The Musical Futures Find Your Voice training aims to motivate students to sing by recreating as a whole class the backing tracks to popular songs, which all use the common 4-chord structure: I, V, vi, IV (i.e. D, A, bmin, G). This chord structure is so common that hundreds of songs have used it (see the Axis of Awesome video below). Iʼve also included two videos on how to play the chords on the guitar and keyboard (remember you can click on Youtube "settings" to slow down or speed up the video.
Axis of Awesome 4-Chord Medley
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4-Chord Guitar Chords
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4-Chord for Piano
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Musical Futures provides a process for students to learn how to layer in vocalized basslines, chords and melodies to work toward a vocal performance. The Musical Futures website hosts a series of video clips to guide teachers through the process. The choruses of the following three songs start on the first note of the bassline and are a good starting point for students to pitch: Price Tag (Jessie J), Someone Like You (Adele) and Living on a Prayer (Bon Jovi). Here is the first of five video clips that move from creating a 4-chord vocal mash-up and beatboxing to small group refinement and use of voice recorders. Musical Futures also houses a 4-chord song bank that lists songs using the I,V, vi, IV chord progression.
Here is a series of video tutorials by Shlomo teaching the basics of beatboxing:
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Students at Fred Longworth High School, a Musical Futures Champion School, use Loopy, Acappella and Garageband to create their own vocal back-ups, using only their voices. Then they progress to working in rock bands comprising of drums, keys, bass guitar, guitar and vocals. This leads to a performance on stage in front of the class in a ‘Battle of the Bands’ context. Here is a group rehearsing in one of the practice rooms.