Multicultural Resources
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| Title: | Multicultural Resources |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Burton, J. Bryan, McFarland, Ann L. |
| Source: | General Music Today. 2009 22(2):30-33. |
| Availability: | SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Physical Description: | |
| Page Count: | 4 |
| Publication Date: | 2009 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Descriptive |
| Descriptors: | Music Education, Music, Basal Reading, Ethnic Groups, Anthologies, Classrooms, Music Teachers, Resource Materials, Teaching Methods, Instructional Materials, Singing, Folk Culture |
| DOI: | 10.1177/1048371308328386 |
| ISSN: | 1048-3713 |
| Abstract: | In the nearly two decades since the 1990 MENC preconference symposium on Multicultural Approaches to Music Education in Washington, DC, music educators have come to recognize the need to include a variety of world musics in all music curricula, from elementary classrooms to advanced performing ensembles. Accordingly, a significant increase in available teaching materials has occurred, both in new classroom basal series and in teaching anthologies specifically targeting world music cultures. Given this new wealth of multicultural resource material, music educators can now select books, recordings, and other resources that will enable them to involve students in many new forms of music without placing an undue strain upon increasingly limited classroom music budgets. Some multicultural resource materials are general and provide overviews of two or more cultures. Other resources focus upon a specific culture or ethnic group. This article provides a set of reviews introducing several resources that offer diverse approaches to teaching world music. |
| Abstractor: | ERIC |
| Entry Date: | 2009 |
| Accession Number: | EJ822814 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0036002647;9f601jan.09;2009Jan09.14:19;v2.2.460</anid> <title id="AN0036002647-1">Multicultural Resources </title> <p>In the nearly two decades since the 1990 MENC preconference symposium on Multicultural Approaches to Music Education in Washington, DC, music educators have come to recognize the need to include a variety of world musics in all music curricula, from elementary classrooms to advanced performing ensembles. Accordingly, a significant increase in available teaching materials has occurred, both in new classroom basal series and in teaching anthologies specifically targeting world music cultures.</p> <p>Given this new wealth of multicultural resource material, music educators can now select books, recordings, and other resources that will enable them to involve students in many new forms of music without placing an undue strain upon increasingly limited classroom music budgets. Some multicultural resource materials are general and provide overviews of two or more cultures (see "Multicultural Resources," Winter 1998, GMT for suggestions). Other resources focus upon a specific culture or ethnic group.</p> <p>Ney Rosauro. 2004. The ABCs of Brazilian Percussion. New York: Carl Fischer Music. 36 pp. Companion DVD.</p> <p>Billed as "the easiest way to teach yourself how to play the essential Brazilian percussion instruments," The ABCs of Brazilian Percussion comes from a growing genre of world music publications that focuses upon proper performance techniques and style for a specific set of instruments that are generally drawn from a single culture or culture group. Aside from what one may think is the obvious reason for such publication--playing the instruments correctly--the music itself as notated is not the way it should sound. Therefore, music educators need to learn the basic feel of the music to perform and teach it accurately. This past summer, a music teacher enrolled in one of West Chester University's series of workshops on world percussion passed along another reason such instruction is needed: More students from world cultures are entering American classrooms and many either play the ethnic instruments themselves or have family members who do. "I can't get away with just banging out the rhythms any more. I have to use the proper technique or my new students are very quick to correct me."</p> <p>The ABCs of Brazilian Percussion is written in three major sections. Part 1 (Introduction) examines historical and cultural aspects of Brazilian music, then introduces basic considerations, concepts, and feeling through brief discussion and notated examples of the most important rhythmic figures of Brazilian music. The author offers a simple way to establish the "feel" of Brazilian music through dampening the first stroke on the bass drum (surdo), leaving the second open, and slightly emphasizing the fourth sixteenth note of each set played by the snare drum (caixa). Finally, the concept of Brazilian clave is introduced, with a brief hint that Brazilian clave does not work with the same concept as clave in other Latin music.</p> <p>Part 2, "Instruments" ("Technique and Exercises"), is the heart of this text. Eleven Brazilian percussion instruments are introduced along with a black-and-white photograph of the instrument, and clear directions for holding the instruments and beaters/scrapers are given along with a series of exercises teaching both the technique and typical rhythms associated with each instrument. These printed instructions are augmented by visual demonstrations on the accompanying DVD. The guide to correctly pronouncing the name of each instrument is particularly valuable. After all, Brazilian Portuguese is "not exactly" as familiar as the Spanish of Latin music.</p> <p>Part 3, "Main Brazilian Rhythms," offers percussion scores for each of the most popular styles: samba, samba reggae, baiao, frevo, and maracatu. Again, each example is shown on the accompanying DVD.</p> <p>In all, The ABCs of Brazilian Percussion contains 75 exercises along with photos, explanations, and visual examples to guide the percussionist or music educator to an understanding of the correct way to play the primary Brazilian percussion instruments and rhythms.