Lesson video

Hello! Welcome to lesson 13 in the West African music unit.

This is the last lesson of the unit, and today we're going to be comparing music from different places in West Africa.

We will recap some of the songs we've learned so far, and we also are going to do some composition.

So without further ado, let's see what we're going to need to be successful in today's lesson.

In this lesson, you will need a piece of paper, a pencil, and your body.

Some optional extras include some household items, such as water bottles and empty glasses to make some different kinds of sounds.

And also, BandLab, which you can access through your laptop, phone, or tablet.

Before we do it all the way through, let's just have a quick recap on each section.

So, the start signal sounds like this: ♪ Play the djembe, and here we go ♪ And I'll do it without saying the sentence: There we go.

And the ostinato: ♪ Let's play djembe, Let's play djembe ♪ So, ♪ Let's play djembe, Let's play djembe, ♪ Let's play djembe, Let's play djembe ♪ And we do that until the master drummer does the stop signal again to end that section.

Then, we can start the next section.

So, the stop signal would be: ♪ Play the djembe, and say, "Africa" ♪ And then, your response to that stop signal would be: ♪ Click, Clap ♪ So, so far, we have: ♪ Play the djembe, and here we go ♪, ♪ ♪ Let's play djembe, let's play djembe ♪, ♪ ♪ Let's play djembe, let's play djembe ♪, ♪ and then, ♪ Play the djembe, and say, "Africa" ♪ ♪ Click, clap ♪ And the call-and-response section would be a call from me and a response from you.

The call would be: ♪ What's for dinner, Joe? ♪ And you would improvise after that.

Then we have the singing section: And then we will do another stop signal to end that.

The improvisation section, which I'll leave down to you, and I will just keep the pulse for you.

Followed by another ostinato section, or if you're confident with polyrhythms, an opportunity for you to do some polyrhythms, in this section.

Followed by the final stop signal.

And the final stop signal, again, like always, we are going to: ♪ Click, Clap ♪ so we all finish at the same time, ♪ in unison.

Okay.

Hopefully, that recap means that we're now confident enough to do it all the way through.

If not, you can pause the video, you can rewind, you can do some practise, and click resume when you're ready to do it, all the way through with me.

So, let's see how far we get.

I'm going to try and narrate where we are, and what you should be doing in the different sections.

So, without further ado, let's go! ♪ Let's play djembe, let's play djembe, ♪ ♪ Let's play djembe, let's play djembe.

♪ ♪ Let's play djembe ♪ Call and response: ♪ What's for dinner, Joe? ♪ ♪ Improvising ♪ ♪ Improvising ♪ ♪ Improvising ♪ ♪ Improvising ♪ Good.

Let's do the singing part now.

Improvise section.

I'll give you a pulse, and you go ahead.

♪ Click, clap ♪ Good.

♪ Click, clap ♪ And that brings us to the end of Kuku.

Hopefully you were singing nice and loud.

Hopefully you were confident in the improvisation, and maybe some of you got to do some polyrhythms, in the final ostinato section.

If you would like to rewind that and practise that a few times, feel free to pause the video now.

Otherwise, keep on playing, and I'll see you in the next section.

Let's have a look at the lyrics and also how to pronounce these words, but I have put the lyrics up just over there on my left, and also some tips on how to say some of them.

So, the first one is Brebre, which is like you're saying bread, but without the 'd'.

Brebre Then you have Mede, rhyming with Brebre, and then Masi ta.

And then you have Afe ano ahyia.

Afe ano ahyia.

And then, Nyi and Ni.

Nyi, Ni, Nyi, Ni, Nyi, Ni.

And then finally we have Bo Akora.

Bo Akora.

To hear these lyrics, please go to the worksheet, where you can listen to the song.

It might be an idea to listen to the song, at the same time as reading through these words.

Let's go through them one more time.

I will say them, and then you can repeat them after me.

So, Brebre Mede Masi ta Afe ano ahyia Nyi, Ni, Nyi, Ni, Nyi, Ni Bo Akora Okay! Good.

Now let's see if we can put that all together.

Here we are.

All the way through, I'll do it all the way through.

After a count-in.

I'm just getting into that swing.

♪ One, two, three, four, five, six ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five, six ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five, six ♪ I find the stomping really helpful.

Here we go.

♪ One, two, three, four, five, six ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four ♪ ♪ Me de bre bre bre bre ma si ta ♪ ♪ Me de bre bre bre bre ma si ta ♪ ♪ Afe ano ahyia ♪ ♪ Nyi, Ni, Nyi, Ni, Nyi, Ni, Nyi Ni Bo Akora ♪ That's it.

Again.

♪ Me de bre bre bre bre ma si ta ♪ ♪ Me de bre bre bre bre ma si ta ♪ ♪ Afe ano ahyia ♪ ♪ Nyi, Ni, Nyi, Ni, Nyi, Ni, Nyi Ni Bo Akora ♪ That's it.

