-
Home
- Musical travels for children
- Africa
- Grow a musical instrument
Materials and preparation
- Read through the activity procedure and the information below, and decide what kinds of instruments (see
below ) you will encourage the students to make. Will they all make the same instrument, or will they have a choice of a variety of instruments? Decide also how many gourds you want, and what approximate shape and size.
- Buy gourd seeds. Many seed suppliers will be able to offer you several varieties of gourds; choose varieties with sizes and shapes that will be good for the instruments you want to make.
- Gourd vines grow very long and quite bushy. They are generally not good for indoor planting because of their ability to quickly take over large spaces. Ideally, you will want a large outdoor area which can be covered temporarily with vines. A school garden plot or trellis are ideal. The school playground or sports field may have out-of-the-way edges where growing plants will not be trampled.
- You will need a digging tool and may want gardening gloves for whoever will be handling the soil. Unless the soil is very rich, you will probably want to add something to enrich it, such as compost. If you plan far enough ahead, you may also have the students make the compost - another good life-science lesson.
- Plan far in advance for this activity. You will need plenty of time to grow the gourds and then to dry them before you can make the instruments. Gourds thrive in warm and sunny weather, and many varieties need very little care. If classes are not held in the summer, you may want to arrange to plant the gourds near the end of the school year and harvest them when the students return in the fall. In the spring, the students can make instruments from the dried gourds and then plant seeds for next year's class. Students may be able to plant seeds for their own gourd project if they attend school year-round, or if teachers in consecutive grades can cooperate on the project, or if students will have the same teacher for more than one year.
- When the gourds are harvested and dried, prepare an age-appropriate presentation on gourd instruments, focusing on the instruments that you will be making. Include photos and/or video or audio in your presentation if possible. The depth and focus of the presentation will depend on your students' ages and abilities; some recommended points to include are listed
below . For older students, you may assign this step as a homework/research project.
- Have on hand the materials and tools for any instrument that the students may make. (See materials lists for individual instruments
below . Decide what further activities you are going to use the instruments for, and prepare for those also.
- You may want to plan your academic schedule so that this activity will tie in with a specific social studies unit. Gourd instruments from the following places are mentioned
below : India, sub-Saharan Africa (specifically Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and the Mandinka people of western Africa), Pacific Islands (specifically Hawaii), and the Americas (specifically Brazil, Peru, Cuba, and Puerto Rico).
Source:
OpenStax, Musical travels for children. OpenStax CNX. Jan 06, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10221/1.11
Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google Inc.