</p> <p>Rene Boyer-Alexander. 2002. Celebrating African-American History Through Plantation Songs and Folklore. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation. 2002. 80 pp.</p> <p>Plantation Songs and Folklore is the second volume of Boyer-Alexander's "Walking in the Light of Freedom" series, which is a three-volume sequence intended to serve as a major resource series, complete with a chronological history of songs, speech, and rhythmic activities as well as commentaries that unlock a deeper understanding of African American culture and the role it has played in the history of America. The first volume in this series, Spirituals, was reviewed in an earlier column.</p> <p>Boyer-Alexander opens this resource with an introduction to Black history, including brief biographies of prominent African Americans such as Carter Woodson, who is known as the Father of Black History, and James Weldon Johnson, a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and author of the words to "Lift Every Voice and Sing." Materials for classroom activities include a setting of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," a choral speech activity, a speech activity, and an original song by the author.</p> <p>The next three sections contain a total of 27 songs plus poems, speech and rhythm activities, and plays. Section 1 focuses upon field hollers and work songs, Section 2 presents ballads and songs for relaxation, and Section 3 offers sings and activities from "All Around the Kitchen." Each section contains an introduction defining the genres with the songs given, usually in a voice-with-piano-accompaniment format. A few songs and activities have additional contextual information of instructions. Poems, rhythm and speech activities, and narratives are also included in each of these sections. Most of the songs are traditional African American songs, but music is also drawn from Brazilian, Jamaican, Caribbean, Louisiana Creole, and African sources. Composed songs, including several by Boyer-Alexander, are also a part of this collection.</p> <p>Section 4, "Storytelling," contains a collection of stories drawn from African and African American traditions, the tales of Joel Chandler Harris, and a poem by James Weldon Johnson. Boyer-Alexander retells these stories at levels appropriate for the music classroom and reformats a few into speech and rhythmic activities and plays. Her introduction to the history and art of storytelling is well worth reading.</p> <p>David Nelson. 2008. Solkattu Manual: An Introduction to the Rhythmic Language of South Indian Music. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. 150 pp. Two-DVD companion set.</p> <p>Solkattu Manual: An Introduction to the Rhythmic Language of South Indian Music is a sequential hands-on approach to exploring one of the world's great drumming traditions. Solkattu is the system of spoken syllables and patterns of hand clapping used by musicians and dancers in the classical traditions of South India. This book is best used at the high school and college levels of music classes, where it may be employed both to teach rhythmic skills and drumming and as a supplemental extension of other texts about the music of South India.</p> <p>The introduction provides an explanation of solkattu, including a brief history of music and dance in South India, definitions of terms, and explanations of the hand clapping and rhythm syllables. Of great importance are the guide to the use of the text to teach this system, the pronunciation guide, and the glossary, all part of the introduction.</p> <p>In essence, the manual begins with exercises in a "simple" three-beat cycle (tisra jati eka tala), teaching a fundamental process. It then introduces the concept of three speeds and presents seven related exercises. Once this first section is mastered, the lessons continue with four exercise moras (ending designs). The third section is an extensive series of lessons using adi tala, the predominant tala in Karnatak music, which consists of eight beats counted with a four-beat laghu (clap and finger counts) and two drutams (clap and wave pattern). This section includes both exercises and extended compositions.</p> <p>A final section, "Putting It All Together," allows students to apply what they have learned through learning and performing three compositions for varying-sized ensembles. A extensive section on notation provides graphic presentations of exercises and compositions.</p> <p>The companion DVD contains demonstrations of the lessons and compositions performed by soloists and ensembles, which allows visual reinforcement of the techniques employed in solkattu.</p> <p>Sofia Lopez-Ibor and Verena Maschat. 2006. ¡Quien canta su mal espanta! [Singing Drives Away Sorrow!]. New York: Schott Music Corporation. 88 pp. Companion DVD.</p> <p>¡Quien canta su mal espanta! is a supplement to the ever-expanding Music for Children series from Schott Music Corporation (distributed in the United States by Hal Leonard Corporation). This resource is a collection of songs, games, dances, stories, and instrumental pieces gathered from Central and South America, with materials applicable for preschool to middle school levels.</p> <p>An informative introductory section begins with a brief overview of Latin American music (reinforced through contextual information shown with individual songs) and a rationale for selection of the music. Also in this section are a list of Orff instruments used in the text, photos and names of selected South American instruments, an explanation of the dance notation, discography, bibliography, and acknowledgments. Although there is a Spanish pronunciation guide, the book lacks a pronunciation for Quechua, an indigenous language spoken by many "Indians" in western South America and used for two songs in this collection; nor is a recording of each song provided to aid in pronunciation of both Spanish and Quechua.