Lesson video

Okay so were going to do a very very quick singing warm-up.

It's going to be call in response.

I'm going to sing Doo doo doo.

You're going to repeat doo doo doo.

Uu wee.

uu wee.

Yah yah yah.

yah yah yah.

Bada ba pa.

bada ba pa.

Super easy.

If you don't remember that just copy the lyrics and complete the melody that I do.

Here we go.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo.

Uu wee Uu wee.

Yah yah yah Bada ba pa Adoo doo doo Uu wee.

Yah yah yah.

Bada ba pa.

Babaya doo doo.

Uu wee.

Yah yah yah.

Bada ba pa.

Doo doo doo.

Uu wee.

Yah yah yah.

Bada ba pa.

Look a one more time.

Doo doo doo.

Uu wee.

Yah yah yah.

Bada ba pa.

Do do do.

Uu wee.

Yah yah yah.

Bada ba pa.

Ooph Okay.

Hopefully were warmed up.

Let's move on to the next part of the lesson.

Okay.

So now it's time to learn the singing section of the song Kuku.

To learn this song we'll use call and response.

We'll say the lyrics first and then we'll sing them.

So the first part is.

Kukuwe Ni tara bura.

Kukuwe ni tara bura.

I'll say it again and you can repeat it.

Kukuwe ni tara bura.

Very good.

Let's add a melody to that now.

Kukuwe ni tara bura.

I'll do it again.

Kukuwe ni tara bura.

Your turn after me.

Kukuwe ni tara bura.

Good let's do that again.

3, 4 Kukuwe ni tara bura.

Good.

Let me just stick a Ayy after that.

So Kukuwe ni tara bura Ayy.

And again Kukuwe ni tara bura Ayy.

Your turn Kukuwe ni tara bura Ayy.

Good so were waiting for that click before we do the Ayy.

Let's do that again, I'll do it you do it.

Kukuwe ni tara bura Ayy.

3, 4.

Kukuwe ni tara bura Ayy.

Good.

The next part.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaah.

Let's do that again.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh.

One more time than you can copy.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh 3, 4.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh.

Good.

Let's put that together.

Kukuwe ni tara bura Ayy.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh.

Do that again.

Kukuwe ni tara bura Ahh.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh your turn.

Kukuwe ni tara bura Ayy.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh.

Very good, the last bit is Ni tara bun tara ye.

Ni tara bun tara ye.

Ni tara bun tara ye.

Last time.

Ni tara bun tara ye.

And the melody is.

Ni tara bun tara ye.

Ni tara bun tara ye.

Your turn.

Ni tara bun tara ye.

And again.

Ni tara bun tara ye.

let's add in that last section on to.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh ni tara bun tara ye.

I'll do that again.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh ni tara bun tara ye.

I'll do it one more time and you can copy.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh ni tara bun tara ye.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh ni tara bun tara ye.

Good I'll do it all the way through.

And then we can do it together.

2, 3, 4.

Kukuwe ni tara bura Ahh.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh ni tara bun tara ye.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh Ayy.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh ni tara bun tara ye.

Good.

Well done.

Great, so now we've learned the singing section of the song Kuku.

We can find it into our structure which you can see above my head.

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.

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.

We do that until the master drummer does the stop signal again to end that section.

So we can start the next section.

So the stop signal will be.

Play djembe and say Africa.

And 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 ako ka pa.

On 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.

Kukuwe ni tara bura Ahh.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh ni tara bun tara ye.

And then we would do another stop signal to end that.

The improvisation which I'll leave down to you.

I'll just keep pause 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 uni some.

OK.

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 are ready to do it all the way through with me.

So let's try to do this all the way through.

Now for this occasion I though it'd be only best if I played my part on the djembe this time.

So we can get a hear what it sounds like.

But obviously you're just going to be doing a body percussion or using one of the home made instruments that you made in previous lessons.

So.

Let's see how far we get.

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

So, About we're ready.

Let's go.

let's play djembe, lets play djembe Let's play djembe Let's play djembe Call response.

Improvising.

Let's do the singing part now.

Kuku kuwe ni tara bura Ayy.

Kukuwe ni tara buraaahh ni tara bun tara ye.

Kukuwe ni tara bura Ayy.

Kukuwe ni tara bura Ahh ni tara bun tara ye.

In my section, I'll give you a pause.

