Teach African Music on Xylophones
Do you want to teach African music in your class? We hope the following will help with some ideas.
Log xylophones are ideal instruments for learning rhythms, because there is no need to master a difficult physical playing technique to produce a good sound. Log xylophones are great instruments for people of all abilities, since all that is required is to hit with a stick. Freed from technical distractions, this allows the focus to be on achieving the rhythms and the music.
- the song
- try this cross-rhythm exercise
- using the xylophone
- another cross-rhythm exercise
- interlocking patterns (hocketing)
Teaching African music is a challenge! For a start, there's such a bewildering diversity of instruments and sounds. African music is famous for its rhythm, which can be intricately complex: it can be hard to understand how the music works even when you're right there watching it being performed.
We have focussed on the xylophone traditions of Uganda in East Africa. In Uganda, log xylophones are played on their own, or in traditional orchestras alongside drums, shakers, panpipes, flutes, thumb-pianos and one-string fiddles: such orchestras produce a rich and mesmerising tapestry of sound, supporting solo and chorus singers, and energetic dances.
The material presented here shows a little of how this music is put together. We have found that African log xylophones are ideal instruments for learning about rhythm. The examples here can be practised with typical small school xylophones, but if you can, get hold of log xylophones. (Metal key instruments are less satisfactory because the keys ring for too long). So far, only song and some xylophone parts are shown here, but a follow-up stage would be to add drum parts and other instruments, for example using recorders to play panpipe parts.
Of course it is not possible to learn in a class in quite the way music is learnt in African villages, but we have tried to incorporate some African method into our approach. We recommend that you learn parts aurally: you should be able to sing a part while clapping before attempting to play it.
Preliminary: Listen and Move
African children grow up with their music, learning by ear, listening and imitating. So a very important first stage is to listen to the music as much as possible. (See at end for a few recommendations of the best CDs/tapes of Ugandan musicians). A lot of African music is associated with movement, for example working or dancing. Simple dance movements are invaluable aids to getting everyone playing rhythms together in time: they also help to break down inhibitions and to build up energy levels (and to dissipate excess!)
1. Listen
* Play short excerpts of recordings.
* Invite description of the music (what instruments are being
played, description of sound qualities and form: eg drawing
attention to cyclical patterns; call and response in songs)
* Play the recording again, and try to clap in time while
listening
2. Move
* Try simple movements in time while the music plays, such as
marching round the room in a circle
* Ask for suggested variations in the movements
The heart of African music is often a song. The song is learned first, providing a foundation on which instrumental parts can be based. Simple instrumental parts are learned initially, and then refined and elaborated into more difficult parts as the student gains experience.
The sample Ugandan lullaby "mwana wangé" is shown using both staff notation and the "time unit box system"notation (each box is a unit of time, with notes of a pentatonic scale numbered 1-5).
* Teach the words of the song, carefully spelling out the words
of an unfamiliar language
* Learn to sing while clapping at the same time. Learn the chorus
first, then the solo line, then alternating solo with answering
chorus. Finally, try singing while moving around in a circle: take
it in turns singing the solo, with everyone answering with the
chorus.
Stage 2: Try this cross-rhythm
This song contains a very fundamental rhythmic pattern (commonly known here as "two's-against-three's", though few African musicians would ever think in those terms).
* Patting hands on laps, practice using left and right hands to
repeat the following pattern, hitting with both hands together, then
alternating left,right,left, - say the words out loud:
Both (gap) Left Right Left (gap) Both (gap) Left Right Left -
.....,
* Keep the pattern going, but chant "Mòunt
Càmeròon" in time, one syllable to each pat, and
concentrate on the left hand. Then try chanting
"Tèchnicòlor" (or alternatively
"Tànzanìa"), while shifting the attention to the right
hand beat. The natural emphasis (as shown by the accents) of the
words Mount Cameroon and Technicolor illustrate two ways of
perceiving this rhythmic pattern.
* With this same pattern, try to focus awareness on the fact that
the left hand is playing a steady beat at one speed, while the right
hand also plays a steady beat, but more slowly. This is sometimes
called a cross-rhythm.
* If you repeat this pattern with one hand playing a drum (the
other hand continuing to pat on the lap), this helps to separate the
two sides of the rhythmic pattern. One half of the class can play
the left hand on drums, while the other half of the class plays the
right hand on drums (perhaps of a different pitch).
Stage 3: Introducing the xylophone
If you are using school xylophones, take only the keys you need, and arrange them in to sets of five adjacent keys making a pentatonic scale (for example CDFGA). The xylophones are played with players on both sides of the instrument. Each octave can accommodate two players, sitting facing each other on opposite sides, each playing with one beater, hitting on the ends of the keys (as in the photos).
For the beaters, we suggest using wooden drumsticks, or better, lengths of dowelling (30cm long x 15mm diameter). Masking tape or sticky labels can be used to number the keys as shown:
* First try the previous cross-rhythm on the xylophone.
* Start again with all xylophone players on one side of the
instrument(s) playing a form of the song melody on the xylophone
(Starter 1), while the rest sing the song:
* Then players sitting opposite can join in (Mixer 1) playing on
one note. The timing of this note is like that of the "Technicolor"
beat in the previous exercise.
* Keep the solo and chorus singing going while the xylophone
plays
Stage 4: Another kind of cross-rhythm
This exercise helps prepare for another mixing technique which
follows (called hocketing).
* Check that everyone knows that Lima is the capital of Peru, and
Mali is an African country. The following makes use of the fact that
if you switch round the two syllables of Ma-li, it sounds like
Li-ma.
* Divide the class into two groups. One group chants Ma- repeated
at a steady rate, while the second group fits the syllable -li in
between each Ma-, so that the overall sound comes out as chanting
Mali. If each group claps with their syllable of the chant, the clap
passes from side to side (like the tick-tock of a clock):
The first group hears Ma- as the main beat, with -li as an
offbeat.
* Without stopping, encourage the second group to think of the
whole as saying Lima. In this way, they start to hear Li- as the
main beat, with -ma as an offbeat:
This shows how the two groups can feel their main beat at
different moments. This is another way of thinking of a
cross-rhythm.
* Try it again with each group playing a steady xylophone beat on
any key.
* Try the same kind of thing again with "tea-pot" ...
Stage 5: Interlocking patterns by hocketing
The tunes of African songs are often mirrored by accompanying instruments. The musicians interlock their parts by slipping their notes into gaps in the other musicians' parts. In this way, the musicians may distribute the notes of the melody between different players - so with only one musician playing, the melody might not be heard: it is only when two or more musicians play together at speed that the full melody and other patterns can be heard emerging from the overall sound.
* Now try (slowly at first!) dividing the melody of Starter 1
between the players on either side of the xylophone. The players on
each side take turns in playing a note of the melody, as shown in
Starter 2 / Mixer 2. The melody now emerges from the interplay of
the two parts. The players on one side play their notes in between
the notes played by the other side: this technique is called
hocketing.
* See if each side can play their half of the pattern separately on
its own.
* Try the Starter 2 variation.
Ugandan xylophone players can hocket at great speed.
* Go back to playing the original starter melody (Starter 1). The
players on the opposite side can try hocketing on just one note at
this faster speed (Mixer 3), and with practice, they might manage to
mix with a pattern (Mixer 4).
Recommended recordings:
"Uganda: Village Ensembles of Busoga", AIMP L, 1997, VDE-Gallo CD
925
"Music of Uganda: I Traditional", Caprice Records, 1996, CAP
21495
"Ssempeke!", K&C Productions, (audio cassette)
"Play Amadinda", K&C Productions (xylophone teaching booklet
and audio cassette)