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CD: Here are some options in the meantime: (1) give yourself (or students) permission to sing the lyrics a capella, (2) share the spotlight with musically inclined students in your classroom who can provide the accompaniment on appropriate instruments, (3) find online a “MIDI file” or get a vocals-removed karaoke disc of the music and sing (and/or have students sing) the math lyrics instead (e.g., see the top of my page for “The Gambler”), (4) make your own karaoke or video as several folks do, (5) find an MP3 on this page or at causeweb.org and press “play”, or (6) Skype/bring me to your city! PERMISSIONS: |
Greatest LESSER Hits!
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT SONG * “Gonna
Give You a Lecture” is a song whose character reflects on
(then questions) why he’s a lecture-only instructor. From my 2016
paper in To Improve the Academy. STATS SONGS • “The Gambler”
addresses strategies and myths for playing a state
lottery and may be sung to the tune of the same-titled Don Schlitz song
that yielded Kenny Rogers a #1 country hit and TV miniseries. Appears in
Winter 2002 Stats, January 2005 Journal of Irreproducible Results, and
the banquet booklet of 2013 USCOTS. Click HERE
to hear a demo recording whose chorus was played twice in 2018 on KHOW-AM. Also, click HERE to see a
related video (which won the 2011 “QL in the Media” contest sponsored by SIGMAA-QL,
was “Best Online Submission” by the American Statistical Association 2014 “ASA’s Got Talent”
contest, and was a winner in the fall 2015 MoMath
song contest that yielded this live footage).
• “Mean”
explains why the mean is generally a bad summary of highly skewed data, to
the tune of Taylor Swift’s 2011 top-10 country hit and 2012 Grammy winning
country song of the year of the same title.
Appears in the fall 2011 Texas
Mathematics Teacher and in Journal
of Mathematics and the Arts.
Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. Was a winning song in 2017 contest
by National Museum of Mathematics. • “Call
it Maybe” introduces the statistical idea of estimation (e.g., of a
population mean mu) and its uncertainty. This lyric won 2nd place
in the Song Category of the 2013 CAUSE A-mu-sing national contest and may be
sung to the tune of Carly Rae Jepsen’s #1 hit “Call Me Maybe” that was MTV’s
Song of the Year for 2012. Click HERE
to hear a recording by UTEP music majors! • “Hit
Me With Your Best Plot” reviews good principles of graphing to the
tune of the Eddie Schwartz song “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” that was a #9
hit for Pat Benatar in 1979. Appears in Spring 2011
Teaching Statistics and an updated
version appeared in the 2013 USCOTS banquet booklet. Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. * “Doin’
Statistics”
conveys (to the tune of Marc Cohn’s #13 1991 hit “Walking in Memphis”) the
excitement of discovering this discipline. Appears in August 2014 Amstat News (note: I also still love math and am glad
mathematicians
are increasingly recognizing the importance of statistics). Click HERE to
hear a demo recording.
* “Slip
Slidin’ to the Mean” explores (to the tune of Paul Simon’s
1977 top-5 hit “Slip Slidin’ Away”) regression to
the mean. Appears in August 2017 Amstat News. * “She
Taught Me Data Science” (co-written
with Michael Posner) introduces/uses data science terms and concepts (to the
tune of Thomas Dolby’s top-5 1982 hit “She Blinded Me with Science”; won 4th-place
in CAUSE’s
2019 A-mu-sing contest * “An
[Ordered] Arrangement with No [Lyric] Repeats” (to the tune of the
public domain alphabet song) to support the learning of how many ways
distinct objects can be ordered; won Honorable Mention in CAUSE’s 2019
A-mu-sing contest * “Expected
Val(ue)” (to the tune of the 2013 #1 Miley
Cyrus hit “Wrecking Ball” by Stephan Richard Moccio,
Maureen McDonald, Sacha Skarbek, Kukasz Gottwald, & Henry
Walter) explores the concept of expected value from the viewpoint of a
character who lives only by it; won Honorable Mention in CAUSE’s 2019
A-mu-sing contest * “(This
is How) Stats Are Like Diamonds”
explores (to the tune of the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”) how
statistics are socially constructed. Appears in August 2016 Amstat News. • “What p-Value
Means” is a quick (10 seconds) catchy way (sung to the tune of “Row,
Row, Row Your Boat”) to recall what a p-value is. Appears in Spring 2007 Teaching
Statistics and fall 2007 (issue 48) Stats. Click HERE to
hear a demo recording or see a video that includes the song at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVdI1P0AqY
• “Correlation Song” is a 20-second jingle (to the tune of “Twinkle
Twinkle Little Star”) to recall a connection
between correlation and slope. Debuted in the banquet booklet of the 2013
United States Conference on Teaching Statistics and is in the
NSF-funded SMILES interactive song
collection. Click HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “Correlation Illustration” (to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”) helps interpret positive, negative,
and zero correlation and is in the NSF-funded SMILES interactive song collection. Click
HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “Hypothesis on Trial” (with some musical help from Dominic
Dousa) identifies counterparts in the popular courtroom analogy for
hypothesis testing and is in the NSF-funded SMILES interactive song collection. Click HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “The Null Hypothesis” (lyrics co-written with Greg Crowther;
music by Crowther) illustrates the idea that Ho represents the model of no
effect (with several common examples).
