Bebe Muke (Bebe Moké): Congolese Song for Elementary Music

In typical Elizabeth fashion, I was searching this past summer for a new song to use to teach one specific musical concept and ended up stumbling on a wonderful song from a country I didn't have represented in my curriculum yet that is accessible and engaging for elementary age students AND can be used to teach several different musical concepts besides the one I was looking for! Here are my lesson ideas for the song "Bebe Muke (Bebe Moké)" from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

First the song. It should be noted that if you search online for the song title you may find a "Wee Sing" version, listed as from Zaire (which the country has not been called since 1997). That version is very different from the African sources I have found so I do not recommend using that one- here are some recordings I recommend:

You'll notice the second recording is in a different meter than the other 2 and feels much more like a lullaby, while the others are more upbeat. Depending on what musical concepts you're wanting to teach I think you could present either version, although I prefer the upbeat one for the 3rd graders I am using the song with.

The lyrics are in Lingala. As with any song that has been passed down for a long time like this, there are several variations on the exact lyrics, but here is the most common version of the first verse that I found among Congolese sources I saw (sidenote: the animation in the first video above makes sense when you see the main thrust of the lyrics):

Original Lyrics (in Lingala)

Bebe moké nani abêti yo

Loba na ngai

Ngai na zongisa

Yomoko otutani na mur ya ndako

English Translation

Little baby, who hit you?

Tell me!

I'll tell you what happened:

You hit the wall of the house yourself.

Now let's talk about musical concepts that could be taught through this song: I am using it this year to review pentatonic solfege and same and different phrases, but (if you use the more upbeat version) this would also be a great song for triple meter.

Pentatonic Solfege

First and foremost I think this song is perfect for practicing pentatonic solfege, because the melody line at the end of every phrase is a descending pentatonic scale (la sol mi re do). I'm using the song this year as a way to review pentatonic solfege by having students aurally identify the solfege of that line after learning the song. After we've sung the song a few times, I have them all sing the pentatonic notes they've learned on solfege syllables with hand signs, and then I ask them to listen to each note in the melody and identify which solfege note it matches. Because the notes are in order it's easier for them to hear, so it's a great way to do a quick review and practice identifying notes aurally, but it would also be an easy way to have students practice notating or identifying the solfege from notation as well.

Same and Different Phrases

The other main reason I chose this song is because there are 2 identical melodic phrases followed by 1 that is clearly different from the first 2 because it has a different rhythm and it stays on the same repeated pitch in the beginning. It's easy for students to hear the phrases because they all end with the same descending scale. I always review same and different phrases in 3rd grade as we're preparing for recorders, because I want students to get in the habit of looking for repeated phrases when they are learning new recorder songs.

Triple Meter

I didn't set out to find a song to teach triple meter, but I'll definitely be touching on the meter with my students when we learn it because it has such a clear downbeat but with the syncopated rhythms, faster tempo, and upbeat feel, it has a different feeling from the typical lilting waltz-feeling triple meter songs I often use with my younger grades. I have students listen to the recording and try to identify the meter by tapping on the beat in groups of 2, 3, and 4 until they find the one that fits the music best. Once we've identified the meter, I reinforce it by having them pat their laps on the downbeat and clap on beats 2 and 3. This is also an easy way to encourage active listening when I'm first introducing the song, so it's easier for them to learn the non-English lyrics when we start practicing the singing.

I hope these ideas inspire more teachers to introduce this song to your students! For more lesson ideas like this to cover your entire year, you can get my curriculum here. Find more elementary music lesson ideas and teaching strategies for music around the world in these blog posts. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

End of Class Routines in Elementary Music

Since my very first year of teaching, I have always had a set end of class routine for my elementary music lessons. But what I include in that routine has evolved over the years, and in the last few years my routine has changed again, so today I'm sharing my current routine for the end of class.

I am a firm believer in the benefits of class routines for elementary music. Because students don't spend a lot of time in our classes, it's even more important than most for us to establish routines to give students a sense of familiarity and predictability and make transitions and other common procedures go more quickly. Moving from one class to the next is probably the most challenging transition for elementary students and as music teachers we spend our entire day facilitating those! So I really think making the beginning and end of class work well for students is one of the most important parts of a productive elementary music class.

