Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(variations of a song)
By Adele Lowen
- Explain to the students that in Africa, there is a dry season and a wet season.
When it is the wet season, it rains for days at a time, filling up the streams, rivers,
and watering holes for the animals to drink from. The song Africa tells about the
rain in Africa.
- Show the students the YouTube video AFRICA (live in Amsterdam) by Toto
*click on the link below
- while the song is playing, discuss:
- musicians encourage audience participation by clapping hands to
the beat
- discuss the instruments: electric guitars (string family), drums and
electric keyboards/synthesizer (percussion family)
- usually the musician at center stage is the lead singer and in this
band, he doesn't play an instrument; the musicians play their
instrument and do the backup singing - Note that the keyboard
musician is doing the lead singing in this song
- genre - soft rock
- everyone singing is singing pitches in either the bass, tenor, alto, or
soprano range and when they sing together, they create
harmony
- watch the movements and actions of the musicians on stage when
they are "feeling" the music and to keep the audience's
attention
- different instruments are highlighted or have a mini solo to feature
them, the other instruments play quietly in the background
- Using body percussion, make a rainstorm song in the classroom:
* A melody is made up of sounds organized in patterns. Our rainstorm song
will have 5 patterns.
1. divide the class into 5 groups
2. assign each group a sound:
- tongue click (splash of rain - spitting)
- snap fingers (sprinkle of rain)