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    African Songs and Drum Beats

    Uploaded by

    Paul Lau
    This unit teaches West African drumming and singing to students over the course of a year. Students learn songs and rhythms from Africa and the Caribbean using djembes and other percussion instruments. They develop skills in solo performance, ensemble playing, improvisation, and accompanying singing, dancing, and storytelling. An example lesson plan is provided to teach the song "Ranky Tank" through call-and-response activities, rhythmic exploration, and a performance. The unit aims to help students gain confidence, teamwork skills, and cultural understanding.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    African Songs and Drum Beats

    Uploaded by

    Paul Lau
    206 views4 pages
    This unit teaches West African drumming and singing to students over the course of a year. Students learn songs and rhythms from Africa and the Caribbean using djembes and other percussion instruments. They develop skills in solo performance, ensemble playing, improvisation, and accompanying singing, dancing, and storytelling. An example lesson plan is provided to teach the song "Ranky Tank" through call-and-response activities, rhythmic exploration, and a performance. The unit aims to help students gain confidence, teamwork skills, and cultural understanding.

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    African Songs, Rhythms and Drum Beats

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    This unit teaches West African drumming and singing to students over the course of a year. Students learn songs and rhythms from Africa and the Caribbean using djembes and other percussion instruments. They develop skills in solo performance, ensemble playing, improvisation, and accompanying singing, dancing, and storytelling. An example lesson plan is provided to teach the song "Ranky Tank" through call-and-response activities, rhythmic exploration, and a performance. The unit aims to help students gain confidence, teamwork skills, and cultural understanding.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    206 views4 pages

    African Songs and Drum Beats

    Uploaded by

    Paul Lau
    This unit teaches West African drumming and singing to students over the course of a year. Students learn songs and rhythms from Africa and the Caribbean using djembes and other percussion instruments. They develop skills in solo performance, ensemble playing, improvisation, and accompanying singing, dancing, and storytelling. An example lesson plan is provided to teach the song "Ranky Tank" through call-and-response activities, rhythmic exploration, and a performance. The unit aims to help students gain confidence, teamwork skills, and cultural understanding.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 4

    African Songs and Drum Beats

    Unit design: Zozo Shuiabu and Kevin Hamel

    Performers: Zozo Shuiabu and Sam Maitland

    Video and Still photography: Chris Holmes

    ‘Working with drum patterns involves the use and development of aural and
    temporal thinking. These learning modes have their own languages and sets of skills
    – similar to visual and verbal thinking. Some students excel in aural and temporal
    activities who otherwise face difficulties in the learning approaches emphasised in
    conventional educational settings’
    The Algebra Project

    About the Unit


    African Songs and Drum Beats Drum introduces a one-year programme of West
    African drumming and song. This is taught by Sierra Leone master drummer, Zozo
    Shuaibu, and is offered by Cumbria Music Service as part of the First Access
    instrumental learning initiative at KS2.

    A complete CD resource to support the programme is available from Cumbria Music


    Service, and is made up of the following sections:

    Drum Beats
    Drum Language
    African Songs
    African stories
    Exploring percussion

    Children learn to sing African and Caribbean songs and play Djembes and other
    percussion instruments in solo and ensemble contexts. They learn improvising skills,
    and develop fluency and accuracy through accompanying singing, dancing and
    storytelling. Rhymes and rhythms are drawn from Africa and the Caribbean, and
    children are encouraged to invent, develop and perform their own cyclic patterns.

    The unit is taught through school-based workshop sessions supported by extensive


    video instructional materials on CD rom.

    Children
     learn to work together as a team
     gain confidence in performing solo and in an ensemble
     develop greater self-esteem and esteem
     gain knowledge and understanding of music from different traditions
    African Songs

    African Songs introduces popular action and sociable songs from West Africa and the
    Caribbean. The examples are drawn from the Cumbria Music Service West African
    Drumbeats Wider Opportunities programme.

    The songs should be accompanied with African and classroom percussion.

