On the six-seventh day of Christmas, my elementary music instructor gave to me … a foolish vacation music to sing by the tree.
Like lots of his colleagues across the nation, Tyler Bishop, who teaches music at Northmoor Major College in Peoria, Ailing., can’t escape the “six-seven” craze.
The fad has made instructing music—together with counting eight beat patterns—robust, as youngsters scream “six-seven!,” full with the accompanying hand gestures.
The “six-seven” shrug—so viral that it has been tapped because the 2025 Phrase of the 12 months by Dictionary.com—is the newest of the endless stream of nonsensical jokes, rituals, and competitions that unfold like wildfire amongst college students in lessons and on social media. It originated from a rap music however doesn’t have any explicit that means.
Developments like “six-seven” usually show bewildering and annoying to academics and oldsters, however specialists say for probably the most half they’re a standard and helpful a part of youngsters’s social growth.
Bishop, the daddy of an elementary-aged baby and a toddler, couldn’t even get away from the six-seven craze at dwelling.
So, he determined to take these “six-seven” lemons and make … eggnog, writing a “six-seven ” vacation music he might share with college students.
Bishop began out by crafting the lyrics with the objective of “ensuring the melody was one thing easy and catchy, and one thing my college students might immediately join with,” he stated in an e mail.
He hit on lyrics which are enjoyable for teenagers, but additionally lots relatable for any grownup—father or mother, instructor, coach, and so on.—who has been inundated with the “six-seven” development.
Snow is falling softly/ Twinkling on the bottom/ Each little footstep makes a jingle sound/ Cookies within the oven/ Cocoa on the range/ All people dancing of their Christmas garments…
Six-Seven Christmas/ Six-Seven lights!/ Six-Seven magic!/ Blowin’ by the night time! …
They shout it in all places!/ The enjoyment is breaking unfastened!/ We tried to tame the chaos!/ However now we chant it, too!
Bishop, who hardly ever listens to music that got here out after 2000, recorded himself singing his Christmas creation.
However he thought the music wanted a bit extra of a “pop-style” voice.
So Bishop, who considers himself a expertise novice, used a digital audio workstation—a music manufacturing expertise instrument that includes synthetic intelligence—and located a studio-grade vocal that match the invoice. He additionally added digital devices.
“Every part continues to be me, as I dealt with the writing, arranging, and manufacturing myself: constructing the chords, shaping the construction, selecting the instrumentation, and mixing it into the ultimate monitor,” he stated. “That’s what’s so superb about right this moment’s music expertise. For these of us with no entire studio of musicians in our again pocket, with some effort, numerous trial and error, and endurance, we are able to nonetheless produce some fairly cool media!”
His college students beloved the consequence.
“They’re the rationale the music exists and seeing them gentle up once they hear it has been the most effective a part of the entire expertise,” Bishop stated.
Now that Bishop has caught “the songwriting bug,” he’s considering he could put an “instructional twist” on his subsequent ditty.
In any case, making a bespoke music could also be a good way to make foundational musical ideas, equivalent to regular beats or fundamental rhythms, come alive for college kids.
“I don’t actually see this slowing down for me,” he stated.
Bishop’s recommendation to academics who could wish to use music writing as a part of their instruction—or as an engagement instrument: “Do your greatest to seek out out what your youngsters are listening to and watching and curious about, and take note of these traits, ” he stated. “Even when they’re annoying.”
