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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) get a vocals-removed karaoke disc of the original tune and sing (and/or have students sing) the math lyrics instead, (4) make your own karaoke like L. Williams does or (5) bring me to your school! PERMISSIONS: |
Greatest LESSER Hits!• “American Pi”
-- presents historical highlights (and a mnemonic for the first 6 significant
figures) of the number pi, ranging from an implied value in the Bible to the
Indiana legislature’s 1897 consideration of a bill that declared pi equal to
4 [see Arthur Hallerberg's article "Indiana's
Squared Circle" in the May 1977 Mathematics Magazine and Lesser’s article
“Slices of Pi: Rounding Up Ideas for Celebrating Pi Day in the Fall 2004 Texas
Mathematics Teacher ], and may be sung to the tune of
Don McLean’s #1 hit “American Pie.” The Math Forum lists it (click here or here) as a
great song for "PI DAY" (3/14), as does the March 2005 issue of MAA
Focus! Various versions and updates appear in May
2000 Mathematics Teacher, March
2003 Pi in the Sky (www.pims.math.ca/pi/), September 2005 Journal of Irreproducible Results,
February 2006 MAA Math Horizons,
and in the 2004 Prometheus book by Posamentier and
Lehmann entitled Pi: A Biography of the
World’s Most Mysterious Number, pp. 135-6. Check
out this rockin’ rendition performed in 2006 by
Calvin Coolidge (a band of Clevelanders in high school at the time!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll_45NomcFk
or http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9202713347829076799&hl=en;
for more pi fun, see www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/lesser/piday.html. A couple of choruses are sung as the
“finale” to the “Joy of Pi” lecture (lecture #12 of the 24-lecture “Joy
of Mathematics” course #1411) recorded by Dr. Art Benjamin for The
Teaching Company. • “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. [My interest in finding creative ways to
educate general audiences about the lottery dates back to a highly-publicized
(all the way to CNN Headline News!) course I created on the psychology and
probability underlying the then-new Texas Lottery; see articles in November
1997 Spreadsheet User and August 28, 1993 Austin American-Statesman]. Appears in Winter 2002 Stats and January 2005 Journal
of Irreproducible Results. • “Hotel
Infinity” – was used as a metaphor by German
mathematician David Hilbert near the start of the 1900's to help clarify
paradoxes about infinity that had emerged, and may be sung to the tune of the
(also surreal) #1 hit by The Eagles that was the title cut off their #1 album
Hotel California. [I was inspired by the Eagles' song and by Ian
Stewart's "Hilbert's Hotel" story in the December 1998 New
Scientist]. Appears in November
2004 The Journal of Irreproducible Results, May 2001 Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal, the 2005 A.K. Peters book by Len Wapner (on
paradoxical results such as the Banach-Tarski
Theorem) The Pea and the Sun: A
Mathematical Paradox -- it got a good review in: http://plus.maths.org/issue36/reviews/book2/),
and the October 2006 American
Mathematical Monthly. • “Average
Love Songs” educates about the mean while making commentary on
typical love songs on mainstream pop radio.
May be sung to the tune of the #1 Paul McCartney hit “Silly Love
Songs”. Appears in September 2005 Amstat News and November 2005 Journal of Irreproducible Results. • “We
Will Graph You! / We Are the Mathletes!”
– “We Will Graph You” encourages students step-by-step 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 rhythmic pattern
(an algo-rhythm?) 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, the largest-selling newspaper in • “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.” [you can hear a
radio performance of this song that Lesser performed during a live appearance
(archived at www.webct.com; you can skip to the 47th minute to hear the song: http://hollywood.webct.com:10000/ramgen/mathmedley/mathmed092300.rm)
on "Math
Medley," a weekly hour-long talkradio show
broadcast live on AM radio in Arizona and New England and on Internet radio www.renaissanceradio.com
worldwide! will be archived on an NSF website] Appears in May 2000 Mathematics Teacher. • “Fifty Ways to Work
a Problem” -- reminds students that real-life problem solving follows
a general strategy (i.e., G. 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 the Nov. 1993 College Mathematics Journal or David Morgereth in the Oct. 2001 Mathematics Teacher]
Appears in May 2000 Mathematics Teacher. • “Check Your
Work” reminds all of us (from student to teacher to NASA contractor!)
of something important to do, and may be sung to the
tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad". (also
published in songsforteaching.com).
