Topic: Pedagogy - Public Schools
Brass bands, as mentioned in the post for 13 September 2017, developed as a tool for improving the Prussian army in the 1830s. By the late nineteenth century, many towns had amateur groups. In at least some cases, they were introduced by German-speaking migrants. [1]
Merry Texter [2] suggested how-to-play books originally were written for adults. One of the very first from a hundred years before brass bands included what would become the most basic element of all subsequent books: a chart showing the keys used to produce each note of the scale.
The author, Peter Prelleur, believed individuals should learn "the entire range of the instrument" before they attempted to play tunes. [3] This was partly because he had no concept of instructional music. Instead he included "minuets, marches, rigaudons, and opera airs ‘By Mr. Handel and other Eminent Masters’." [4]
By the time Samuel Holyoke produced his Instrumental Assistant around 1800, [5] singing schools had been introduced in this country. Texter believed he used their format when he added a section on musical notation to the fingering charts. [6] He began with tunes that were "relatively simple in key, meter, and rhythm patterns," before introducing currently popular songs. [7]
Most of these early books were produced for orchestral instruments. Prelleur wrote for recorder, transverse flute, oboe, violin, and harpsichord. [8] Holyoke added the clarinet and bass-viol, but dropped the recorder and harpsichord. [9] When brass instruments appeared in this country, nothing was available.
In 1829 Ezekiel Goodale observed chaos because "the books now in general use are designed to afford a knowledge of some one particular instrument, but offer no rules to assist the learner on other instruments, or to direct him in his practice with other performers." [10]
Goodale suggested uniform collections "adapted to every instrument." [11] Arthur Clappé issued the first such set in 1888 with an introductory section on notation, fingering charts, scales and exercises. He adopted the idea of progressively more difficult lessons [12] introduced by Lowell Mason, [13] with instructions before each exercise. The popular tunes came after 27 exercises.
Brass bands grew in popularity with John Philip Sousa. He led the U. S. Marine Band on tours in 1891 and 1892, then retired to organize his own group that toured the country annually. He served a brief stint with the Navy Band in Chicago in World War I. [14]
Sousa’s initial popularity coincided with the rise of football rivalries. The Big Ten conference was organized as the Western Conference in 1895. [15] The University of Michigan fight song was written in 1898. [16]
The ones we played in my Michigan high school band around 1960 were all adopted just before World War I: "On Wisconsin" and the "Minnesota Rouser" were from 1909, Ohio State’s "Across the Field" and the Michigan State fight song were composed in 1915. [17]
Instrumental music training entered the public schools in the wake of World War I, according to Edward Birge. [18] These also were the years when high schools were modeling themselves on colleges with local football conferences. Joseph Maddy "became the first regular supervisor of instrumental music in the United States" in Rochester, New York, in 1918. [19]
With that change came the need to create books for adolescents rather than adults. A musical instrument manufacturer sponsored the first by Maddy and Thaddeus Giddings. The Universal Teacher [20] dispensed with the rudiments, scales, and drills. The two recognized:
"a pupil is impelled by many motives of which the principal one is the desire to make music on his instrument as soon as possible. Actual experience has proved that the music he wishes to bring forth from his instrument is the song that is familiar to him, the song his friends and neighbors know and like to hear. Certain songs have a universal appeal and are almost universally heard. These have been selected as the material in the Universal Teacher. This choice follows the child’s natural desire and in consequence he learns rapidly. Grown people sometimes have the mistaken impression that if the pupil plays certain exercises instead of tunes or songs, he will learn to play his instrument more quickly, but the child thinks differently and without his interest it is very difficult to get him to do anything." [21]
Songs were selected and sometimes simplified to become exercises. They were a combination of familiar melodies from classical music and songs included in community songbooks that began to be published during the war. [22]
Several other method books mentioned by Texter, which were issued in 1920s, were sponsored by text book publishers: C. C. Birchard offered one in 1926 [23] and Osbourne McConathy edited some for Oliver Ditson in 1929. [24] Most of the others were printed by small companies.
