Project Description

Goals

Identify simple music forms when presented aurally

Demonstrate perceptual skills by moving, by answering questions about, and by describing aural examples of music of various styles representing diverse cultures

Use appropriate terminology in explaining music, music notation, music instruments and voices, and music performances

Identify the sounds of a variety of instruments, including many orchestra and band instruments, and instruments from various cultures

In this series of three 50-minute Zoom workshops with Afro percussionist Anthony Michell Jr., discover the basics and fun of playing African rhythms from West Africa to Cuba. Learn the proper hand techniques and timing while practicing authentic traditional rhythms and songs. This workshop/residency is designed for all musicians at heart, and each will be challenged at their level.

Learn about the Kuku and Lamba rhythms.

About Kuku: Today, Kuku is a popular rhythm played at all kinds of festivals, including full moon celebrations. Kuku is traditionally performed in a circle by women. Originally, Kuku was played when the women came back from fishing. They would take their fishing tools and dance. The rhythm was only played on djembes, with one of the three being low-tuned instead of using a dundun.

Find the lesson outline here

About Creator

Dennis Garner
Dennis Garner
Anthony Mitchell is a musical artist and performer wholly dedicated to West African and Afro Diasporic music and its cultural traditions. Mitchell has been performing, teaching, and studying traditional and contemporary African and Afro Latin folkloric hand drumming for over 25 years. I have been formally trained in the West African djembe orchestra, Afro Latin conga drums as well as sacred and secular Afro Latin musical instruments. Based in extensive research of the percussive arts—including a wide variety of drums and bells, and the shekere—his accomplishments span several musical traditions of Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, Cuba, Brazil, the Caribbean, and those of the African American experience. After more than twenty-five years of study, immersion, deep learning, and training, Anthony Mitchell has emerged as one of Pittsburgh’s most highly regarded Afro percussionists of his generation, unique in his ability to cross every musical genre.