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Twirly Swirly Feelings

About this project

Thanks to funding from Creative Scotland’s Youth Music Initiative, we have been working in collaboration with the Cottage Family Centre in Kirkcaldy to run an Early Years Musician-in-Residence project. The residency ran for 9 months and finished in May 2024. Watch our webinar about the initiative and the benefits of introducing music and singing to families.

About the song

The first part of Twirly Swirly Feelings is all about the wee ones. It's a simplistic song which introduces the idea that we all have different emotions. These can change very quickly and we can feel lots of different things at once.

The song introduces concepts like big and small, high and low, fast and slow, as well as unusual language – for example, ‘twirly swirly’. It also makes use of the rule of three where we repeat a word or a phrase three times. Repetition helps children to catch the words. (Read an article by our Early Year Trainer Paul Kane to learn more about the rule of three).

The key message is that we each have many different emotions, and all emotions are okay to feel.

As the song continues you will hear the background sounds become louder and louder. This represents when emotions get bigger and bigger, coming to a peak before everything softens and the melody changes. The mantra-type lyrics create a sense of calm and remind the big people that they are enough for their wee one just as they are.