Cherrywood Community Primary School
Music - Drums Nov 2020
Music November 2020
This term in Listen 2 me lessons, the children have been learning African percussion. They started off the term trying to feel and clap the steady beat to a variety of pieces of music. They then learnt how to play a djembe drum correctly and continued our work on ‘steady beat’ on the drums. The lessons also involved learning ‘call and response’ chants and word rhythms that the children would copy back to me culminating in a game of Don’t clap this one back where they have to listen out for a specific rhythm and not copy it back when they hear it. At the start of term, Mrs Vaughan would always win the game but now the class beats her every time.
To add to the texture of sound that the children are producing, they have also learnt to play the Dun duns (larger drums) and the caixixis (shakers). They have explored the best technique to get the best sound and also which rhythms are easiest on which instrument. Mrs Vaughan spent a lesson with the children making up their own rhythm compositions in small groups and learning how these rhythms can be incorporated into a performance piece.
Mrs Vaughan commented:
“In the videos you will see everything they have learnt coming together in one drumming piece: A call and response start, the main part of the piece where each row of instruments is playing their own separate rhythm (polyrhythm), a ‘break’ in the middle where each instrument plays a solo before returning to the main polyrhythm and then finishing in a controlled stopping pattern.
The class has worked so hard this term. They maintain excellent focus throughout each lesson and demonstrate a real ‘can do’ approach when faced with learning something new which is often very challenging. At first they found the noise of the drums very loud but have now learnt to focus on the individual sound they are producing and to stick to their rhythm even if others are playing something different.
Group music making requires a high level of concentration, self -awareness and a constant focus on the conductor. The children should feel very proud of the progress that they have made in all these areas from the start of term, but what has really impressed me is their enthusiasm for the subject and their engagement in the lessons.”
Well done Oak class.
Listen to our music.......
Performance 1
Can you hear all the instruments we are playing?
Performance 2