This unit provides the teacher with ways to create a sense of community within the orchestra. What this unit tries to counter is the “bank transaction” approach to education where the teacher has the information, and the student is merely a silent receptacle for that information. So often orchestra directors hand out a piece of music and drill sections of it with the end goal being a performance of the piece as it exists on the page. Of course, this is part of being in any performing group, but we must make time to develop all ways of learning and interacting socially. Thomas Regelski tells us in his article Reclaming ‘Music’ as Social Praxis 11 the “failure of music education as praxis to make a pragmatic difference for individuals and society that is noticeable and notable thus creates a legitimation crisis.” (Regelski, 70) By this Regelski means that if what we are teaching in our classrooms does not serve or enhance our students as members of their communities, support from those communities will wain and they will begin to wonder why their children should study music at all. He calls this a “legitimation crisis” and it is happening across the country with regards to support for arts in our public schools. Luckily, music remains in the Common Core State Standards but one gets the feeling that if it were not for that, there might be a much bigger crisis with regards to support especially when one considers the emphasis placed on math and reading skills today over the benefits of arts study.
When we shift our focus from the rat race that is imposed upon us through the audition cycle of the school year through concerts and All-State type festivals, we can focus on teaching the skills that separate music from other disciplines offered in our building. When we rely on competitions to motivate our students and engage communities, we run the risk of losing their trust if the student does not “bring home the gold”. Some of the most valuable skills obtained through music study do not involve trophies. As with the rhythm skills being developed in the previous unit, the idea is that we set the student up by giving them skills that grow with them as they grow. Teaching them how to listen better, blend and support one another is something they can hone and gain more fluency with as they step up through their years as a student.
This activity includes rote teaching which, is employed to counter students’ reliance on printed sheet music and encourages them to trust their own ability to listen and interact socially with one another. I also use this opportunity to introduce traditional music that is normally outside the repertoire of the middle school orchestra and presents counter-narratives. Beginning orchestra repertoire is rife with Japanese folksongs (Suzuki method) or melodies from the Western European musical lexicon (“Ode to Joy”, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” etc). Traditional folk music from most cultures will lend itself well to the beginning instrumentalist, so this unit presents an opportunity to introduce African folk music to the orchestral repertoire. As with other aspects of this curriculum unit, employing music from Africa provides opportunities for dialog with students about African history and culture so that the narrative of African culture does not simply begin with the era of chattel slavery.
This unit works with any folksong of the teacher’s choosing but for the purposes of this unit I have selected and arranged the South African Zulu folksong “Nampaya Omame” for the middle school-level musician. “Nampaya Omame” is a traditional song the Zulu children sing as their mothers returned to their villages from gathering goods. It is a catchy simple song comprised of two sections. The English translation of the lyrics are as follows:
Section 1
We saw sweets, we saw cookies!
We saw rice, we saw meat!
Section 2
Ncinci bo! Ncinci bo! (an expression of joy)
There are our mothers!
There are many performances of vocal versions of the folksong to be found on YouTube 11. In an effort to make the song more feasible for the young musician, the rhythms have been slightly altered/simplified.