Track 5 from Charanga / Saydisc / Christine Richards project - 'Listen to this' for Key Stage 2. Song and dance music from Uganda from Saydisc album 'Spirit of African Sanctus' (2'23")
Main features: instrumentation, rhythmic and melodic ostinatos, call and response.

This celebratory music from Uganda features a call and response, accompanied by two edongos (bowed harps), clap-sticks, seed-pod shaker and drum. The Track Explorer has four learning tracks focusing on instrumentation, melodic and rhythmic ostinatos and the call and response.

Track 12 from Saydisc "Percussion Around the World" - notes from Maureen Hanke.

'Bunyoro Madinda' was recorded in Uganda, 1969. It is a social piece played on the madinda by a group of fishermen.

The madinda is a log xylophone. Twelve keys are placed across two banana stems and separated by tall sticks driven into the stems. The keys, in this case canoe boards, are tuned higher in pitch by cutting the lower edges of the boards and tuned lower by increasing the depth of a hand made notch in the middle of the under surface.
Formerly the instrument was played only for the important and wealthy and traditionally on the first performance a goat or cockerel was sacrificed.

The whole piece is made of many short repeated patterns. ( In a music session listen to the overall effect: a very rich overlapping texture of rhythm and pitch. )

Track 10 from Saydisc "Percussion Around the World" - notes from Maureen Hanke.

'Busoga Fishermen' is a recording of fishermen who have migrated to Lake Kyoga, East Africa.
They are singing simply because they are happy.

In Africa, music is often played for rites of passages, births, deaths, puberty, marriage, for socialising, for therapy and healing.
This piece of music features instruments and music making traditional to areas in East Africa. The singers accompany themselves on the mbira (referred to in the West as the thumb piano).
The mbira is a collection of tuned metal tongues fitted to a box or a plain board in such a way that one end of the tongue can vibrate freely. The free ends of the tongues are depressed and released by the player using thumbs or fingers. Very often the sound is made to buzz by attaching shells or metal rattles to the board or the resonator or both. the tuning of the tongues varies from region to region.

( in a music session listen for the rattle. Listen and discuss the differences between the tune which is sung and the accompaniment)

Extract from the illustrated Rudiments of Wisdom encyclopaedia by Tim Hunkin. www.rudimentsofwisdom.com.

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Track 4 from Charanga / Saydisc / Christine Richards project - 'Listen to this' for Key Stage 1. Mandinda music from Uganda from Saydisc album 'Spirit of African Sanctus' (1'37")
Main feature: rhythmic and melodic ostinatos.

This music of the Bunyoro tribe, Uganda, is played on a homemade madinda, a Ugandan xylophone. The learning track of the Track Explorer focuses on features of the music.