Apparently, text book publishers didn’t find the market for band training manuals remunerative. It may have been their normal hardcover volumes didn’t fit easily on music stands. Also, books tended to be selected by band directors and purchased by students, rather than by school boards. This meant companies had to keep prices low for sales that were spread over years, rather than bulk sales coordinated with institutional purchasing cycles.
The publishing industry began assuming its modern form in 1930 when Carl Fischer entered the market. [25] Texter noted the decade saw a rapid increase in the number of public school bands. In response, "seventeen method books were published, and at least eight privately-printed and miscellaneous method books were also published." [26]
The immediate stimulus may have been the popularity of dance bands like those of Paul Whitman and Benny Goodman. By the late 1930s, even boys in conservative small towns in the upper Midwest were forming ensembles. Harold and Everett Leonard Edstrom called their band Hal Leonard, because they feared their father would be offended if they used his surname. [27]
The most influential songbook from this period was Maurice Taylor’s Easy Steps to the Band. [28] He had a small band in Montrose, Pennsylvania, before he graduated from high school in 1924, then taught privately. Once he was hired by the local high school, he realized traditional methods simply didn’t work with the number of students he had.
Taylor created his own exercises, [29] and drew upon the community songster repertoire for tunes like "Polly Wolly Doodle." He also used some American folk songs like "Home on the Range" and Blow the Man Down," as well as children’s melodies like "Old MacDonald" and rounds like "Are You Sleeping."
Fewer books were published during World War II, but Mills Music issued Fred Weber’s first method book in 1945. [30] He taught music in a Michigan City, Indiana, junior high school. [31] His largest contribution was format. Each page was designed as a single lesson composed of up to ten lines of music that introduced a new note along with some aspect of music like dynamics or tempo, and some element of notation. The only changes made since by others have been the location of the comments: his were by the music; most placed them at the top of the page.
The brothers who had formed the Hal Leonard band entered the instrumental method market in 1961 [32] with one edited by a Wisconsin secondary school band teacher. [33] The Elementary Band Method recognized instrumental music was being introduced to children who had different physical abilities than adolescents. Harold Rusch used familiar nursery songs like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Hot Cross Buns."
This was the period when editors began offering two books, with the first designed for beginners. The first series mentioned by Texter was published by Carl Fischer in 1957; [34] the first I found was issued by Neil Kjos in 1958. [35] The form became the standard after Weber released his First Division Band Method in 1962. [36]
Hal Leonard introduced the next round of innovations in 1990 with its Essential Elements. [37] By then the brothers had retired and sold the company to an employee. [38] Keith Mardak exploited the new copyright law to amass a large catalog of titles by buying other companies. Elements was produced to capitalize on digital technology and meet the new music education standards mentioned in the post for 24 June 2018. It added notes on "theory" and "history" by lines of music.
Elements also differed in its editorial bias. Instead of drawing upon the experience of a single, talented, high-school band teacher, it was produced by a committee drawn from university music faculties. Tom Rhodes began teaching in Texas high schools, before being hired by the University of Texas. He and Donald Bierschenk published a method book for Southern Music [39] which led to the commission from Hal Leonard. [40] The third editor, Tim Lautzenheiser, taught at Northern Michigan University. [41]
Band method books lagged behind the elementary school singing books in responding to the demands for relevance in the 1960s. Weber had introduced "When the Saints Go Marching In" in a 1962 manual, [42] but no other African-American piece was added to the common repertoire after that.
Elements followed the trend in public school music books mentioned in the post for 24 June 2018 to utilize international material. It introduced the Japanese "Sakura," the Jamaican "Banana Boat Song," [43] the Mexican "La Cucaracha," and the national anthems of Canada and Israel.
It was the first to publish "Kumbaya" as an international song from Africa. [44] The tune appeared in five other method books I’ve seen, including Bruce Pearson’s Standard of Excellence in 1993. [45] "Kumbaya" wasn’t universally accepted, and Pearson dropped it from his Tradition of Excellence in 2010. [46]
Notes on Samples
In the late 1970s, I went through all the school-music text books in the collection of the University of Michigan Music Library looking for camp songs. I recently located copies of the books that contained "Kumbaya," although I was not always able to find teacher’s editions. I do not know what happened after that date, and would be interested to hear from people who were in elementary school after 1980.