Click HERE
to hear Greg and Larry’s demo recording. • “Probability Rules Rap” recalls basic probability rules in
introductory statistics, won an Honorable Mention in the Song Category of the
2015 CAUSE A-mu-sing national contest, and is in the NSF-funded SMILES interactive song collection.
Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. • “Losing Cause” illustrates how correlation need not imply
causation and won first place in the Song Category of the 2017 CAUSE
A-mu-sing national contest (and played at the 2017 USCOTS banquet) and is
featured in Teaching
Statistics. Click HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “Question the Questions” illustrates pitfalls in writing survey
questions and won second place in the Song Category of the 2017 CAUSE
A-mu-sing national contest. Click HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “Don’t Try for a Census” explores when a sample survey is better
than a census, sung to the tune of John Denver’s #1 hit “Annie’s Song”. Appears in May 2019 Amstat News. Click HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “Florence” is a historical/biographical tribute to Florence
Nightingale (1820-1910), to the tune of Julie Gold’s Grammy-winning song
“From a Distance” (a #2 hit for Bette Midler during the first Gulf War).
Appears in the Amstat News blog and the TSHS
newsletter. • “Divvy Up the Stakes” relates the story of the problem whose
discussion in the 17th century sparked foundations of probability theory
and expected value, to the tune of Sting’s 1983 #1 (and Grammy-winning) hit
“Every Breath You Take”. Published in November
2018 Amstat News and at CAUSEweb. • “Empirical Rule” is taught to the tune of Madonna’s
signature song (and #2 hit) “Material Girl”, written by Peter Brown and
Robert Rans. Published in January
2019 Amstat News and at CAUSEweb. • “Simulation!” (co-written with Dennis Pearl) introduces
the basic idea of using simulation to calculate a p-value for a randomization
test (by simulating lots of group assignments and seeing what proportion give
more extreme test statistics than observed with the actual group
assignments), to the tune of the 1980 #1 song “Celebration” by Kool and the
Gang. • “On Average”, which won 3rd place in
the Song Category of the 2015 CAUSE A-mu-sing national contest, extrapolates
the quip that ‘a statistician can have their head in an oven and their feet
in ice and say on average they feel fine.’
This sets up the lesson that means are not always meaningful,
especially without information on variability. Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. * “Smells Like Stat Spirit” facilitates (to the tune of the signature 90s hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana) discussion of common impressions about the role of data, sample size, and significance testing. Appears in Sept. 2015 Amstat News. Click HERE to hear a demo recording. • “Birthday
Song” contrasts the often confused events of "some people
matching" with "someone matches with me" [see my
Birthday Problem article in May 1999 Mathematics Teacher], and may be
sung to the tune of Mildred J. Hill & Patty Smith Hill’s “Happy Birthday
to You.” Appears in Winter 2002 Stats. Click
HERE to
hear a demo recording. • “MLE”
stands for Maximum Likelihood Estimator and explores its properties that are
well-known and widely used by statisticians and stats majors. May be sung to the tune of Lennon &
McCartney’s “Let it Be”. Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. • “Square
It!” explores why line of best
fit is generally implemented by minimizing the sum of the squares of the
errors and may be sung to the tune of “Beat It!”, Michael Jackson’s 1983 #1
hit that went platinum, won a Grammy, and helped make Thriller the top-selling album of all time. Appears on p. 36 of the September 2014 Amstat News. Click HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “Y Hat Dance”
summarizes the process and notation for finding a line of fit for a
scatterplot and may be sung to the tune of the folk tune “Mexican Hat Dance”
(aka Jarabe Tapatío:
remember, I teach within a mile of Mexico!). It is in the NSF-funded SMILES interactive song collection.
Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. • “1 in 2” is a
story song written from the viewpoint of a character who needs to recognize
and transcend the pitfall of “equiprobability
bias.” This original song won Honorable Mention in the Song Category of the
2013 CAUSE A-mu-sing national contest and is featured in Teaching
Statistics. Click HERE for
a demo recording. • “Left of Center”, turns the same-titled Suzanne Vega and
Stephan Addabbo hit (from the 1986 movie Pretty in Pink) into an exploration of
the features and terminology of a unimodal continuous left-skewed
distribution. This song won an
Honorable Mention in the Song Category of the 2015 CAUSE A-mu-sing
national contest. Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. • “Partial to
You” is a playful love song invoking language and concepts of multiple
regression. This original song won 3rd
place in the Song Category of the 2013 CAUSE A-mu-sing national contest.
Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. • “Statistician’s
BLUEs” is a statistician’s “breakup” song pun-ctuated with stats terms (12-bar blues music and lyrics
by Lesser). Appears in Winter 2002 Stats,
June 2008 Journal of Irreproducible
Results, and April 2007 MAA Math Horizons. Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. Was a winning song in 2017 contest
by National Museum of Mathematics. • “We are the Statletes” is an anthem celebrating what
statisticians contribute to the world and may be sung to the tune of the
Queen platinum #4 hit “We are the Champions” by Freddy Mercury. Click HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “Average
Love Songs” educates about the mean while commenting on pop radio
love songs, to the tune of the #1 Paul McCartney hit “Silly Love Songs”. Appears in Sept. 2005 Amstat News and Nov. 2005 Journal
of Irreproducible Results. Click HERE
to hear a rockin’ rendition by UTEP music majors! • “One
is the Likeliest Number” is based on a fascinating result called Benford’s Law (e.g., see Spring 2009 Teaching Statistics) about the distribution of first digits in
datasets. May be sung to the tune of
the Harry Nilsson song “One (is the Loneliest Number)”, which was a #5 hit
(and first gold record) for Three Dog Night in 1969. Appears in Spring 2011 Teaching Statistics. Click HERE
to hear a rockin’ rendition by UTEP music majors! • “Taking Leave of
Our Census” raises the question (e.g., does Constitution’s Article 1,
Section 2 permit using the Post-Enumerative Survey?) about
statistically adjusting US decennial census for undercount. May be sung to
the tune of John Denver’s #1 hit “Annie’s Song”. [I was the staff
statistician for the Texas Legislative Council during the 1990-91
redistricting process, and co-authored a paper on redistricting in Oct. 2012 Mathematics Teacher.] Appears in
Winter 2002 Stats and Autumn 2001 Teaching Statistics. Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. • “A Given A” offers a vehicle for
discussing pitfalls of post hoc analysis, multiple comparisons, or confusing
the direction of causation or conditioning. Extended from his poem “P(A|A)=1”
published in the January
2017 Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.
Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. MATH SONGS (some with soundfiles here) • “Hotel
(Called) Infinity” – is a
metaphor German mathematician David Hilbert used near the start of the 1900s
to help clarify paradoxes about infinity, and may be sung to the tune of the
(also surreal) #1 hit “Hotel California” by The Eagles. [I was also
inspired by Ian Stewart's "Hilbert's Hotel" story in the Dec. 1998 New
Scientist]. Appears in Nov. 2004 The Journal of Irreproducible Results, May
2001 Humanistic Mathematics Network
Journal, 2005 Len Wapner
book The Pea and the Sun: A
Mathematical Paradox (the book and my lyric got a good review), and Oct.
2006 American Mathematical Monthly.
Click HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “American Pi” -- presents historical highlights
(and a mnemonic for the first 6 significant figures) of the number pi [see http://www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/lesser/piday.html],
and may be sung to the tune of Don McLean’s #1 hit “American Pie.”
Various versions have appeared in journals (e.g., Mathematics
Teacher, Pi in the Sky, J. of Irreproducible Results,
MAA Math Horizons, Convergence, J. of Mathematics Education), books, videos (e.g., the band Calvin Coolidge), and
websites (the version that won the National Museum of Mathematics' "Pi
Day of the Century" song contest can be read (and heard) HERE), and for the lyric’s
current version and story of its creation, see THIS. • “Circle Song”
helps secondary school students distinguish and recall the two most common
formulas associated with circles.
