The Portable Gamelan
A Gamelan is a set of percussion instruments from Indonesia. This portable court Gamelan is called the Honorable Golden Dragon.
It comprises 3 Gongs, 9 Metallophones, 1 drum and some finger cymbals.
Each piece of music has a melody and repetitive rhythmic patterns that interlock. The melody uses 5 notes (a pentatonic scale) and numbers (so no prior understanding of reading music is necessary). The instruments build up layers of sound all in time with each other.
Learning opportunities = Listening, Coordination, Pulse, Pitch, Timbre, Vibration, Geography, Spirituality, Team work, Focus.
A Gamelan book and a folder of resources come with this box.
You can make the experience very simple for Year 3 or more advanced for Year 6.