things?" Here is what they gave me:
Boobah [a somewhat psychedelic kids' show]
spicy stuff
being lit on fire inside of a box
celery
an octopus grabbing onto you with suction cups all over your face
someone calling you names
nothing
when the cat pees on something valuable
school and anything involved in school
homework
schoolwork [hmmm... do I detect a theme here?]
embarrassment
writing
eating a dead fish
My Little Pony
Barbies
Wish us luck.
1 comment:
ahh, kids, they tell it like it is. Of course love hearing about your adventures with kids and love the idea. I do wonder about the kid who doesn't like being "lit on fire inside a box", perhaps that's a future performance artist...
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