For Erica and Toni and their brilliant young musicians.
I wrote this song when challenged by the wonderful Dr. William Tamblyn at Auburn University to write a song that anyone could play. It came to mind that the one song my brother Kenneth could play on piano was on all black keys. I never knew the name of it, but it resided in my music files way back in my brain. I saw in a magazine a painting at the top of a staircase of a bear riding a bicycle through an orchard and was intrigued by the story behind it. A little research and voilà, ta-da, behold the story of Grusha is ready to share with more folks.
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Link to book Grusha by Barbara Falk. https://barbarafalkart.com/book/grusha-2/ I was excited to find this book that shares the story of Grusha.
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Another way to think of the notes for this song is to give the notes numbers.
1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 4 4 5_ 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 4 4 3_
The ostinato (repeated part accompanying the melody) is 1_ 22 1_ 22 etc.
If you want to see a video of me singing the lyrics, and playing four parts for Grusha (keyboard ostinato, melody, guitar melody, cookie pan), which would be humiliating to any normal person, but for an elementary music teacher it is par for the course, click below. https://www.youtube.com/c/DrBarber/videos. You might notice I am wearing a bear hat/disguise. Or it might not be that unusual when you think of what I might do.
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