Preparing for Church’s Halloween Party Parade

I have been invited to perform for a local parish’s Halloween Party Celebration, for Saturday evening (October 26).  If you want to know why I’ve been silent on my blog, this is it.  There’s nothing like taking on the challenge of a unique environment and delivering a home run.

At first, I had thought that this would be just another opportunity to just play my songs, and that would be it.  But that changed when I had asked “what would make a home run” to the coordinator of events.  And she paused, and said that it would be really great if I could lead a parade of kids through the venue, up the stage and down, singing songs commemorating the Feast of All Saints.  (Halloween is a derivation of “All Hallows’ Eve”, or “the night before All Saints’ Day”).

As I saw it, I have three major tasks to perform, in addition to the (thematic-specific) parody songs I would do:

1) Craft a plan that would allow me the most appropriate, kid-friendly, worship songs (preferably public domain) for the march, for the Powerpoint projection system and on a single page, that would allow me to have the songs available to sing for the parents, while their children marched.  (“When the Saints Go Marching In” is the template).

2) Craft a kid-friendly Halloween music playlist (to play on my iPod) while they’re eating dinner.

3) Craft a stand-up comic riff about something in Halloween.

As for #1: I whittled down my list to fifteen simple songs, all in the key of C, and crammed all of them onto a single page.

• When the Saints Go Marching In
• In My Father’s House
• I Have Decided to Follow Jesus
• I’ve Got Peace Like A River
• I’m Gonna Sing Sing Sing
• This Little Light of Mine
• What A Mighty God
• His Banner Over Me Is Love
• Lift Jesus Higher
• Gospel Ship
• Swing Low Sweet Chariot
• St. Michael Row the Boat Ashore
• Give Me Oil In My Lamp
• Alabare
• Rejoice In the Lord Always

I like the public domain songs for something like this, because it’s a greater likelihood that the kids would know these songs, and because I would have the freedom to change songs around if I want, with no fear of repercussions from the copyright police.  Case in point is “St. Michael Row the Boat Ashore.”  I had added lyrics that didn’t exist in the original, so that it’s even more festive and fun.

These will be played in the key of D, but played with the key of C form (which has a greater feel for kids’-oriented events).  To do this for the march, I have three partial capos set up so that playing without use of my left hand would sound like a full D chord.  This gives me freedom to use that hand if need be, without stopping between songs.

This songlist is on a page that will be with me as I march, courtesy of a simple portable guitar stand called a “Yolder” (named after its inventor, Yohann Anderson).  I don’t know if they’re still making them now, but if you plan to march, and you need words, this is a great invention.  I plan to use double-sided removable tape to secure the page even more.

I wanted to have the freedom to actually change the Powerpoint slides from my Yolder, but that doesn’t look probable.  I would have needed a wireless keypad that could transmit my key-punching to the laptop.  Unfortunately, this is either a Bluetooth device which goes only up to 33 feet, or it’s a wireless device that is no longer being made (or supported). It would also be a little heavy, which would put a bad strain on my guitar.  So I’ll need a person’s help to navigate my slides while I march.  I hope I made it easy for him/her.

As for (2) and (3), that’s for another blog post, maybe a YouTube video for the latter.  We’ll see how those come out when the time is done.  In the meantime, if you want to use this songsheet for yourselves, you can download an earlier version of this page (more songs) by clicking on All Hallows’ Eve Marching Songs and selecting “Save As.”  (No copyright infringement here; all songs are in the public domain.  Enjoy!!).

LP;SV: I crafted a children’s centric marching songlist for a church’s Halloween party, and have set it up so that I could play these songs and have them projected on a Powerpoint screen while marching around the room and not stopping between songs.

The Halloween Family Fun Night will be at Immaculate Conception Parish in Tuckahoe NY, on Saturday, October 26 at 6:30pm.  See you there!