On April 4th the South Burlington African Drummers directed by Christina Toner (Her first teaching job was at Folsom!) visited Folsom to do a workshop with our first and second grade musicians and then perform for our whole school! It was an amazing afternoon.
Here are some of the big ideas I took away that day:
- Echo: Drummer echoes the leader exactly (We do this in our music classes A LOT, when we play “copy cat” or learn a new song.)
- Call and Response: Leader plays a call, and the group plays a response. Our favorite of the day was when the leader asked, “What’s For Dinner” and we played an answer! (Ta-cos, Can-dy, Dir-ty-Socks!)
- Adenkum: Hollowed gourds with holes used in Ghana as a melodic/percussive instrument. Click here to see a video of Sowah Mensah (from Ghana) teaching Adenkum to students in the Virgin Islands! Ms. Kauffeld got to work with Sowah Mensah at UVM! Want More Mensah? Click Here!
- We learned that usually there are three drumming sounds: Low, Middle, High and they will play different parts that fit together.
Click on a picture to make it bigger!
During their last song Mrs. Toner invited soloist from Folsom to come up and IMPROVISE while the South Burlington drummers played in the background!
Thank you to Mr. Corrigan, Ms. Smith, and Principal Perry
for taking great photos and video!
1 reply on “South Burlington High School Drummers Visit Folsom!”
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