Texter compiled a list of all the commercially published band method books from catalogs, and searched to find them. Her collection went through 1973, and was as complete as she could make it.
I purchased copies of all the books that appeared in Amazon for the search criteria "band method." They usually were for cornet or trumpet, [47] but I ordered what was available when that instrument’s book was not available.
I believe my collection is fairly complete for the current century, but books published in the late 1970s and 1980s may have fallen out of print. Any comments I make about the first instance is based on what I have, and may overlook something. Please correct my errors.
I do not know the relative sales figures for different books. Texter found:
"Music publishers are loathe to divulge information regarding numbers of method books that are sold. A representative of a major method book publisher stated in an interview (March 31, 1973) that no book is kept in print by his company unless it sells at least ‘from 2,000 to 5,000 copies’ per book (i.e., per individual instrument volume) per year. His company has numerous titles in print, with some dating from 1939." [48]
When I describe a book as influential, I mean it introduced songs that were subsequently reprinted by other editors or it pioneered ways of teaching music that were copied by other publishers.
End Notes
1. This is my assertion based on the research I did on the history of May Festivals for Camp Songs. 484.
2. Merry Elizabeth Texter. "A Historical and Analytical Investigation of the Beginning Band Method Book." PhD dissertation. The Ohio State University, 1975.
3. Peter Prelleur. The Modern Musick-Master. London: Printing-office in Bow Church Yard, 1731. Quotation from Texter. 41.
4. Prelleur. Quoted by Texter. 41.
5. Samuel Holyoke. The Instrumental Assistant. Exeter, New Hampshire: H. Ranlet, 1800.
6. Texter. 43.
7. Texter. 44.
8. Texter. 40. The first three originally were described as flute, German flute, and hautboy.
9. Texter. 44. They originally were described as German flute, clarionett, and hautboy.
10. Ezekiel Goodale. The Instrumental Director. Hallowell, Maine: Glazier, Masters and Company, 1829. 6. Quoted by Texter. 46.
11. Goodale. 6. Quoted by Texter. 46. She labeled the volumes he was proposing heterogeneous method books, meaning single "books that can be used for simultaneous instruction of brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments." 8-9.
12. Arthur A. Clappé. The Band Teacher’s Assistant. New York: Carl Fischer, 1888. Described by Texter: on notation, 60, fingering charts, 61; scales, 62; progression, 61-62. The cover page said it was "a series of progressive lessons."
13. Lowell Mason was mentioned in the post for 24 June 2018.
14. Wikipedia. "John Philip Sousa."
15. Wikipedia. "History of American Football."
16. Louis Elbel. "The Victors." Wikipedia said "the song was first played publicly by John Philip Sousa and his band." (Wikipedia. "The Victors.")
17. William T. Purdy and Carl Beck. "On Wisconsin" for the University of Wisconsin. Hazel McGrath claimed Sousa called it one of "the finest of college marching songs." (McGrath. "Songs to Thee, Wisconsin!" Wisconsin Alumnus 49:16-17:March 1948. 17. Cited by Wikipedia. "On, Wisconsin!")
Floyd Hutsell. "Minnesota Rouser" for the University of Minnesota. (Wikipedia. "Minnesota Rouser.")
William Andrew Dougherty, Junior. "Across the Field" for Ohio State University. (Wikipedia. "Across the Field.")
Francis Irving Lankey and Arthur Sayles. Michigan State fight song, now called "Victory for MSU." (Wikipedia. "Victory for MSU.")
18. Edward Bailey Birge. History of Public School Music in the United States. Washington: Music Educators National Conference, 1928. 201-202. Cited by Texter. 18.
19. Texter. 17. This is the same Maddy who founded the Interlochen music camp.
20. Joseph E. Maddy and Thaddeus P. Giddings. Universal Teacher. Cornet or Trumpet. Elkhart, Indiana: C. G. Conn, Ltd., 1923.
21. Joseph E. Maddy and Thaddeus P. Giddings. Instrumental Class Teaching. Cincinnati: The Willis Music Company, 1928. 5. Quoted by Texter. 79.
22. For more on community songbooks, see the post for 24 June 2018.
23. Louis M. Gordon. Band Training Series. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1926. Cited by Texter. 195.
