What You Need:
- 10-15 songs from countries around the world
- Paper and pen for keeping score
- Blank CDs
- CD cases or envelopes
What You Do:
To prepare:
- With your child, research different types of world music. Try to find at least one genre from each continent and create a playlist of 10–15 songs from diverse regions.
- Burn the playlist on blank CDs to give to your guests as party favors. Your child can help design liners for the cases.
To play the game:
- Play the first 5–10 seconds of the first song.
- Contestants raise their hands as soon as they think they recognize the country where the artist and type of music are from.
- The first person to guess the correct country of origin gets one point. If people give incorrect answers, they cannot guess for the remainder of the song.
- If there are no guesses after the 5-10 second clip, then start the song again and play until someone gets it correct.
- The person with the most points wins.
Suggested Resources:
Putumayo World Music has a large catalog of international music CDs for sale. You can also search for world music on websites such as iTunes or Amazon and often purchase individual songs rather than entire albums. Another great resource is your local public library, which may have an extensive international music collection, or the ability to borrow from other libraries.
Sample List of Artists:
- Ladysmith Black Mambazo (South Africa)
- Cesaria Evora (Cape Verde)
- Simon Shaheen (Middle East/Palestine)
- Caetano Veloso (Brazil)
- Astor Piazzolla (Argentina)
- Mariachi Vargas (Mexico)
- Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares (Bulgaria)
- Paul Taylor (Australia)
- Geno Delafose (United States)
- Asha Bhosle (India)
- Joji Hirota & The Taiko Drummers (Japan)
- Altan (Ireland)
- Edith Piaf (France)
- El Tanbura (Egypt)
- Chava Alberstein (Israel)
