The Carrollwood Day School elementary school was thrilled to welcome back Don Laurin Johnson, the founding member of The Ethnomusicologists Ltd. Co., this week to bring some fun, music, and storytelling to our campus. This was the first group event with a guest for the elementary students and you could feel the energy in the open-air pavilion as our Patriots got to sit within eyesight distance from their fellow students, while still cohorting. 

Ethnomusicologists are professionals who study music in particular cultural contexts. Mr. Don and Sophia Neghesti-Johnson led students through what they call "Book Beats, a multimedia 'edu-tainment' presentation that strives to instill a love of reading, via the arts. Promoting literacy from childhood through the use of storytelling, songs, and games, these amazing Ethonomusicologists believe follow the motto of 'Liberation through Literacy'.

Just like last year, the students got to enjoy not only a global perspective on music but understanding how music can be used as a social practice to immerse oneself in a multicultural experience with songs from around the world. Students were treated to several stories and multi-cultural messages this visit:

• Fijian, The story of Degei-Degei the serpent/coral reef and human creation
• Why the sun rises - Story of Nanda and Ubimwa - and original story of origins
• Baramba - A Wolof Sabar drum rhythm, from Senegal - about Baramba's cries to the heavens
• English tribal origins - Bede wrote this in the early 8th Century
• Tanzania - Nyamwezi creation story
• Samoa - Patia - The rubbing of hands, "mili" and the excited clapping to a surprise call "patia" was once thought to drive away evil

Thank you to our presenters for "Taking the facts and the figures from dusty old books. Presenting them to the folks, as dope beats and hooks." - Book Beats