24. Osbourne McConathy, Russell V. Morgan, and Harry F. Clark. The Ditson School and Community Band Series. Boston: Oliver Ditson Company, 1929. Cited by Texter. 196. McConathy was mentioned in the post for 24 June 2018.
25. Mayhew Lake. Lake’s Elementary Band Method. New York: Carl Fischer, 1930. Cited by Texter. 196. Fischer had published Clappé’s manual.
26. Texter. 88.
27. "Corporate History and Profile." Hal Leonard website. Their parents, Ernest Julius Edstrom and Lesla A. Edstrom, apparently were members of the Church of the Brethren that descended from the pietist Dunkers who settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania, before the Revolution. (NCHS. "Ernest Julius Edstrom" and "Lelsa A. Edstrom." Find a Grave website. 25 December 2015.)
28. Maurice D. Taylor. Easy Steps to the Band. Bb Cornet. New York: Mills Music, Inc., 1939. This stayed in print and my copy was reprinted by Belwin after it had been taken over by Alfred Publishing Company.
29. "Maurice D. Taylor of Montrose." Montrose, Pennsylvania, Community Foundation of the Endless Mountains website.
30. Fred Weber. Belwin Elementary Band Method. Bb Cornet (Trumpet). Melville, New York: Belwin, Inc., 1945.
31. George Butler. "Fred Weber." International Horn Society website. 1 April 2016. Confirmed by Google notices of his work as a judge and clinician.
32. Harold W. Rusch. Hal Leonard Elementary Band Method. Bb Cornet or Trumpet. Winona, Minnesota: Hal Leonard Music, Inc., 1961.
33. Dutch Wikipedia. "Harold W. Rusch."
34. C. Paul Herfurth and Hugh M. Stuart. Our Band Class Book. Book 1. New York: Carl Fischer, Inc., 1957. Cited by Texter. 195.
35. Charles Peters. Neil Kjos in 1958.
36. Fred Weber. First Division Band Method. Part One. Bb Cornet (Trumpet). First Division Publishing Company, 1962. It was kept in print by Belwin.
37. Tom C. Rhodes, Donald Bierschenk, and Tim Lautzenheiser. Essential Elements. Book 1. Bb Trumpet. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1991. This version was discussed in the post for 16 August 2018.
38. Hal Leonard, History. They sold the company in 1985.
39. This may have been Harry H. Haines and J. R. McEntyre. Division of Beat. Book 1. Cornet/Trumpet, Baritone TC. San Antonio: Southern Music Company, 1980. Rhodes was listed as a contributing editor.
40. "Tom Rhodes - Class of 2003." Texas Bandmasters Hall of Fame, Phi Meta Mu, Alpha chapter website. This also had information on Donald Bierschenk
41. "About Tim Lautzenheiser." Attitude Concepts website.
42. Weber, First Division. 25.
43. "Banana Boat Song" was popularized by Harry Belafonte in 1956.
44. This version is discussed in the post for 29 July 2018.
45. The other books that contained "Kumbaya" were Bruce Pearson. Standard of Excellence. Book 1. Bb Trumpet/Cornet. San Diego: Neil A. Kjos Company, 1993. This version was discussed in the post for 29 July 2018.
John O’Reilly and Mark Williams. Accent on Achievement. Book 1. Bb Trumpet. Van Nuys, California: Alfred Publishing Company, 1997. This version was discussed in the post for 29 July 2018.
Tim Lautzenheiser, et al. Essential Elements 2000. Book 1. Bb Trumpet. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1999. This version was discussed in the post for 16 August 2018.
Jim Evans. Band Folio. Band Method. Book 1. 2000. Available free on-line. This version was discussed in the post for 9 August 2018.
Sandy Feldstein and Larry Clark. The Yamaha Advantage. Book 1. Clarinet. New York: Carl Fischer, 2001.
46. Bruce Pearson and Ryan Nowlin. Tradition of Excellence. Book 1. Bb Trumpet/Cornet. San Diego: Neil A. Kjos Company, 2010.