    Che Che Kule


    A popular singing game from Ghana, including nonsense words from a number of
    West African languages.
     Kofi is a Ghanaian name meaning ‘born on a Friday’.
     ‘Abele’ is a popular West African social dance. In many other versions,
    Compare and perform other action games like. ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and
    Toes’

    Home again
    This song is very popular in West Africa. Soldiers and sailors frequently sang it when
    returning home. There are versions in several African languages.

    Sailors on long voyages made decorative boxes from shells and other materials for
    sweethearts at home. Sometimes, the words ‘Home Again’ made up part of the
    design.

    Ask children to imagine they are going on a long journey. What would they miss
    most about home?

    Everybody likes Saturday Night


    Africans sing this at weekends while relaxing and having fun.

    This song was a favourite of the Sierra Leone musician, Ebenezer Calendar.

    However, his most popular song was ‘Fire! Fire!’ He is said to have sung this to
    entertain passengers on board ship. The tale goes that as soon as he began to sing,
    other passengers raised the alarm thinking the ship was in danger!

    Ranky tank
    This song tells a funny story about a pig and a mouse. Although the story originated
    in Africa, the song is Caribbean. Accompanying movements and rhythm patterns are
    to be found on the West African Drumbeats CD rom. See example lesson plan below
    .
    Koko-rio-ko (Cock-a-doodle-doo)
    This African folk song is sung in Creole:
    Cock-a-doodle-doo!
    Cock-a-doodle-doo!
    Cock-a-doodle-doo!
    Cock crows in the day.

    A cockerel crowing during daylight is considered unusual, and may mean something
    strange is about to happen!

    Drum Beats

    Zozo Shuaibu explains the correct way to hold and sit with the Djembe, along with
    open, bass and mute tones.

    The CD resource demonstrates how tones may be combined to create an extensive


    range of rhythmic patterns. These include

     Kpanlogo: a popular dance rhythm from Ghana


     Koroso: associated with the Hausa people of Nigeria
     Soca: Soul and Calypso rhythm from the Caribbean
     Juju: A Yoruba dance rhythm, characterised by the call and response:
    Ju Ju!
    Ay Ju Ju!

    Below is an example of a lesson plan based on Ranky-Tank from the complete


    resource.

    Ranky-Tank

    Vocabulary
    structure, call, response

    Learning Objectives
    Children should learn
     to identify simple musical structures
     to perform a Caribbean singing game
     to explore and combine parts within a musical structure

    Learning Outcomes
    Children
     sequence and perform movements to Ranky-Tank

    Teaching Activities

    Activity 1
     Listen to Rank -Tank
     The song tells a story. Can the children retell it in their own words?
     Can they identify the repeated response? (Ranky-tank sung by Sam)
     Do children notice the Ranky-tank ‘call’ (Zozo) differs from the Ranky-tank
    ‘response’ (Sam)? Can they say/show how it differs?
     Sing and clap the Ranky-tank response while Zozo and Sam sing the song
     Practise the response on djembes using different combinations of tones
    (Bass, Open and Mute)
     Learn to sing the first part of the song as call and response
    Call: Ranky-tank!
    Response: Ranky-tank!
    Call: Ranky-tank!
    Response: Ranky- tank!
    Call: Ranky-tank!
    Response: Ranky-tank!
    Call: Oh! Oh! Ranky-tank!
    Response: Ranky-tank!
     Perform accompanying the sung response with different combinations of
    djembe tones and percussion instruments

    Activity 2
     Watch Zozo perform Ranky-Tank as a singing game. CD AFRICAN STORIES
    >DANCES>Ranky-Tank
     Learn and practise the song and actions
     Listen to the clave rhythm accompanying the dance. Clap along with this.
     Appoint
    a) a timekeeping group
    b) a djembe group to drum the response (see above)
    c) player/players to maintain the clave rhythm
    d) dancers
    e) singers

     Prepare and practise a performance of Ranky-Tank for an audience

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