Appears in Fall
2004 Texas Mathematics Teacher
and in the 8(1-2) issue of Journal
of Mathematics and the Arts. [for more pi fun, click HERE] Click HERE
to hear a demo recording or see a video that includes the song at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVdI1P0AqY
• “Pi Will Go On” highlights history of
the number pi and may be sung to the tune of Celine Dion’s biggest hit “My
Heart Will Go On” (the song hit #1 worldwide as an all-time best-selling
single) by Will Jennings and James Horner from the 1997 film Titanic. Click HERE to hear my
demo recording of the song. Appears in the GCTM
eReflections and Journal
of Mathematics and the Arts. • “We
Will Graph You! / We Are the Mathletes!” – “We Will Graph You”
gives students step-by-step encouragement to graph a given function (there's
a version for "general form" parabolas and a version adapted from a
John A. Carter lyric for "slope-intercept form" lines) as they
chant over the pound-pound-clap-rest algo-rhythmic
pattern of Queen’s #4 hit “We Will Rock You!” On March 31, 2002, my
quadratic version was republished to accompany a story in
the Herald Sun, Australia’s top-selling newspaper! Appears in May
2000 Mathematics Teacher. “We Are the Mathletes” is an anthem to
rally them for (or celebrate success on) a big test, and appears in May 2007 Mathematics
Teaching in the Middle School. • “Domain and
Range” -- helps students keep in mind a function’s possible “inputs” and
“outputs,” and may be sung to the tune of the traditional 19th-century
(pre-Billboard charts!) Western song “Home on the Range.” [performed on
"Math
Medley," a weekly hour-long talk-radio show broadcast live on AM
radio in Arizona and New England and on Internet radio www.renaissanceradio.com
worldwide] Appears in May 2000 Mathematics Teacher. • “Music
of the Spheres” was inspired by the so-named Pythagorean
idea (also referred to centuries later by others such as Maimonides and
Kepler) that each planet contributed a particular "note" (based on
ratios of small whole numbers) to the grand harmony of the universe (lyrics
and music written by Lesser). Appears
in March
1999 Humanistic Mathematics Network
Journal and May 2006 American Mathematical Monthly.
The middle part of the song opens a radio
interview I did HERE
and the song is in THIS video. • “Fifty Ways to Work
a Problem” -- reminds students that real-life problem solving follows
a general strategy (i.e., Polya's 4 steps as paraphrased in the chorus) but can be
carried out in many ways, and may be sung to the tune of Paul Simon’s (only
solo) #1 hit “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.” [note: Simon's lyric
lends itself to being parodied also to teach specific bits of content, as
illustrated by Dan Kalman in Nov. 1993 College
Mathematics Journal or David Morgereth in Oct.
2001 Mathematics Teacher] Appears in May 2000 Mathematics Teacher. • “Check Your Work” reminds all of us (from student to teacher to NASA contractor!) something important to do, and may be sung to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad". Appears in Winter 2002 [Georgia Council of Teachers of Mathematics] Reflections and in songsforteaching.com. Here’s an article of examples of why attention to (math) detail matters. • “On Top of a Fraction” reinforces conceptual understanding of fractions, while making
connections to language and time signature.
May be sung to the tune of the folk song “On Top of Old
Smokey.” Appears in
fall 2007 Noticias de TODOS: Mathematics for ALL. • “From a
Distance” -- explains how some features of a graph are revealed and
others concealed when viewed “from a distance,” and may be sung to the tune
of the Grammy-winning song written by Julie Gold that was a #2 hit for Bette
Midler. Appears in May 2000 Mathematics
Teacher and Dec. 2005 American
Mathematical Monthly. • “Imaginary” addresses students' common initial question about imaginary numbers’ usefulness, sung to the tune of John Lennon's #3 hit "Imagine." Appears in April 2000 Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal. • “Seventeen” explores properties of
the number 17 as well as a coming-of-age view of experiencing the beauty of
mathematics. The lyric may be sung to
the tune of Janis Ian’s Grammy-winning #1 hit “At Seventeen” and was debuted
at the opening banquet of the 2008 summer meeting of the Mathematical
Association of America. Published in
January 2012 Journal of
Humanistic Mathematics. Click HERE to
hear a demo recording that includes an additional verse! • “The Day Math Teachers Took Over the
World” is an original song (judged a winner in the 2015 MoMath song contest) of my fantasy of what the world would
look like with math teachers in charge.