47. Cornets and trumpets were essentially the same: they had the same lengths of tubing coiled in different ways. Cornets were used by military and brass bands, while trumpets were used by orchestras and symphonies. Louis Armstrong changed from cornet to trumpet in the early 1920s because trumpets were preferred by jazz bands. The change from cornet to trumpet as the primary label for method books lagged behind popular music taste. The first to use trumpet was Art Jenson in 1970. [49] After The Yamaha Band Student in 1988, [50] it became the standard.
48. Texter. 1.
49. Art C. Jenson. Learning Unlimited. Level One. Trumpet/Cornet. Winona, Minnesota: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1973.
50. Sandy Feldstein and John O’Reilly. Yamaha Band Student. Book 1. Bb Trumpet/Cornet. Van Nuys, California: Alfred Publishing Company, 1988.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Eunice Boardman - Kum Ba Yah
Topic: Pedagogy - Pubic Schools
There always has been a discrepancy between how children learn and how they are taught. Philosophers since Jean-Jacques Rousseau have argued children learn as their bodies and minds develop, and teachers would be well advised to match their methods to nature.
The posts on how children learn music [1] and the ones on lullabies [2] suggested children absorbed their aesthetic senses long before they ever babbled a tune or banged a table or shook a noise maker suspended over their cribs. No teacher began with a tabula rasa.
Formal vocal music training in the United States was an offshoot of Protestants’ need to sing in church. It assumed congregants were literate enough to read the Bible. However, music was expensive to reproduce, and early hymn books only gave names of familiar tunes with texts.
Later music leaders wanted to eliminate the monotony by introducing new tunes. But first, they had to teach people to read music. Early singing-school books began with sections of music fundamentals. Whether people in the sporadic schools actually learned to sight read, or learned the songs as they sang them from a leader who could read wasn’t recorded. The presence of a few in a community who could sing from printed notes was enough to introduce variety into the repertoire.
Lowell Mason took music training into the public schools in Boston in 1838, [3] and in 1864 he published the first graded series of music books in this country. [4] As schools grew from one-room multi-purpose buildings into elementary and secondary schools, the number of levels expanded from Mason’s three.
The first school collections, like Pat’s Pick in Michigan, [5] resembled the community songsters published during and after World War I. [6] They relied on public domain material including Stephen Foster and Civil War songs, religious works like "Shall We Gather at the River," rounds, and British tunes like "Comin’ thro’ the Rye" and "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes." Henry Pattengill believed:
"Songs for youth should be cheery, lively, and catchy. Let there be much singing by rote. Sing for the fun of it. Teach the good old songs by heart. Sing for opening, sing for closing, sing between meals." [7]
The textbook industry developed to support school boards. It was only a matter of time before it offered series with unique books for each elementary-school grade. Some early ones in The Progressive Music Series were organized to introduce elements of music like "Melodies in the Major Scale; the Quarter-Note Beat." [8]
Many of the lyrics were written specifically for the books to European folk tunes. They didn’t completely abandon the community song repertoire. A collection edited by the Progressive Music team in 1932 included a section of "Assembly and Community Songs" in addition to the pedagogical ones. [9]
After World War II, public school singing books contained even more specially composed songs, leavened with songs children already knew like "Grand Old Duke of York" [10] and "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." [11] Lilla Bell Pitts encouraged the use of folk material [12] like "Donkey Riding," but did not use folk melodies for the original texts. [13] Community songs were not included except for Christmas carols and some religious items. [14]
In the 1960s, publishers were criticized because their texts were bland and ignored the contributions of women, African Americans, and other cultural groups. Textbook editors responded by expanding their pool of songs.
Eunice Boardman and Beth Landis had issued a fourth grade book in 1966 [15] that contained 105 songs. [16] Only 13 came from African Americans, Africans, Arabs, Asians, or Spanish-speaking countries. They revised the book in 1971, keeping the basic format, but changing the 116 songs so 39 came from previously underrepresented groups. [17]
Still, there were none that were identified as African American. Instead, five were described as "Spirituals" in the headnotes seen by students. [18] "Kumbaya" was introduced as one of the four African songs. [19] While the women added Native American songs, they dropped the only Irish song and had nothing from four other large immigrant groups: Poles, Italians, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. [20]
In the 1970s, school districts started cutting their budgets for music. Currently, music educators think they can justify music classes if they imitate science courses and provide a rigorous curriculum. In the 1990s, the National Association of Music Educators developed standards that defined "the knowledge, skills, and understanding that all students should acquire in the arts." [21]
It no longer was enough to know how to sing or play an instrument. Now the well-trained child was expected to improvise, compose, analyze and describe what he or she heard, and understand "music in relation to history and culture." [22]
The version of "Kumbaya" that appeared in the Boardman and Landis singing book had an illustration that showed six children, three males, three females. Three had dark skins. One white girl was blond, the second was brunette, and the white boy had red hair. The caption read: "This song comes from Africa. People everywhere enjoy singing it."
