Learn to accompany songs using Steel Pans and a variety of other handheld percussion instruments.
Good songs to sing are:
The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)”, “Matilda”, “Jamaica Farewell”, and “Sloop John B.
- Many children will already be familiar with the “Under the Sea” tune from Disney’s The Little Mermaid
- Some collections of songs for children (particularly multicultural collections) include calypso-sounding versions of songs like “Tingalayo”, “Matilda”, “Banana-boat-song (Day-O)”, and “Brown Girl in the Ring”.
Learn how to perform different Calypso rhythms
Calypso is a style of music that developed in the West Indies, the islands of the Caribbean. It began in Trinidad, and spread through the islands, influencing many later popular styles of music, both there and in the U.S.
The calypso bands didn’t just pick up pots and pans and beat on them. What they did was find useful objects and work on them until they became musical instruments. At first, the musicians made their own instruments, often out of the bottoms (the pans) of metal shipping containers, paint cans, and garbage cans.