India music: Bollywood songs

There's a lot of Bollywood dance parties in our house, pretty much every night.  The Whirl Girl has loved Bollywood songs ever since she was a baby and now she can sing and dance along. 

Most of the music you hear on the radio comes from Bollywood movies, which are filled with song-and-dance numbers.  Here's three of our favorites.  You can watch them on YouTube to pick up a few new moves, or download on iTunes to get your groove on.

Bum Bum Bole
from the movie Taare Zameen Par, about an inspiring teacher set in a classroom full of kids

Maahi Ve
from the movie Kal Ho Na Ho, the ultimate wedding song and dance

Mitwa
from the movie Lagaan, a song about friendship set in an Indian village

(All three movies are recommended too for grown-ups and older kids). 

China Music: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Since we're spending so much time talking about the night sky as we celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (in Chinese) seemed like a good choice.

Full disclosure: The Whirl Girl learns a bit of Mandarin in her preschool and she came home singing this song about a year ago.  So it's already familiar in our house, though it needed some dusting off because she's not sung it in a while.

We sing Twinkle Twinkle (in English) every night as part of the bedtime routine, so I've been trying to throw the Chinese version in when I can too.

It's actually pretty easy to learn... after The Whirl Girl sang it to me a few times, I could sing it along with her.  Though I'm sure I'm totally butchering the pronunciation.

I downloaded a version from iTunes, from the Sing and Learn Chinese CD.

The Whirl Girl gets excited about anything animated on YouTube so she was excited to watch this cartoon Mandarin Twinkle Twinkle video.  And this video featuring a young Chinese girl singing was also a hit.

For parents wanting to learn the song, this video gives the spoken version of the song complete with low-tech flashcards. 

Happy singing!

Peru music: Singing in Spanish

We were lucky this month to already have a handful of Peruvian songs in our music library, and to get some great suggestions from friends.

What we're listening to when doing projects and cooking (the first two are downloadable by song):

• 3 songs from the Smithsonian Folkways World Music collection
• all of the songs from Afro-Peruvian Classics: The Soul of Black Peru
• and Putumayo's Latin Groove, which isn't specifically Peruvian, but has some great dance music

And I also asked a friend who is raising her kids bilingually (Spanish/English) for some suggestions of catchy kid's tunes, with bonus points for using our Spanish word of the month: amigo. This youtube video has been a big hit with The Whirl Girl, as has another song called "Hola Amigos (Hello Friends)." I can't find the exact copy online, but you can find some other fun ones at Amazon for download. Warning: you will be singing or humming "hola amigos... hola amigos... hola amigos" in your sleep. And maybe your kids will be too.

Malaysia Music: Dikir Barat

One of our friends here told us about a type of Malaysian music called dikir barat. I was hoping that we might be able to find a performance in Singapore, but we had to settle for this You Tube video. It's an especially entertaining form of music that is performed by groups. There is a leader who sings and then is followed by the chorus of people. There are barat competitions, where two different groups share the stage. Some are even televised across Malaysia.

photo from dikirbarat.com, where there are also videos and music

There's lots of hand-clapping and energy, which I thought The Whirl Girl would enjoy. We watched the YouTube video together and then practiced doing "lap-clap-lap-clap" so we could join in with the chorus. Then we watched the video again together and tried our best to keep up, dancing along with it.

For other kinds of Malaysian music, there is the Rough Guide to the Music of Malaysia and on Amazon, you can download individual songs (but not if you live outside of the US - boo!). We enjoyed to the samples (play all) a couple of times while we were cooking our Pandan Chiffon Cupcakes.

Kenya music: rhythm

For music, I wasn't sure what we could do besides play some Kenyan music in the background of our activities or find some music on YouTube. So I asked a friend who is a music educator for help. How to teach a little kid about music in a way that's fun and educational? As a high school band teacher and a mom of three young kids, she was full of ideas.

She suggested we look at rhythm, as a good intro to young music learners. Specifically we could practice the rhythm in Kenyan drumming: a pattern of Long, short, Long, short short short. I played the Long short Long rhythm and then asked the The Whirl Girl to repeat it back. Eventually we will add in the additional three shorts. It's a work in progress, but the most important part is that she's having fun doing it. A perfect use for our newly created drum!


Then, we checked out this video. It was hard for me to pick out the specific rhythm, but it definitely sparked The Whirl Girl's curiosity. She loved watching it and playing her drum at the same time.

The Whirl Girl has also enjoyed listening and dancing to the Putumayo African Playground CD that we have. It's a great mix of cheery songs that make it hard to sit still. Unfortunately the tracks aren't downloadable on the Putumayo site, Amazon or iTunes so you have to buy the CD.

Others I've been checking out are:

Smithsonian Folkways has an amazing collection, and you can purchase and download individual songs, as well as albums. And they come with some interesting background information.

And The Rough Guide to the Music of Kenya, with short sample tracks available for listening but also not available for download.

Check your local library, they might have them!

Kenya crafts: drums

For this crafts activity, we made an afternoon of it. We invited some friends to join in the fun as we made drums, listened to music and ate Kenyan peanut soup together! I also put our Kenyan books out so the kids could look at them.

For inspiration, I played an African music CD from Putumayo that I had. Though none of the music was from Kenya, it helped get us in the mood. There are one-minute sample clips online, but you can't download songs (or even the whole album). But you can download individual songs from Smithsonian Folkways, which has an amazing collection of world music, including Children's Songs from Kenya.

On to the drum making!

Supplies:

• fabric - we used some of the cotton fabric that I have from Kenya (thanks to a traveling friend), but any would work. You could even use white fabric and paint it.
  
• parchment paper
• craft glue
• rubber bands
• a metal container - I bought small plant holders from IKEA for $2/each. You could also use an oatmeal tin (metal or cardboard)

Before the kids came, I cut the parchment paper into squares that were the right size to cover the top of the metal container (big enough to cover it and have some hanging over the sides to be held down by the rubber band). I also cut strips of fabric for decoration. I waited for the kids to come and let them pick from the fabrics for the top of their drum and then cut them in squares the same size as the parchment paper.

fabric choices

The first step was to glue the parchment paper to the fabric. I poured the craft glue on paper plates and then the kids used wooden chopsticks (easier to find in Singapore than wooden popsicle sticks!) to spread the glue around.

Then they stuck the fabric to the paper.

And finally, with the help of a parent, we put the fabric/parchment paper on the top of the metal container and wrapped 3-4 rubber bands around the top to hold the paper in place. And then we had ourselves a drum!

I had also cut out strips of cloth to be used as embellishments, which could have been glued around the base or threaded through the rubber bands. Our little ones didn't have much attention for it and were happy to have their finished drums, but older kids might be into more decoration.

Then, I put on this video of kids in Kenya dancing, drumming and singing. The kids had fun clapping and drumming along.