BEAT IT! CARIBBEAN STREET MUSIC. By Evelyn Glennie and Paul Cameron. Faber pound;14.95 (incl CD).
This is a successor volume to the same authors’ engaging African Dances. Aimed at teachers at upper key stage 2 and key stage 3, Beat it! Caribbean Street Music provides four hands-on classroom workshops to accompany each offour songs, using rumba, calypso, mento and reggae idioms. The workshops cover instrumental skills, including the use of claves and maracas, as well as performing techniques, such as how to understand the “feel” of continuous quavers, the shaping of accents or the use of a back-beat. An enjoyable compilation.