大象传媒

In the first part of Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock we meet Anansi, a spider who is always playing tricks on his friends. The song 'Anansi the Spider' is about Anansi's jokey character and the music activity focuses on identifying ascending and descending notes within the song.

Join Andy and Rebecca to learn the song 'Anansi the Spider'.

The main elements of the tutorial are:

• Identifying the style of the song: it is upbeat and jazzy.
• Saying the words of Verse 1 to practise the fast, jazzy rhythms.
• Singing the melody to 'La' only, to practise the notes.
• Identifying that the tempo of the first half of the Chorus is fast, but the second half is slower.
• Practising clapping in the rests in the Chorus.
• Noticing how the words ‘Up he’ll get, with a grin’ are on the same note.

Duration: 08 22

Anansi is a mischievous spider who appears in traditional stories from Africa and the Caribbean.

In this story Anansi tricks his friends into falling asleep on a magical moss-covered rock. First Anansi tricks Snake and while Snake is asleep Anansi gobbles up his pineapple. Next Anansi tricks Lion and while she is sleeping he steals all her bananas to eat. Anansi is delighted with himself and wonders who he should trick next.

Story questions:

• What kind of a creature is Anansi and what is he like?
• What are the magic words that send the speaker to sleep? ('Isn't this a strange, moss-covered rock!').
• Who does Anansi trick and what does he steal from them? (Snake - pineapple / Lion - bananas).

Duration: 05 31

Sing the song with Andy and Rebecca. The clips carousel begins with the full vocal version of the song and is followed by individual clips for Verse 1, the Chorus, Verse 2 and Verse 3 - and includes the backing track version of the song at the end. This allows you to navigate quickly to the individual sections of the song and to focus on specific sections while learning the song.

for the Lyrics. for the Music.

Focus: pitch - notes descending and ascending in regular steps.

• Discuss how in music the notes can often go up (ascend) or go down (descend). It’s one of the techniques that helps to keep the music interesting!
• Andy and Rebecca sing a descending note sequence and the children copy. They add actions to it: wriggling their fingers like Anansi and moving their hands down with each descending note step.
• Andy and Rebecca then sing an ascending note sequence and the children copy again.
• They add wriggling fingers like Anansi again, this time moving their hands up with each ascending step.

Duration: 05 38

Yellow Bird is played by a steel drum band with percussion. The music from the Caribbean - the part of the world that stories about Anansi come from.

• What is the style / mood of the music?
• The music has a strong beat or pulse - like today’s song.
• Can the children hear the percussion instruments keeping a steady beat? Can the children clap along to the steady beat?
• The main instruments featured in this piece of music are the steel pans. The steel pan is the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago. It is made out of metal - traditionally an empty oil drum - and is struck with wooden beaters to make a sound.
• Steel bands often play for special events, especially at carnivals.
• You could also listen to our version of the song.

Duration: 01 39