I adore Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September,” and it received plenty of airplay this past weekend as we celebrated the 21st of September. While many have speculated that the lyric, “Do you remember the 21st night of September?” refers to the equinox, the band has mentioned that they considered several dates, but the 21st sounded correct with the meter.
Boomwhacker Edition
I searched for a Boomwhacker version of the song but couldn't find one. Please let me know if there are any available. However, I discovered numerous videos for body percussion and rhythm play-along. As a result, I quickly created my own using Soundslice.
Imported the melody into SoundSlice.
Added Boomwhacker colors.
Adjusted the accompaniment track to C Major and modified the tempo with Moises.ai, while lowering the vocals since the key change affected them significantly.
Uploaded it to SoundSlice.
Synced the melody with the accompaniment, and voila! A Boomwhacker play-along video.
However…
The video is quite basic. I opted not to swing the rhythms, but you might choose to do so. The tempo may still be a bit fast, and it sounds somewhat off in C Major. This might not suit your students perfectly, so no worries! You can always use one of my other play-along videos or find alternatives from other channels. However, if this one works for you, I hope you and your students enjoy it!
Manipulatives
The manipulatives include a fun video of musicians performing a version of the song on Boomwhackers, some interesting facts about the song, and the score to help your students learn it before they dive into the play-along video.
Soundslice or YouTube
Feel free to use this YouTube link (https://youtu.be/f8rZ_uqpeGY) or the Soundslice link (https://www.soundslice.com/slices/lpK2c/) with your students. With the YouTube link, you can change the tempo (and key if you have the Transpose Extension - https://transpose.video/). With the Soundslice link, you can change the tempo, key, view, the way it scrolls, add the melody or take it away, take out the note names, and more.