Carnegie Hall

This activity may be more appropriate for more experienced students. Bongi and Tshidi created a two-part song (AB form) by joining together two different songs. Within the second song (B), there are also two separate parts (ab). This activity explores the overall shape of the piece that Bongi and Tshidi created, as an introduction to the concept of musical form.

• Listen to the full piece using “Thula Mntwana” / “Nampaya Omame.” Ask your students to raise their hands when they hear the second (B) part begin.
  • How do you know that this is a new part? What is different about it?
• Now listen to just the second part (“Nampaya Omame”). Within this song, there are two parts. These may be harder to hear. Hint: One line of music is sung twice (a), and then a second line of music is sung twice (b).
  • Raise your hand when you hear Part 2 (when the melody changes).
• Explain that this structure—like a map or a plan for the piece—is called musical form.
• Explore the idea of how you might represent the form graphically.

The Zulu people are the largest ethnic group in South Africa, numbering between 10 and 11 million people. Zulu is one of the country’s official languages and has three distinctive percussive sounds.

Explore Percussive Sounds in the Zulu Language

• Zulu was an entirely oral language until Europeans came and started writing it down using their alphabet. Most of the letters used in the language make the same sounds as in English.
• What they could not notate were three unique clicking sounds, found on the letters “C,” “Q,” and “X,” that are a form of mouth percussion.
  • “C” is like the sound you make when you’re disappointed (“tsk, tsk”). You place your tongue loosely against the roof of your mouth near your front teeth and pull it away. Try it out with this word:
  • “Iculo” means song.
  • “Q” is a hard clucking sound, like a knock on the door. You place your tongue tightly against the roof of your mouth near your front teeth and pull it away. Try it out with this word:
  • “Inqola” means a moving vehicle—wagon, cart, car, or really anything that moves.
  • “X” is like the sound you make when you tell a horse to “giddy up.” You place your tongue tightly against your side teeth and pull it away. Try it out with this word:
  • “Ixoxo” means frog.
• Sound out the following words that have the three clicking sounds.
  • “C”
    • “Uchingo” means wire.
    • “Icala” means case.
  • “Q”
    • “Iqhude” means rooster.
    • “Uphaqa” means flip-flop shoe.
  • “X”
    • “Uxolo” means peace.
    • “Ingxoxo” means conversation.

• People all over the world sing their children to sleep with lullabies. Discuss the qualities of lullabies by listening to “Thula Mntwana” / “Nampaya Omame.”
  • What about the song might make you sleepy?
  • What kind of voice would you use to sing this song in order to help a child go to sleep?
• Expand your class’s experience with lullabies by asking students to bring in lullabies from home.
  • What other lullabies do you know? Who sang it to you?
  • How did it make you feel when you heard it?
• Share and explore these lullabies as a class, comparing and contrasting them with each other and with “Thula Mntwana.”

Add the words form and lullaby to the Musical Word Wall.