Music Comes Alive: Creating a Song!

Rainbows in the Sky (also known as the Oooh Ahh Song) was created by our Rise Life Services participants in our Music Comes Alive program. This new and innovative program is lead by our Creative Director, James Young a guitarist, pianist and experienced music teacher and Michael D. Kitakis, an accomplished cellist with a Bachelors Degree in Classical Performance.

Here, Michael D, explains the process: We started the series with a fun exploration of different musical genres with examples of songs and accompanying dance moves! The next week, when we were learning about melody and notes, we called up a few participants to come up to one of our marimbas and pick a note for the melody of our song. From here, our students picked out four notes which formed the basic roots of the song. Then, the teachers encouraged the individuals to sing along to the notes with “ooh” and “aah”, to begin getting them engaged with the music. Next class, we focused on chords, so this was a great chance for the class to learn how chords add “color” to the individual notes and give the song more body and emotion. Next, we had a class on harmony, so with our instructors’ help, the participants added more notes, further increasing the intensity of the piece! And finally, the last step in creating our song was during our class on songwriting. The class was asked what things made them happy that day, and from there, we finally had words to our simple “Ooh Aah” song.

Take a look at this video of our class performing the finished product in a recent class, along with dance moves, and sing along!!!!

Rainbows in the Sky:

Rainbows in the sky

Go put on your shades

Ride the biggest wave (4x)

Ooooh, Ahhh (2x)