Please List Songs for Non-talented Families (Adults and Children) to Sing Together

[mathmarm]

I need help with curating a list of songs that naturally lend themselves to non-talented singers. No one in this family has a greatly talented voice but we want to sing with the kids more to help with inhibitions and build their comfort singing in front of others. We need songs that we can sing as a group but also songs that we can "pass around" and while we don't need to sound amazingly good it would be helpful if, as a group we can have fun with the song.

A song that we've had fun with is Soldier, Poet, King by The Oh Hellos. It is not lyrically complex and has no profanity.

They don't watch movies or much TV. They don't know most Disney songs and when Hubby and I reviewed many Disney songs, they're outside of the scope of what we can sing well.

 

[Lucy the Valiant]

A science themed one we had a lot of fun with over the years was Lyrical Life Science - it's quirky but fun! Scientific concepts paired to traditional American folk music. ("Scientific Method" is a particular favorite . . . "A way, a way, a way to SOOOOLVE a problem!")

[Clarita]

Wait I thought everyone's car is like this. This is a favorite in my car with my kids, along with Rockin Robin by Micheal Jackson, and Mr. Roboto by Styx. We are not good or talented singers, but if you put it together with cheesy terrible dancing it becomes a great time had by all. Except for my son who gets a little frustrated that his little sister (3.5) never sings the right lyrics. 

 

[mathmarm]

7 hours ago, Lucy the Valiant said:

A science themed one we had a lot of fun with over the years was Lyrical Life Science - it's quirky but fun! Scientific concepts paired to traditional American folk music. ("Scientific Method" is a particular favorite . . . "A way, a way, a way to SOOOOLVE a problem!")

Lyrical Science has been a huge hit! But some of the songs are still a little too lyrically complex for this project. We have a lot of Educational Music and sing along with it (and are always on the lookout for more at the Gr3-12 level).

We do sing along but we are ready to expand our musical library to include some things for music education. We've been looking and listening through this list for ideas about what we might sing. 

Are there more songs like Soldier, Poet, King that are melodic and simple? The interludes of melody give people chance to enjoy the music and it's something that a group of (non-talented) voices can make sound enjoyable too.

[knitgrl]

Folk songs?

[Eos]

We love the Rise Up Singing songbook.  If we don't know how the melody goes to any given song we can usually find it somewhere on the internet.

https://www.riseupandsing.org/songbooks/rise-up-singing

Editing to say I see they have CDs with tunes to all the songs.  If you grew up singing in church or at camp, you will probably know a lot of the melodies already.  

Edited December 16, 2021 by Eos

[Dmmetler]

The Get America Singing Again projects was focused on this-collecting songs to encourage community singing. These would likely fit your needs, and the songbooks are inexpensive. 

 

https://nafme.org/get-america-singing-again/

[gck21]

I usually find Ambleside Online's folk song selections to be too difficult/wordy for my young kids, but this year they suggested a few sea shanties that we loved. Really fun to sing and suitable for our enthusiastic but unskilled singing. We learned Wellerman, Fish in the Sea, Haul on the Bowline, and Blow the Man down so far this year, but there are many more options.