3.1 Talking drums  (Page 3/5)

Your students may appreciate a demonstration that stretching and relaxing an "instrument" will raise and lower its pitch. Consider doing one of the following:

• The simplest way to demonstrate this is with rubber bands. Let one student stretch a rubber band between two fingers while another student plucks it. Listen to the sound the rubber band makes; the tighter it is stretched, the higher the sound. If it is stretched or relaxed quickly immediately after being plucked, you may even be able to hear the pitch slide up or down, just like it does in a talking drum.
• Many hobby books on making musical instruments include instructions for making a drum with a stretched head held in place by strings. If it is made of good materials, you should be able to change the pitch of such a drum by tightening or loosening the strings. Pursue this only if you are interested in a major class project which will require specific materials and take several hours.
• You may be able to get a local band director or percussionist to bring in some drums with heads that can be tightened and loosened to change the pitch. Ask for a demonstration, and an explanation of the methods of tightening and loosening drum heads. Many percussionists won't have a waisted drum, but many other drums (such as orchestral tympani) are also "tunable".
• The basic idea can also be demonstrated with any stringed instrument (guitar, violin, banjo, cello, etc.): as you turn the tuning peg you are winding or unwinding the string, making it tighter or looser.

Activity: tonal languages

Objectives and standards

• Objectives - Students will actively participate in a demonstration of how tonality affects meaning even in a nontonal language, by demonstrating and explaining how different inflections cause slight differences in the meaning of a short word or phrase in English.
• Music Standards Addressed - National Standards for Music Education standards 8 (understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts) and 9 (understanding music in relation to history and culture).
• Other Subjects Addressed - The activity also addresses National Standards in the Social Studies standard 1 (culture), and National Standards for the English Language Arts standards 4 (Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.) and 9 (Students develop an understanding of and respect for diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic regions, and social roles).
• Evaluation - Assess student learning by evaluating class participation or asking relevant questions in an oral review or on a written test: e.g. "What is a tonal language?"
• Adaptations - For best comprehension, this activity should be presented to students using their native language, dialect, and accent. The teacher should adjust the activity accordingly.

English is not a tonal language, so it can be difficult for English speakers to appreciate how important inflection is in tonal languages. Here is a short activity that can help and requires no materials or preparation.