Chumbara

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're going to learn a fun folk song that comes from Quebec called "Chumbara".
Now Quebec is a province in the eastern part of Canada.
Interesting thing about Quebec, it's the only province in Canada where the primary language is French.
C'est bien, non?
So, you might expect the words of "Chumbara" to be French, but they're not.
They actually mean nothing, just silly made-up syllables.
I'll play it for you.
♫Chumbara, chumbara, chumbara, chumbara, chumbara♫
♫chumbara, chum, chum, chum, chum, chum, chum, chum, chum, chumbara♫
♫chumbara, chumbara, chumbara, chumbara♫
♫chumbara, chum, chum, chum♫
All right, let's do it one more time, and this time I invite you to sing along with me.
The words are super easy right?
And as you sing, you're going to pat, clap, pat, clap.
Ready, let's give it a try.
So go ahead and get your pat-clap going, and then keep that going, don't stop. Pat, clap, here we go.
♫Chumbara, chumbara, chumbara, chumbara, chumbara♫
♫chumbara, chum, chum, chum, chum, chum, chum, chum, chum, chumbara♫
♫chumbara, chumbara, chumbara, chumbara♫
♫chumbara, chum, chum, chum♫
Here's the sheet music for "Chumbara".
Tell me what you notice.
Can you find anything new in this piece that maybe we haven't seen before?
Now you might have noticed these funny little brackets down here with a number one and a number two.
This is called a first ending and second ending.
Let me show you how this works.
When you play or sing "Chumbara", you're going to start at the beginning of course and go through...
and then when you get to the first ending, you're allowed to go in here
the first time you come to it. So you go ahead and enter door number one, or the first ending, and then you hit this repeat sign.
A repeat sign
if you don't see any other repeat sign, will take you all the way back to the start. So now we're going to do it again...
and now you're not allowed to go into door number one again, or the first ending, now you have to skip straight over to the second ending,
and then you're done.
Okay, so here's the whole path one more time. It goes...
You're allowed to go into the first ending, or door number one, repeat back,
you do it again, and this time you have to skip, boing, over to the second ending, and then you're done.
Now let's check out
our key signature. We've got treble clef, which is our clef, and then no sharps or flats in our key signature,
and that plus the fact that we're starting on a C, ending on a C, no sharps and flats, we know then that we're in the key of C major,
and a 2/4 time signature telling us we have 2 beats in every measure.
Now let's practice the rhythm of "Chumbara" once.
Can you say the rhythm words with me?
Now before we do that, let's notice a few ties.
Remember when a curved line like this connects two of the same note, that's called a tie,
and it means instead of
speaking, or performing, or singing this note you're going to connect it to the value of this note into one continuous note.
So we've got a quarter note, which equals one beat
plus one eighth note, which is an extra half beat.
So actually hold this for one extra half beat. It will be
TI-TI TA TI TI-TI
Now can you try that with me? So this TA we're going to just hold a little extra long. TA TI TI-TI
Ready, try to stay with me, go.
TI-TI TA TI TI-TI
Good, let's keep going.
TI-TI TA TI TI-TI
Good, can you try that whole line with me? Ready, point and sing with me, go.
TI-TI TA TI TI-TI, TI-TI TA TI TI-TI
TI-TI TA TI TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI TI-TI
Then it repeats back,
TI-TI TA TI TI-TI, TI-TI TA TI TI-TI
TI-TI TA TI TI-TI
Where do we go? Point to it.
That's right, we skip straight to TA TA TA REST.
Now let's try to figure out the solfège for this.
We know we're in the key of C, so we know that we start on DO.
Now can you figure out the solfège for all the notes from here to here? Try to sing this in solfège for me.
Go.
The correct answer for the solfège is DO DO DO MI RE DO
Now let's try that same pattern with our solfège hand signs.
I know we haven't done these for a while, so let's review.
Can you try this and sing with me?
DO RE MI FA SO LA TI DO
Now let's try to step down.
DO TI LA SO FA MI RE DO
Good, now the first phrase of "Chumbara" is
DO DO DO MI RE DO
Now can you echo that back and do the hand signs?
Sing and do the hand signs, go.
Good, now let's come back to the score.
Now can you figure out what solfège syllable this note would get?
If you said SO, you're correct. Here's a C and here's a G.
And that interval in the key of C goes DO SO.
So if this is SO, can you figure out the s ...