TeachRock

Ask your students the following questions, keeping track of answers on the board:

• Is there music in your life that says something about who you are? What about this music do you think represents you and why? (Students may think of songs that are sung in the family, something that represents their culture, or certain pop songs that “speak” for them. All answers are valid.)
• Is the music of your family heritage among the music that represents you? What is it, and in what ways does it express something about your heritage?

1. Show Clip 1, Soundbreaking – “Gospel Music of the Southern U.S. featuring the Staple Singers” and ask your students:
   • There is no drummer in this group, so how is the group creating the “driving beat” that Jason King mentions? (Students may notice that the singers create multi-layered rhythms with clapping and also that their vocals are rhythmic. The “call and response” style of the lead vocalist and the three background singers also creates rhythm.)
   • Does the lead singer only sing words? What else do you hear her sing? (Students may notice that she extends the lyrics, using non-verbal syllables and her breath to create a defined rhythm.)
2. Distribute Handout 1: African Music and “Spirituals” in the U.S. South and have your students take turns reading the paragraphs out loud, following the slave ship routes across the Atlantic and noting the number of people moved to the Americas from West Africa. Have your students recall the lyrics of the first song the vocal quartet was singing in Clip 1 (replay it if necessary) and ask:
   • Having now read about the suppression of drumming in the U.S. and thinking back to Clip 1, in what ways do you hear what we might call “a beat” in the music even in the absence of drums?
3. Show Clip 2, Soundbreaking – “‘Single Ladies’ and the Church.” Ask your students:
   • Does “Single Ladies” sound like a “church” song to you? If yes, how? If no, why?
   • What instruments do you hear on “Single Ladies”? (Students may notice that other than a few synthesized bass notes and the “quirky sound,” it is entirely drums, clapping and vocals.)
   • The-Dream says that from the hand clap sound used in “Single Ladies,” he is, “thinking about the Southern [U.S.]…about church, I can see the paper fans and the wooden benches.” Why do you think the sound of a hand clap conjures so much imagery for him? Does “Single Ladies” evoke any similar feelings for you?
   • Tricky Stewart says he was trying to “connect the dots” with the beat of “Single Ladies.” What connections do you think he is trying to make? (Students may infer that Stewart is creating a connection between the past and present by juxtaposing, first, modern drum sounds with “church clapping” and, second, Beyoncé, a present-day African-American woman of fame, wealth and cultural power, with a musical tradition developed during a time when blacks could only safely express themselves by subverting power.)
4. Open the Soundbreaking Rhythmic Layers – Beyoncé TechTool that will allow the class to hear a programmed simulation of the component parts of “Single Ladies” using the following steps:
   
   • Begin by selecting and playing the “Claps” track. This track demonstrates the “hand claps” of the beat in isolation. Then ask the class:
     • ​Does this sound evoke any images to you? Why?
     • Are these claps alone enough to sound like “a beat” to you?
     • Do these claps sound “modern” to you? Would you expect to hear a track like this on a pop song?
   • Now unselect the “Claps” track and select the “Drums” track. Ask your students:
     • ​Does this sound evoke any images or feelings to you?
     • Where would you expect to hear a beat like this?
   • Now select “All” to play both the “Claps” and “Drum” tracks together and ask your students:
     • ​In what ways can you hear the juxtaposition of sounds of which Beyonce’s producers spoke?
5. Tell your students that you will now follow a similar thread of rhythmic and cultural mixing as occurred between Latin American music and Rock. Ask your students the following question and write their answers on the board:
   • When you think of a Rock band, what instruments come to mind?
6. Tell your students that when Santana appeared at Woodstock they were a new act, yet to release an album. Santana’s instrumentation was similar to most rock bands, except they also featured two Latin-style percussionists. Play Clip 3, Soundbreaking – The Santana Drum Break from the Woodstock festival and ask your students:
   • ​​Are there any instruments featured here that you’re not accustomed to seeing in a rock band? (Students may notice the inclusion of percussion instruments.)
   • Do these instruments make you think of a place or certain people? (Students may suggest the drums are from Africa, Latin America, or even recognize them as something associated with certain cultures of the U.S.)
   • In what ways do you think featuring these Latin Percussion instruments in their performance might have marked Santana as different from other bands on the Woodstock festival?
7. Distribute Handout 2: Santana and Afro-Cuban Rock and have your students read the paragraphs out loud. Ask your students:
   • How do you think the attitude of the Spanish slave owners toward music differed from that of the British and early Americans who practiced slavery we discussed earlier in this lesson?
   • What musical affect do you think this different attitude would have had? Can you see it reflected in Santana?
8. Play Clilp 4, Soundbreaking – Santana and Latin Rock. Ask your students:
   • What do you think made the San Francisco area in the 1960s an ideal musical “laboratory” for Carlos Santana? (Students may suggest that San Francisco was a diverse area culturally, and the 1960s was a time of people opening up to and accepting ideas from outside of the dominant, white culture.)
   • Why do you think Ashley Kahn describes Santana’s work as “getting these different languages to talk one language together”? (Encourage your students to think about language as another marker of place and ethnicity. Santana managed to merge the “languages” of different types of music into a sound that reflected his Latin music “language” yet didn’t come across as unintelligible or “foreign” to the predominantly white rock audience of Woodstock.)
9. Open the Soundbreaking Rhythmic Layers – Santana TechTool. Using this TechTool, students can explore a programmed simulation of the drum and percussion parts of “Evil Ways” in isolation and together using the following steps:
   
