Lesson video

In this lesson, you will need a pencil and a piece of paper to write notes with.

You will also need your body to make some body percussion sounds.

This lesson is better with headphones though they are not required.

If you can, find a quiet space to do this lesson in as you will be doing lots of listening and playing.

If you need to pause the video now to prepare for the lesson, please do so and click resume when you are ready.

So as always, lets warm up with a quick call and response exercise.

I will do a full beat rhythm that I would like you to repeat.

0ne two three four one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three four.

Good.

As we move through today's lesson, lets be thinking about why we've used call and response and how we've learned all of our rhythm so far in this unit as it might be a clue to some of the questions I ask in this lesson.

Take a moment and study the picture on the right hand side of the screen.

This image shows a griot.

Paintings of a griot often depict someone standing up and addressing people in a circle around them.

A griot is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet or musician.

The griot shares knowledge orally from one generation to the next.

This is known as oral tradition and is often seen as a leader due to his or her position as an advisor to the royals.

Apart from playing the djembe, what skills have you learnt which did not involve having to write something down? I put one example here on screen, cooking, recipes can be passed on to through family and friends.

What I would like you to do is pause the video here and come up with at least four different skills of your own which you have learnt which did not involve having to write something down.

Being a griot.

You're going to watch a very shot video from Mohamed.

Mohamed is going to explain what it's like to be a griot.

On the right hand side, there are four questions for you to answer.

1.

What is a griot? 2.

Can anyone become a griot? Why or why not? 3.

How do griots learn to play their instruments? And 4.

How does someone know when different occasions are being celebrated? So can anyone become a griot? You cannot become a griot, you have to be born as a griot.

And how do you use Saba drums in celebrations in the community as a griot? We use the instruments we have as sabas to celebrate the happy moments in our community for example if there is a wedding, if there is a baptism, if the full moon come or if we have a visitor coming to visit us so we welcoming them with our instruments by singing, dancing and showing the positive energy that we have in West Africa.

And do you play different rhythms for different occasions? Yes yes yes we do for example if I want to if I want to let people know that there is someone who get married, in the morning, early in the morning, I can let them know from the phrase that I'm playing with my instruments I play the language of what that celebration is for.

So this is how also we do it.

So the Saba drum can talk to people? Yeah we use the Saba to transmit the message from a village to another.

So is a old instrument also so we using to transmit the message, languages from where I come from, we can play it in this instrument.

Task, being a griot.

Practise performing two west African instruments that you have learnt in this unit and then teach someone in your household these rhythms. I have written down three that you could play.

Or you can create your own.

As a reminder, the start signal is, play the djembe and here we go.

The ostinato is, lets play djembe, lets play djembe.

And repeats as it is an ostinato.

And the stop signal is, play the djembe and say Africa.

You will need to memorise these rhythms and become the griot by teaching this to someone else through speaking and demonstrating only.

You cannot write anything down.

Pause the video to complete your task and click resume you're ready to continue.

Reflection on being a griot.

As musicians, its super important that we are reflective so we know how to improve and get better next time.

Write down two things you found difficult when teaching your rhythms. Write down two things you found easy when teaching as a griot.

Is there anything you would do differently next time.

Spend some time to reflect, pause the video, write your answers neatly on a piece of paper and click resume when you're ready to continue.

Role of music in West Africa.

Use your knowledge of West African music and the griot to list three things that you have learnt so far about the role that music plays in West African society.

Try and be as specific as possible so if you're thinking to put some kind of occasion, be specific in that occasion.

Now lets take some time to reflect on how we use music in our own life.

I put down some examples for myself, 1.

I use music as a sound track to my everyday.

Could be when I'm working, I'm doing the house work or when I'm exercising.

Don't know but lots of people including myself use music to evoke certain emotions.

Could be when I want to feel in a particularly happy mood so I put on my favourite happy songs.

Could be that I want to be motivated to do some exercise or to do the house work so I put on some upbeat tunes.

And also using music to dance too.

So lets just be lucky that I don't have my video camera on right now so no one has to see me tempting to dance.

Take some time now to reflect on how music is used in your life, write them down on a piece of paper and click resume when you ready.

So that brings us to the end of today's lesson, well done for all of your hard work and I hope you enjoyed it.

Don't forget to do the quiz.