Appears in Winter 2002 [Georgia Council of Teachers of Mathematics] Reflections. • “Circle Song”
helps secondary school students distinguish and recall the two most common
formulas associated with circles.
Appears in Fall 2004 Texas
Mathematics Teacher, which is available at http://www.tenet.edu/tctm/downloads/TMT_Fall_04.pdf;
for more pi fun, see www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/lesser/piday.html • “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
(News from 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. [I was inspired to connect views of world harmony to views of a
graph by a writing-to-learn exercise in an algebra textbook (Wells and
Schmitt 1996, p. 321) which asked students to connect the opening line of
Gold's song with the fact that the graphs of y = x7 and y = x7
- 3x6 + x5 look
similar from a distance.] Appears in
May 2000 Mathematics Teacher and in
December 2005 American Mathematical
Monthly. • “Stairway
to Seven” explores a rich variety of mathematical and real-world
connections to the number 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. Appears in August
2001 Humanistic Mathematics Network
Journal and in the May/June 2007 MAA FOCUS (just before 7/7/07!). As
Monte Zerger says in the March 2002 College
Mathematics Journal (p. 74): "A mathematical exploration into
the 'life' of a natural number can not only be an entertaining and refreshing
diversion, it can lead to engaging questions and unexpected discoveries as
well." (Note: in fall 2008, MAA launched: http://maanumberaday.blogspot.com/) • “Eight is So
Neat” explores a rich
variety of mathematical and real-world connections to the number 8, and may
be sung to the tune of the 1965 #1 hit “Eight Days a Week” by John Lennon
& Paul McCartney. Appears in the
August 2008 issue of Mathematics Teacher (just before 8/8/08!). • “Birthday
Song” contrasts the often confused events of "some people
matching" with "someone matches with ME" [see my article about
the Birthday Problem in the May 1999 Mathematics Teacher], and may be
sung to the tune of Mildred J. Hill and Patty Smith Hill’s “Happy Birthday to
You”. Appears in Winter 2002 Stats. • “Taking Leave of
Our Census”-- summarizes the recent controversy about statistically
adjusting America’s decennial census for undercount, and may be sung to the
tune of John Denver’s #1 hit “Annie’s Song” [As the sole staff statistician
for the Texas Legislative Council during their redistricting project in
1990-91, I utilized Census data and gained context to appreciate some
of the issues recently raised about statistical adjustment for
undercount.] Appears in Winter 2002 Stats
and Autumn 2001 Teaching Statistics. • “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. • “Imaginary” addresses
students' common initial question about the usefulness of imaginary numbers,
and may be sung to the tune of John Lennon's #3 hit "Imagine." [my lyric was inspired by reviewing Paul J. Nahin's An Imaginary Tale: The Story of i for the October 1999 Mathematics Teacher.] Appears in April 2000 Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal. • “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 September 2005 MAA Math Horizons. • “What
P-Value Means” is a quick (10 seconds) catchy way (sung to the tune
of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”) to remember just
that: “It is key to know what p-value
means. It’s the chance / with the null / you obtain / data that’s / at least
that extreme.” Appears in Spring 2007 Teaching
Statistics and fall 2007 (issue 48) Stats. Also, this song and several other
statistics songs appear in the CAUSEWeb fun resources collection. • “The Way
I Learn Best” -- allows students to express their learning style and
experiences in mathematics [it could be adapted for other subjects also] as
they fill in the blanks of the script and then may sing it to the tune of
Suzanne Vega’s Grammy-nominated #5 hit “Luka.” 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. • “Cantor's
Coat” concisely depicts the stark challenges that mathematician faced
during his life (lyrics and music written by Lesser). [inspired
by reading J. W. Dauben's Georg Cantor:
His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite. • “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. • “Not Even!” is an “odd” rap giving (upper elementary school and up)
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. • “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). Appears in March 1999 Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal. |
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Resources
& Bibliography | Lyrics
of Greatest LESSER hits | Cool Math
& Music Quotes |
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