   • Play the “Drum set” part. Ask your students:
     • Does this sound “Latin” to you?​
     • Can you imagine this beat on any songs you know? (Students may have many ideas about this because it is a fairly common drum groove that one could hear in almost any song.)
   • Now select the “Latin Percussion” part. Inform students that they are hearing the conga, the cowbell and the güiro (SEE PICTURES) and ask:                                       
     • Does this sound like a “Rock” song to you? If not, what does it sound like?
     • Why do you think these sounds evoke the idea of “Latin” to so many people? Do you usually hear these sounds and rhythms in Rock music?
   • Select the “All” button to play the “Drum” and “Percussion” tracks together. Ask students:
     • ​When we add the Rock drums and the Latin percussion together, does one seem dominant?
     • Do you think the two sets of instruments and rhythms fit comfortably together?
     • Do you think someone could include percussion like this in a Rock song and not evoke a sense of Latin influence? Why or why not? (Encourage students to consider how the actual instruments of conga and cowbell evoke the idea of Latin heritage.)

Discuss as a class Sheila E.’s description of Latin music as part of “her DNA.” Ask your students:

• In the previous clip we heard percussionist Sheila E. say of Latin music, “it’s my DNA, it’s the foundation of who I am.” What is “DNA” and why do you think Shelia E. made this analogy?  (Students many have learned in biology class or elsewhere that “DNA” is the main constituent of chromosomes and the carrier of genetic information in the human body. Students may recall that she said it was “always around me,” suggesting that she learned Latin music from her family, her community, and the people around her when she was a child. Latin music represents a connection to the people and places she has developed relationships with beyond music.)
• Though music is not “genetic” in a scientific sense of the term, in what ways have you seen music’s capability to represent a history of people and place throughout today’s discussion? How do you think a “beat” can carry information about people and place?
• If you moved to a country where people spoke a different language and music sounded completely different, can you think of any types of music that would make you think of home or represent your feelings of ethnicity and nationality? Is there a beat that represents you?

Have students research the music of their “DNA.” Instruct students to interview a parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt or other relative about music that was a part of their childhood lives which thus entered into the musical “DNA” of their extended family. Students should use the interview as a basis for an essay about that music, then sharing it with the class. If possible, students should accompany their presentation with a representative music recording. Students should use the following questions as a guideline and feel free to develop more questions as well:

• What do you call this kind of music?
• Where is it from?
• Was it something you participated in or something you watched and heard?
• Who played it?
• If you played it, how did you learn it?
• What instruments were used to play it?
• Are those instruments from a particular place?
• When was this music played?
• What language was this music sung in?
• Why is this music meaningful to you?
• What do you feel it says about who you are and, by extension, who we are?