One of the things I love most about teaching music is programming for concerts.
I love the behind the scenes work that goes into preparing for performances. I’ve wanted to perform African Noel for years with younger students, but didn’t quite put my finger on how to do it in the way that I was envisioning. This year, I think I figured it out!
African Noel is a traditional Liberian folk song.
For a long time, I had only heard of collegiate choirs perform the song, which was full of percussive sounds coming from the choir with either clapping or stomps on the risers. A great example of this song was performed by the Marionettes Choir in 2005.
Taking the song to its core:
The melody for African noel centers around four notes. in C major, you stay on the diatonic notes C, D, E and F.
The harmonies can be made by taking it to the third and the fifth and maintaining the same or similar pattern.
My arrangement takes the main melody and focuses on layering to drive the song forward.
The cool thing that I have discovered with this arrangement is that you can simply teach one pattern, and it applies to all three parts.
Breaking down the arrangement
Group one
When your first group comes in, they are playing the root melody. I place low-tack tape on the ends of the bars and write 1 – 4 on the keys. When it comes to teaching the pattern, I teach the numbers rather than focusing on the letter names.
A: “333, 444, 3334, 333, 444, 3321”
B: “343, 321”
Group two
Once the first group has played a round, the second group joins them. They follow the same number pattern, but theirs starts on a G rather than an E.
Group three
Next in the round comes group three, the high harmony. Their range is G to D, but I skip the middle B. The numbers still line up with the rest of the parts, and they can stack their notes following the same pattern.
**You might notice I have used electrical tape on my metallophones. I wrap a layer or two on both ends of the bars to reduce the amount of sustain on the bars. They still sound nice, but they don’t last for all of eternity.
I have recorded a demo of the parts to show how they work together for students. When introducing the song, make sure they understand which part they are playing so they know which screen is theirs. I’m not very good at playing the djembe, so I used mallets to maintain an even tone on the drum. (apologies to any traditional percussion players!)
Teaching the pattern:
When teaching the numbers, I ask students to place one finger on the bar and follow along as we say them out loud. Once they get the hang of the pattern, I give two students a mallet each to demonstrate the part as we continue to practice. I keep adding students until all the parts are being played. Once you feel students are ready, pass out all of the mallets and see if your class can play together. Take breaks, and make sure students put those mallets down or else it might become a bit chaotic.
Teaching the transition:
On the second B section, there is a transition into the final A section. I teach the kids to play four quarter notes, then 8 eighth notes in a row on their “3” note. Once the kids can play this, I tell the 3rd group to change their last 5 notes to the special B. They count it like “1, 2, 3, 4, 123, 12345”
The best thing about arrangements like this is they are easy to modify and can be played on a variety of instruments. Speaking of arrangement, here is a link to the arrangement on MuseScore if you prefer to look at the notation. The playback isn’t perfect because I wanted the triplet notation to be easy to understand. It should really be played like this:
I think that is pretty confusing for younger students, so just write it as a triplet if you are using traditional notation and they will get the idea.
If you try this out, let me know how this arrangement works for you! My 1st graders have been having fun with it and they are doing great so far.