</p> <p>This text offers more than 30 musical selections and includes instructions for dances, game activities, and instrumental performances. Each selection includes a teaching guide with contextual information, lyrics (in Spanish and English or Quechua and English), a music focus, a language focus, activities, dance description, and game description. The authors include the items most appropriate for the individual selection. Songs are notated to show vocal and instrumental parts, with instruments chosen from the Orff-Schulwerk instrumentarium, authentic instruments from the culture, or a combination of Orff and authentic instruments. Two songs are connected with stories (a creation story and a story teaching proper social behavior) and two are in Quechua.</p> <p>Although, as is to be expected, the majority of accompaniments are for Orff instrumentarium, the authors do include authentic Central/South American instruments or appropriate substitutes (see insert below). Orff xylophones are employed for the selection "El Hombre Celoso" as a substitute for the marimbas de tecomates used in Guatemala, and recorders (soprano and alto) are used to represent quenas in a number of selections. Both instances are well-thought-out substitutions of instruments of similar range and construction as the traditional instruments. Similarly, a combination of classroom and authentic percussion instruments appear in the transcriptions to give a flavor of authenticity. A brief section of the book, "Instruments '3 in 1'," shows how students may build an instrument to use in performances.</p> <p>Another excellent example of replicating authentic performance style can be found in the lesson for "Pasillo." Siku (a type of panpipe) music is typically played in a hocket style because each instrument of the pair contains only every other note of the scale. (An excellent example of this technique is "Tu Abandono," recorded by the Bolivian group Alaxpacha. The speaker separation brings out the hocket effect quite nicely.) Recorders may be substituted for quenas, choosing soprano, alto, or tenor depending upon range of the quena part. The tone quality is similar although the producing tone is slightly different.</p> <p>Various rattles substitute nicely for chajcas (goat hoof rattle), the vibraslap is substituted for donkey jawbone, the guitar or ukulele for charango, and a variety of drums substitute for bombo, pinpin, and so forth. Should the music educator wish to use authentic instruments or have a few instruments to display, the Web site Lark in the Morning (<ulink href="http://www.larkintheam.com">www.larkintheam.com</ulink>) often carries authentic Latin American folk instruments, and the sites <ulink href="http://www.boliviamall.com">www.boliviamall.com</ulink> and <ulink href="http://www.novica.com">www.novica.com</ulink> can supply handmade instruments, recordings, books, and so on. (Please be aware that contact with customer service for the last two sites is usually best conducted in Spanish.)</p> <p>Several "huzzahs" are well deserved for this resource. First, the companion DVD shows six dances from the text performed by children and accompanied by a children's singing group and instrumentalists. Being able to present dances in a way that easily transfers into accurate performance continues to be a bane in multicultural teaching materials! Second, the translations for the lyrics are literal and are not intended to be sung. The "singable English lyrics" used by too many resources as a crutch for the music educator who is hesitant to immerse his/her class in the culture prevent a total cultural experience--and often distort the meaning of the song or require changes in the melody to fit the English words. Finally, the emphasis on language learning as part of the total package for classroom experiences is a cross-curricular bonus. Alas, however, this book does not have a recording of the songs and instrumental selections. Such a recording would help music educators and students with both the language of the songs and the intricate rhythms for several selections.</p> <hd id="AN0036002647-2">Techniques and Substitutions</hd> <p>Bolivian siku</p> <p>Showing alternation of pitches on siku</p> <p>Quena and soprano recorder</p> <p>Concert ukulele and charango</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR)</p> <aug> <p>By J. Bryan Burton and Ann L. McFarland</p> <p></p> <p>J. Bryan Burton is chair and professor of music education and coordinator of graduate studies in music at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. jburton3@wcupa.edu</p> <p>Ann L. McFarland is assistant professor of music education and coordinator of student teaching and field experience at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. amcfarland@wcupa.edu</p> </aug> |
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| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1177/1048371308328386 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 4 StartPage: 30 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Music Education Type: general – SubjectFull: Music Type: general – SubjectFull: Basal Reading Type: general – SubjectFull: Ethnic Groups Type: general – SubjectFull: Anthologies Type: general – SubjectFull: Classrooms Type: general – SubjectFull: Music Teachers Type: general – SubjectFull: Resource Materials Type: general – SubjectFull: Teaching Methods Type: general – SubjectFull: Instructional Materials Type: general – SubjectFull: Singing Type: general – SubjectFull: Folk Culture Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Multicultural Resources Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Burton, J. Bryan – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: McFarland, Ann L. IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2009 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 1048-3713 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 22 – Type: issue Value: 2 Titles: – TitleFull: General Music Today Type: main |
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