Explore West African Rhythms

Song Writing Activity

Sing with Your Chosen Arrangement

• Replay "Daa Dwene" if necessary, to refamiliarize yourself with the song. The notation is provided below.

• Then, select an arrangement and sing along as cued by the vocal part. The vocal cue will only begin the song; you should sing the entire song twice.

Arrangement 1: pitched percussion instrumentation

Arrangement 2: modern electronic instrumentation

Arrangement 3: bass and guitar instrumentation

• Adapt your vocal style to the character of the arrangement.
• Experiment with different vocal tones.
• Decide whether the style of the arrangement and your singing complement each other.
• Try singing along with the other arrangements as well.

• To experience the rhythmic nature of African music, play your chosen arrangement and invent rhythmic variations of the melody as you sing it.
• You might also single out rhythmic patterns from the arrangement' s percussion parts. For example, the rhythm for Percussion Part 3 (which begins at 0:10) is shown below.

• Make up nonsense syllables as you sing.
• When you are comfortable with the rhythm, try incorporating it into the melody as you sing along to your chosen arrangement. For example, you can replace the rhythms in measure 1 and 5 with the new rhythm. The new melody would be

• Use more "dah dwee" syllables or invent new ones to use on the added notes. Try incorporating rhythmic ideas from other percussion parts into your melodic variations.

Improvise Melodic Variations

• Listen again to "Daa Dwene." Note that at 1:03 the singer improvises a variation on the melody.
• Play your chosen arrangement again. After singing the melody once as you originally learned it, try improvising a variation of the melody. Use your ear and your imagination to explore new notes.
• On your worksheet, complete the Performance Activity section.

You can now choose another Performance Activity.