Mark Twain General Music

Senor Coyte is a folktale from Mexico. The story is about a snake who gets trapped under a rock. A rabbit comes along and saves the snake by moving the rock. In return Snake tries to eat Rabbit. A Coyte walking by hears the commotion and stops Snake from eating Rabbit. The coyte solves the problem by having Snake and Rabbit reinact what happened. Coyte pushed the rock back on top of Snake. Coyte and Rabbit then left Snake with the rock on top of him.

Moral: Don't be cruel to those who help you!

Music is created for each character and various sound effects are created for action in the story. Only non pitched percussion and sound effects from the voice is used in this story.

The Drumming Spider is a story that is told in many parts of Western Africa. A spider is a very common character is African folkore and is often called Anansi. Anansi is known as a trickster who uses cunning intellect to outsmart other characters.

The Drumming Spider is a story about Anansi not being invited to a wedding party. Anansi later finds out she has not been invited and decides to teach the village a lesson. On the night of the party, Ananci and her family hides by the nearby stream. During the party, the cheif of the village sends a girl to get some water at the stream. When the girl arrives at the stream, Anansi and her family plays music that the girl cannot stop dancing to. Later the chief send a boy to look for the girl, he too is then captured by the music and cannot stop dancing. Soon the whole village is captured by Anansi's magical music that no one can stop dancing too. The then get very tired and start dropping to the ground. When the music stops, the people in the village are so tired from dancing that they have to crawl home.

Students learn music that is played for the characters, events, and actions of the story. Pitched and non pitched percussion is used along with singing.