PERU

Lesson 7

Teaching Artist: Juan Manuel Trujillo, Hery Paz
Two puppets presenting the flag of Peru.

SUMMARY

This is the seventh lesson from the Alegría Musical Course. Students will visit Peru with puppets Pepe and Tito to learn about the traditions of huayno and festejo music. Then students will repurpose objects and create musical instruments.

OBJECTIVE

  • Summarize important information about the culture, history, and geography of Peru. 

  • Build a basic pan flute.

  • Recreate a traditional festejo beat.

MATERIALS

EXPLORE

  1. Display the Google Slides: Peru. Distribute the Alegría Musical: Latin American Stories Travel Diary. Allow students a moment to personalize the diary. Tell students they will use the diary as they travel through Latin America with puppets Pepe and Tito, drawing and recording important facts about another culture. 

  2. Show All About Peru. Ask students to remember key geographical and cultural elements discussed in the video. Ask: Where is the country located on a map? What does Peru’s flag look like? What are its most important geographical features (mountains, plains, jungle, beaches, forests)? What foods do people eat? 

  3. Ask students to recall which musical instruments are often used in huayno music (high-pitched voice, charango, guitar, violin, quena, pan flutes, saxophone, accordion, trumpet). 

  4. Allow time for students to draw and write in their diary, recalling information they learned from the video. 

LEARN

  1. Introduce students to Festejo Music. Ask: What does “festejo” mean? (A festejo is a party or celebration.) Which musical instruments are often used in festejo music (drums, guitar, maracas, and quijada). Explain that the quijada is essentially the same instrument that is played in the Mexican musical tradition, son jarocho. It is also similar to the guiro (Puerto Rico), guira (Dominican Republic), and guacharaca (Colombia), which was featured in the previous lesson. All of these instruments are played using a scraping motion.

  2. Ask students to describe the cajón. Ask: What does it look like? How do you hold the instrument? How do you play it? Ask students to look around the classroom to find something that could be used as a cajón. (Some suitable objects may include boxes, tubs, chairs, large bottles or cans, desks, or tables.) With these repurposed objects, use the Festejo Rhythm Instructional Video to learn as a class. 

  3. Distribute four drinking straws and strands of clear tape to each student. Then play the Pan Flute Instructional Video and assist students as they trim their straws to size and tape one end of each straw, to create an airtight seal. When the open ends of the straws are flush with one another, tape them together tightly.

  4. Invite students to gently blow air over the open ends of the straws to create a pan flute sound. Ask: Which of the straws makes the highest pitched sound? Which of the straws makes the lowest pitched sound?

PERFORM+SHARE

  1. Create a one minute video or take a photo of students with their homemade pan flutes. Share the video or photo on the S’Cool Sounds Padlet.

  2. Tell students to get their diary ready for their next lesson, which is a visit to Argentina.