1. Learning reflection

Like many districts, mine started requiring all teachers to post learning intentions and success criteria for each lesson a few years ago. You can read all the details of how I do that so it's actually helpful for kids (really) in this post, but the first part of my end of class routine is to revisit the success criteria and learning objective that I've written on the whiteboard and ask students to reflect on whether they succeeded in learning what we set out to learn that day. This is not nearly as deep as it sounds- here's what this looked like in my 3rd grade class the other day:

me (moving over to stand by the success criteria we wrote on the board): "OK we said at the beginning of class that we were going to learn a new rhythm and be able to read and play it today. Did we find a new rhythm?"

students: "yeah!"

me: "What was the new rhythm we learned? What was it called?"

students raise their hands: "a whole note"

me: "How many beats does a whole note get?"

students: "4!"

me: "And how do we say it?"

students: "du-u-u-u!"

me: "Great and we also said we were going to read and play it to show we learned it. Did you read and play whole notes with egg shakers today?"

students: "yeah!"

me (while erasing the success criteria to prepare for the next class): "Awesome, we met our goal!" 

I've always included a reflection on what we learned at the end of class, but I've now just reframed that conversation slightly to incorporate the success criteria we are building together throughout the lesson and bring it back to that before they leave. It not only helps reinforce their learning but helps them feel successful.

2. Line up

I use silent hand signals to cue students to stand up and turn to face the direction they need to go to line up. This post explains all of the hand signals I use in more detail (highly recommend), but all I do at the end of class is hold up one finger for them to stand, then point that finger in the direction they should turn so that the color team that currently has the job of line leader can lead the class over to the tape I have on the floor marking where to stand facing the door ready to leave. After the line leader team, each row follows in order similar to the way students would get off of choral risers on stage (makes it very easy when we're preparing for a concert!). You can read about the color teams I have for my assigned seating, and the jobs assign and rotate through each team, including line leader, in this post.

3. Compliments

Another one of the team jobs is to give a specific compliment to one person that's not on their team (see the post. As soon as students start getting in line, I remind the compliment team to give a compliment- they are the only ones who should be speaking or going anywhere besides standing on the line tape. While they are giving their compliments, I am taking down any extra letters the class earned in my whole class management system (read about that here) and writing a happy note to one student (get those here). As soon as the compliment students are done and back in line, I announce the happy note winner (along with a specific compliment for something they did that day), and move the class's magnet

up the piano for the number of keys they earned in the whole class management system referenced above.

4. Prepare for the hallway

The last step takes 2 seconds but it's very important: I say "minions assemble!" and the students get silent, face the door if they weren't already, put their hands down at their sides. That is my signal to remind students to prepare for the hallway- I have minions all over my classroom (see the 2024 tour here) and the tape on the floor where students line up has minions all over it for this reason!

And that's it! It's nothing complex but going through the same procedure every time helps students mentally prepare for the transition, and makes the end of class much calmer and more controlled. If you want to know more about my routines for the beginning of class, and other routines and procedures I put in place to make my classes run more smoothly, be sure to check this post.

Elementary Music Classroom Management

Classroom management has always been a challenge, with very few comprehensive resources or training that is specifically for elementary music teachers. Part of the problem is there isn't one single strategy that will magically make everything run smoothly- there are so many facets to building and maintaining a positive, productive elementary music classroom that celebrates and meets the needs of all the hundreds of students that come through its doors each week. This post is intended to serve as a resource hub for all of those many facets that affect classroom management, so you can find strategies that will best meet the needs of your students.

Let's start with what everyone thinks of first when they think classroom or behavior management: a concrete system of tracking, motivating, and holding classes as a whole accountable for their behavior in class.

Concrete systems for responding to both positive and negative individual student behaviors are also important:

Having procedures and predictability is one of the most important strategies for fostering positive and productive classrooms, especially when students aren't there every day and have less time to feel settled!

Another key element of procedures and predictability is assigned seating, including assigning students to a "team" that serves as a way to give students classroom jobs, build in procedures for handing out and collecting supplies, and give students more ownership in the classroom:

Now that we've got some concrete systems in place, it's important to make sure we have the right framework / mindset for interacting with students in positive and productive ways, and encouraging students to do the same:

Now let's talk about specific strategies for specific situations that we commonly encounter as music teachers, whether for individual students or classes as a whole:

That is a lot of information but it also just barely begins to scratch the surface! You can browse all of my posts on management by clicking here. If you have any questions or topics you'd like to see addressed in a future post, please leave a comment to let me know!