Thursday, July 24, 2014
Week 5
Title: Sansa Kroma
Performer: School Children
Culture: Ghana, Africa
Orchestration: Voice and cup
I have taken many classes on music from Ghana and depending on the year I do a lot with african music. There are a number of wonderful children's game songs that I do with my students. This song is Sansa Kroma, I'm not sure of the meaning, but it is a wonderful song for rock passing. This version is done with cups, but you can use anything really. I use hacky sacks because they don't hurt fingers and they make a nice sound when passing, but really I found them my first year teaching and they came in a 4 pack from the party store and were cheap…so I bought 30! When reading Cambell's chapter on creating music I had a difficult time wrapping my brain around some of the ideas, because they seem more geared toward older kids and I teach the little ones. The lesson on ostinatos is something I do every year and I love doing with rock passing games. My students love passing rocks and when asked to come up with their own ostinato to accompany the song they are always willing to try. So thus this is a staple in my classroom. I feel they are getting the cultural aspect of the music along with learning ostinano and then they are creating witch as we all know can be difficult to get the kids to do sometimes.
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Katie,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate you sharing this with us this week. This is such a wonderful activity and for younger students. I completely agree with your statement of the readings pertaining to older students. I also teach general music to middle school students and am always looking for different approaches to teach musical concepts. This is a great tool that involves hands on and group involvement. Do you feel that the students are successful in learning the concept while learning about the culture? Do you typically emphasize the culture at one time and the ostinato at another or both at the same time? What other type of examples do you have or musical concepts for younger students? Thank you so much for your post and I look forward to hearing from you!
I think you nailed it with this example. Just transferring the concepts to what we do with the level of student we have, creating or changing something a lot or a little depending who we are working with and what's more appropriate. It does not need to be nearly as in depth or complicated as the text describes sometimes if that is not what is necessary for our situation. Keeping it simple is often more efficient anyway!
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