This song was debuted at the opening banquet of the 2008 MAA MathFest and appeared in January 2012 Journal of
Humanistic Mathematics. Click HERE
to hear a demo recording. • “Numbers Man” is a whimsical
"math love song" I imagined my dad could have written for my mom,
whom he got to know by being her calculus tutor (lyrics and music written by
Lesser; judged a winner in the 2015 MoMath song
contest). Appears on p. 12 of March
1999 Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal. Click HERE to
hear a demo recording. • “Knowin’ Induction” introduces the technique of mathematical induction to students, adapted with permission from a lyric by Dane R. Camp (in his fun 1998 ICTM booklet) and may be sung to the tune of Bob Dylan's "Blowin’ in the Wind" (a #2 hit for Peter Paul & Mary). Appears in April 2000 Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal and Sept. 2005 MAA Math Horizons. • “Findin’ Extrema Local” concerns finding
local extrema, sung to the tune of the Desmond Child and Robi
Rosa song “Livin’ La Vida Loca”
that was a #1 hit for Ricky Martin in 1999. Appears in the April 2015 MAA Math
Horizons and was excerpted
in JMA. • “Not Even!” is an “odd” rap giving elementary school students a fun way
to explore mathematical and real world connections with odd numbers! Appears in Spring 2002 [Georgia Council of
Teachers of Mathematics] Reflections.
A shorter version that I wrote of this song called “That’s Odd!” was used on
a PBS-TV children’s educational
show that first aired January 26, 2012. • “This Old Man” is the
traditional children’s folksong counting through the numbers 1-10, but I
extended it to skip count to 100 by tens, and then went out to ten billion
via powers of ten! Appears in Winter
2003 [Georgia Council of Teachers of Mathematics] Reflections. • “One!” was the
closing song of MAA: The Musical!”, which debuted at the opening banquet of
the 2011 summer meeting of the MAA and has been reprised at several
subsequent MathFests (e.g., Centennial in 2015).
Annalisa Crannell commissioned me to write this lyric to the (Marvin Hamlisch
& Edward Kleban) tune of “One!” from A Chorus Line. Published in January 2012 Journal of
Humanistic Mathematics. See audio
or video of live
performance. • “Stayin’
with 5!” explores various connections to the
number 5 to the tune of the Bee Gees’ hit “Stayin’
Alive”. Published on p. 10 of the Winter
2013 (GCTM) eReflections. • “Stairway
to 7” explores a rich variety of mathematical and real-world connections
to 7, and may be sung to the tune of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant's (7-verse)
song "Stairway to Heaven," the Led Zeppelin song that has been
played most on the radio. Appeared in Aug.
2001 Humanistic Mathematics Network
Journal and in May/June 2007 MAA FOCUS (just before 7/7/07!). • “8 is So
Neat” explores a rich
variety of mathematical and real-world connections to 8, and may be sung to
the tune of the 1965 #1 hit “Eight Days a Week” by John Lennon & Paul
McCartney. Appeared in the August 2008
Mathematics Teacher (just in time for 8/8/08!). • “Tessellation!” uses the tune of the Kool & the Gang #1 hit
“Celebration” to introduce tessellations to younger audiences. Published in the Winter
2013 (Georgia Council of Teachers of Mathematics) eReflections. • “Your
Body is a Numberland” integrates the wonders of math and the body and may
be sung to John Mayer’s #3 hit (“Your Body is a Wonderland”, which won him a
Grammy in 2003). The high school
students I taught got me to listen to Mayer’s music, which gave me the
opportunity to parody a more current hit (my version is more discreet than
Mayer’s). Appears in March 2005 Journal of Irreproducible Results. • “Talkin’ Real-Life Problem
Blues” compiles math jokes to
critique the uninspiring practice of assigning contrived problems, grouped by
topic not structure. This was a winning song in the 2018 Open Set math song
contest held by the National Museum of Mathematics. • “Cantor's
Coat” is based on J.W. Dauben's
biography of German mathematician Georg Cantor, the inventor of set theory,
whose brilliant but counterintuitive ideas were resisted during his lifetime.
Lyric is a slightly revised version of what appears in March 1999 Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal.
Click HERE to hear a
demo recording. • “I Will Survive” is an anthem to
help teachers relieve the stress of high-stakes testing. Appears on p. 7 of this
issue of the newsletter of TODOS: Mathematics for ALL. |