Introduction

"Sing and Play Along" is a collection of songs, all of which were included in Staffordshire's Everyone Sing National Curriculum list. The songs were drawn from its recommendations from Y3 upwards and include English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish tunes, songs from Europe, America and the Caribbean, 'folk and pop' music and classical favourites by Handel, Schumann and Brahms. The aim of the project was to encourage instrumentalists to bring their instruments into the general music lesson, perhaps along side percussion players, and feel part of the music making.

The piano part, vocal part, percussion score and melody parts were all originally available to Staffordshire schools in book form from Staffordshire Music Service - Staffordshire Performing Arts, The Green, Stafford, ST17 4BJ, but ten years later of course they may well no longer be available there.

Four of the pentatonic melodies (Turn the Glasses Over, The Riddle Song, Ye Banks and Braes and Soldier, Soldier) have been given fully pentatonic accompaniments to help with project work.

Apart from the Schumann and Handel, all the keyboard parts are new arrangements, specially written to be comfortable for non-specialists. And since they are intended as accompaniments to class singing the piano part always includes the melody line, which may be reduced as necessary when accompanying instrumentalists.

The precussion parts aim to be imaginative and attractive; but generally have fairly simple repeated patterns. The untuned percussion will hopefully prove appropriate and fun, with plenty of variety, and the chance occasionally to use the cow-bell, guiro and vibra-slap.

Generally, use tuned percussion as available. There is one open-string plucked cello part included which can also be replaced by low-pitched percussion instruments.

In addition to a combined words-music vocal parts, there are a number of instrumental melody parts available, to encourage children to join in whenever possible. There are parts for violin/recorder, viola, cello, flute, B flat clarinet, alto saxophone and trumpet - but it should always be understood that what may be a convenient key for one instrument may be very demanding on another!

Technical Considerations: If you have only a slow connection then the larger files may take a while to download; but once downloaded all the pages are available off-line very quickly, for viewing and printing. This also applies to the percussion page; though you will need to go on-line to hear the sound files.

Unfortunately, now that the original midi files have been replaced by wav files, the sound files linked to the percussion pages may not work smoothly if you do not yet have a broadband connection.

After Acrobat Reader opens, and the file starts to download, the front page will open, and then the word contents will appear at the left-hand side. Click the + sign to list the pieces, and the word contents to view the index page. This is when the music pages are downloaded, very quickly with a broadband connection, maybe in a minute or two otherwise, depending on the file and other traffic. Make sure your computer is set up so that you can then always read the files quickly, off-line.