That's the one.

So, I'll pause it there.

If you would like to rewind to do that with me a few more times, then go ahead.

What I would also encourage and recommend is trying to sing it along with the track, on the worksheet.

Afropop is a fusion style, that fuses traditional West African music with American pop music.

We are going to be listening to the song, "Africa" by Yemi Alade, And I would like you to list three features from West African music and three features from pop music.

You may able to write more, and that's great.

Here is, "Africa" for the first time.

And for the second time: Feel free to rewind the video, if you need to listen to that for a third time.

Pause the video, complete the table.

Click resume when you're ready to continue.

Composing a West African inspired piece of music: Use body percussion and your voice, or BandLab, to compose a West African inspired piece.

Your piece should contain traditional rhythms, textures and, if possible, sonorities.

You can use the pieces that we've learned for inspiration, or some of the compositions that we have made, in previous lessons, as a starting point for your composition.

And now, we are pretty familiar with body percussion and also homemade instruments.

So I will head over to BandLab now, to show you how you might want to get started over there.

Pause the video to complete your task, then click resume when you're finished.

Using music software: You can create music using audio mixing software.

The demonstrations in this lesson use a free programme, called BandLab.

BandLab is for use by over 13s only, and if you are over 13, you still need permission to use it from your parent or carer.

Once you have asked a parent to set you up with a BandLab account and you have successfully logged in, you will be presented with this menu, once you click the mix editor option.

Now, BandLab is really good for inputting lots of different instruments, using something called MIDI, which means musical instrument digital interface.

And you can create lots of different genres of music.

Obviously we are interested in West African music today, so we won't be using the piano roll or the MIDI instruments in BandLab.

Instead, I invite you to head over to the loops pack, just down here in the bottom right-hand corner.

They have lots of different types of genres here, and lots of loops within them.

So, you can find African Afropella, and you can find Zulu Porridge as well.

Traditional African pop loops and melodies to transport you to Graceland.

So let's open up that, just as an example.

And within this loop pack, there'll be lots and lots of different loops, which is just a short snippet of audio.

So for example, if I say the It's Alright Guitar, click it once, gives me a preview.

Or perhaps I want to hear the Porridge Dance Hi Hats.

So there's a big, big range within that pack.

If you wanted to use multiple packs, you would just click back onto the loop packs button, and find a different suitable one.

Once you find a loop that you want, you can click hold and drag the loop into your project.

Make sure to line it up with bar one.

I'm going to delete this top track, as we're not using it.

And I could stack this loop track with different ones.

So I've got harmony one, harmony three, and harmony six.

If I align them all at the same time and click play, it would sound like this: Now, if you scroll down, there is also an Afrobeat loop pack.

So we have accordion sounds, bass sounds, and what's great about these loops is that they're in the same key as each other, so I could put the bass and the accordion sound at the same time, and it would sound something like this: It's all in the same key, so it sounds pretty good together.

And then I could layer that with some drums, as well.

And I've got the start of a nice, groovy loop.

Perhaps, I want to also add in a marimba.

And all together that sounds like this: And it's all well and good using these loops, but it's not showing our true creativity.

So what happens if we want to add in our own rhythm, that we want to play in from scratch.

Well, if we click on add track, then click on instruments, and the instrument panel at the bottom, we are able to pick from lots of different sounds.

Now potentially, you might want a guitar sound or percussion sound.

When you do that, you are presented with a piano keyboard, and it has lots of letters on it.

If you play the letters on your actual laptop or computer keyboard, you will hear some sounds.

So the letters on the piano keyboard correspond to your computer keyboard.

If you go through, you'll be able to find some that sound like West African music, such as.

On this example, it's U, I, and 0.

And O as well.

So U, I, O, and 0 all sound like traditional West African percussion sounds.

So, now I've got my sound.

I know which key to press.

I can actually use the record function, by going to the start of my song, pressing record, and it would give me a count of 4 in.

One, two, three, four.

I can then play along to the beat, using the instruments and record my own rhythm.

So maybe I want to play in the Kuku start signal, and that would sound like this: And all I need to do to record that in is press record.

Once you have finished your song and you are ready to download it, you just need to go to File, Download, Mixdown as.

You then need to choose the format you would like to download.

I would recommend the medium quality MP3, as it is great for sharing, since it's a small file.

You then just click download and save it to an area, on your device.

Then that will bring us to the end of the lesson, and the end of a unit.

I hope you had fun and enjoyed it.

I hope you've learned lots about West African music and picked up some new skills along the way.

I also hope you've got a piece of music that you're proud of that you can share as well.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Well done for your hard work for this whole unit, and maybe you'll see me in a different unit on Oak National Academy.

Goodbye.

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