drumming – Making Music

July 20, 2020August 20, 2021

The Yantra

Introduction

In this Museum of Amazing Musical Instruments Mat the Hat introduces the Yantra.

And if you’re wanting to do an activity whilst you’re visiting the museum, there’s an accompanying quiz for each minstrument and web links to explore.

The yantra is a gentle and melodic drum, and is my musical partner to the Hang drum. The notes ring loud and pure.

The yantra is a tank drum – it is made out of an old propane gas tank. It’s been cut down to this lovely shape, but you can still see the letters underneath. It was made by a man called Jason who lives in Newburgh, Fife, in central Scotland. How do I know that – because I asked him to make this drum especially for me!

The yantra is a really sturdy drum, one that anyone can play with any sort of sticks – it’sindestructible and a great drum to take to a party! I don’t even need a case for it.

Some people call drums like this a tongue drum because the musical notes are made by playing each of these tongues that have been cut into the body. Each of the tongues is tuned to a different note on the scale of F major. The yantra is a tuned drum that I can play with any other instrument, but I especially like to play it with my Hang because the notes are similar. In music, this is because the scales that the two instruments play are related – D minor and F major.

The yantra drum get’s it’s name because yantra is the Sanskrit word for a mystical diagram that is important to members of the Hindu religion. The tongues on the drum look like a picture that you might meditate on. I think it’s rather beautiful!

Links

Here are some other videos you can watch to learn more about the Udo, how is is played and made.

Yantra Wikipedia

Tank drums

How to make a tank drum

To see what the Big Drum Adventure is all about have a look at Mat’s website.

http://wherestheone.co.uk/big-drum-adventure.html

Learning Resources

To download files right click on the links and then select either:‘

Save Target As’ (PC)
‘Download Linked File’ (Mac

Museum introduction

Yantra Museum Script, Links and Quiz

June 29, 2020August 20, 2021

The Museum of Amazing Musical Instruments

Introduction

Mat the Hat is well know to our schools for his lively and engaging Big Drum Adventure that he has delivered with many of our pupils. Each week Mat has a special feature called the Museum of Amazing Musical Minstruments.

Mat introduces items from his own personal museum, a collection of amazing sounds and unusual ways to create music that he has built up on his travels around the world. So prepare yourself to step into the Museum, to be astounded by the marvelous, magnificent and mysterious musical Minstruments from as far away as Africa, South America and the Himalayas.

And if you’re wanting to do an activity whilst you’re visiting the museum, there’s an accompanying pdf with a quiz for each minstrument and web links to explore.

There are three instruments on out blog pages,

The Udu, a clay pot which makes some amazing sounds.

The Yantra made from a steel drum

The Berimbau, a stringed instrument

Link

To see what the Big Drum Adventure is all about have a look at Mat’s website.

http://wherestheone.co.uk/big-drum-adventure.html

Learning Resources

To download files right click on the links and then select either:‘

Save Target As’ (PC)
‘Download Linked File’ (Mac

Museum introduction

November 1, 2019September 8, 2020

Kakatsitsi Drummers

In October we had a series of workshops led by a Ghanaian group of traditional drummers, dancers and singers from the Ga tribe of Southern Ghana . The came to the UK for a 2 months tour with the arts education charity Indigenous People , who specialise in tour and project management for traditional world music and dance groups, particularly from Africa.

The group visited seven of our schools across the region, delivering a whole school performance followed by class dance and drumming sessions. It was such a fun and high energy experience for the pupils, with an opportunity to experience music and dance from Ghana.