Music Mosaic of Southern Indigenous People

This week in music class, we toured the music of the nearest indigenous peoples to Antarctica. I created a tour for the students to explore the music of the Māori, Palawa, Noongar, Xhosa, Khoekhoe, Selk’nam, and Yaghan people. We reviewed the information related to Pangea, so that students could see that Antarctica used to be attached to other countries and continents.

In addition to listening to traditional music of these cultures, we learned facts about the people and looked at some of their artwork and symbols. The students were fascinated!

I had the students write one measure of music to reflect the style of music they enjoyed the best on the tour. They then decorated their music with the symbols and artwork of their chosen culture. I originally thought the students would use the 5 lines for composing their measure of music, but so many of the students really enjoyed the music of many cultures and turned their five lines into music from their 5 favorite cultures!

After the compositions were complete, I hung them all up in the hallway creating an artistic mosaic of the cultures we toured.