Bamboo Tamboo – widening the music curriculum
This Spring, as part of the Year 6 Arts Programme, the children learnt how to play the bamboo tamboo - a percussion instrument created in Trinidad.
As with any instrument, one of the key skills the children had to learn was being able to maintain a steady rhythm. They did this through repeating clapping sequences, and then they moved onto using the instruments themselves.
The children were split into three groups, and each group was given their own rhythm: they remembered this by saying a set pattern of words in time to the beat. To be successful, the children had to work collaboratively with those in their group by staying in time with each other. This was made particularly challenging as the other groups were playing their own, different rhythms simultaneously. At first, the children found this hard, but they soon learnt that by watching each other carefully, they could stay in time. They ended the workshop by performing to their parents and carers.