And you go ahead.

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 Polyrythms 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.

Melody in West African music.

Simple diatonic or pentatonic melodies can sometimes be heard when vocals or balfons for example.

Are added to the texture.

Diatonic is a scale of eight notes belonging to a specific key without additional chromatic notes So for example in the key C major.

Our Diatonic scale would be C D E F G A and B.

There would be no sharps or flats in that scale because there are no sharps or flats in C major.

A Pentatonic scale is a scale of 5 notes.

Usually with no semitones the 4th and 7th degrees are missing.

I've put a key board in the middle of the screen.

Now a keyboard or a piano is not a West African musical instrument.

However.

For us it maybe easier to replicate these scales on this Piano.

Because it's something that we're used to.

The Diatonic scale labelled on the keyboard would look like this.

C D E F G A B C.

So we're using all of the white's notes on our piano on our keyboard.

No black notes, no sharps no flats.

If you would like to perhaps you could play a C major scale on an instrument at home.

Or you can use an online key board to play the C major Diatonic scale.

I'll show you myself doing that now.

With an online keyboard websites this one is called virtualpiano.

net And I'm going to try and play that C major scale that we have there.

So I can use the letters on my keyboard or I can use the mouse.

I want to use the mouse cause It's easiest for me And I know that the notes on the C based scale are C D E F G A B and C.

And I know that C is to the left of the two black keys.

So find the two black keys and I go one down to the left.

And they are all white notes.

So next is C C.

Nice and easy.

So that's my C major scale of the Diatonic scale.

A Pentatonic scale would be a scale of 5 notes as we said before.

So on the key board we've labelled it as C D E G and A.

Now On this Pentatonic scale we can see that the 4th and the 7th degrees are missing.

The F is missing and the B is missing as well.

We're taking away two notes, just using 5.

C D E G and A Again let's take this opportunity to play this on an instrument that we have at home.

We can sing it or, we can go back to the virtual piano.

I will show you how to play this scale on the virtual piano now.

OK so were back on virtualpaiano.

net.

I'm going to play the Pentatonic scale now starting on C.

So we said that the notes were C D E skip the 4th play G A and skip the 7th.

So here's how it sounds.

C D E skip the F and play G A.

I can play that again and I won't speak this time.

Good.

Sounds very nice.

Now both of these scales can be played starting on any notes So for example were going up a 7th tone.

We will have.

Here we go, skip the 4 and the 7 again.

That is how the Diatonic C major scale and the Pentatonic Starting on C sound.

Have a go now practising these on an instrument or a virtual instrument of your choice.

Improvising a pentatonic melody.

Improvisation is the act of performing spontaneously without preparation.

In other words to improvise is to make something up on the spot.

I've labelled the keyboard at the left hand side of the screen with the notes C D E G and A.

These are the notes of the Pentatonic scale starting on C.

Now we've talked about how daunting and challenging improvising can be.

And we've also talked about how practise makes perfect.

Many of the techniques we learned from the Rithmic improvisation method.

We can use with when doing Melodic improvisation.

I'm going to show you now me improvising using these notes on a keyboard.

But you can use any instrument you have at home.

Or a virtual instrument like virtualpiano.

net.

So in the very quick and simple melodic improvisation.

I only used the notes C D E G and A.

I did improvised rhythms and sometimes I went up sometimes I went down.

Sometimes I went by a leap, a small leap and sometimes I move by step.

I didn't really had a plan but somethings I did I was happy with and sometimes like well I could have done that a little bit better.

The trick is to keep on trying and keep on experimenting and soon you'll learn what you think sounds good or what you thing doesn't sound so great.

Have a go, spend sometime improvising on any instrument you can use an online instrument you can use your voice like I said.

Try just limiting yourself to these notes on the left and have fun with it and don't try not to get so frustrated.

You can always have a break and come back quick.

Before I go and leave you to your improvisation.

I going to do one more.

I'm going to try and incorporate some of the melodies we learnt in the singing section of Kuku.

What I would like you to do is try to clap the Ostinato along to it.

Let's play djambe, let's play djambe Let's play djambe, let's play djambe.

So now it's your turn.

Practise improvising using Pentatonic scale.

On any instrument that you have access to.

You may use the virtual keyboard, guitar, base.

Once you are confident enough.

Fell free to record your improvisation.

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