The song was included in a section of "Music from Far Away." The editors suggested teachers ask their nine-year-old students to find Africa on a map. They assumed the children would already know it was important because the "ancestors of many Americans came from Africa."
Having placed the song in its cultural context, elementary school music teachers were expected to explain "kumbaya" meant "come by here" and recognize it as a "song of worship" like the previously mentioned "Rocka My Soul." The latter was described as a "rousing spiritual" that "expresses feelings of well-being and joy." [23]
Boardman and Landis suggested that once children knew the song, teachers could go farther and discuss how their students should "sing this song to communicate the feelings expressed in the words." This was supposed to lead to an introduction of concept of dynamics and phrasing, with variations in crescendos-decrescendo patterns in each line.
Next students were given more information on finding a home tone and recognizing a key. They were asked to translate the "Kumbaya" tune into numbers: 1 3 5 5 5 6 6 5. They could also play the chords in the book on their autoharps, sing along to a piano accompaniment, or listen to an a capella baritone recording.
Credits
"African Folk Song." No publishing credit was given.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no notes given
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: four-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: slowly
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Autoharp Chords: C F G G7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note, except for final "Lord." A descant was provided with the piano accompaniment, if the teacher wanted to explore harmony with "Kumbaya."
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: the piano played the melody with the right hand and chords with the left. The chords sounded at the beginning of each measure and each phrase. The final line had chords for every beat.
Notes on Performers
Boardman earned her music degrees from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, Columbia Teacher’s College, and the University of Illinois. She taught music in Iowa public schools before becoming a university professor. [24]
Landis earned her music degrees from the universities of Denver and Michigan. She later became music director for the Riverside, California, public schools. [25] Sam Hinton remembered she staged an annual sixth-grade sing where all the schools in the district sang a "stirring arrangement of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’" that was "augmented by a section of bass voices borrowed from the music department on the Riverside Campus of the University of California, with an added flourish of trumpets from the brass section of the U C Riverside band." [26]
Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." 34 and 236 in Exploring Music 4. Edited by Eunice Boardman and Beth Landis. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971 teacher’s edition.
End Notes
1. See the posts for 21 September 2017 - 1 October 2017 or click on the "Learning Music" topic in the index at the right of the screen.
2. See the posts for 3 January 2018 - 27 January 2018 or click on the "Lullabies" topic in the index at the right of the screen.
3. Wikipedia. "Lowell Mason."
4. Lowell Mason. The Song-Garden. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1864.
5. Henry R. Pattengill. Pat’s Pick. Lansing: Henry R. Pattengill, 1905. When I was doing research on camp songs in the 1970s, several people told me they had used this when they were in school.
6. An example of a community songster was one edited by John Beattie, et al. The Golden Book of Favorite Songs. Minneapolis: Schmitt, Hall and McCreary, 1915. My sixth grade teach used this book in the 1955-1956 school year. It included more of the Scots, Irish, and English songs and fewer religious songs than Pat’s Pick.
7. Pattengill. Frontis page.
8. Horatio Parker, Osbourne McConathy, Edward Bailey Birge, and W. Otto Miessner. The Progressive Music Series. Book Two. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1920 edition.
9. Osbourne McConathy, W. Otto Miessner, Edward Bailey Birge, and Mabel E. Bray. The Music House: One-Book Course. New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1938 edition.
10. John W. Beattie, Josephine Wolverton, Grave V. Wilson, and Howad Hinga. The American Singer. New York: The American Book Company, 1954. Book 3 At the time Beattie edited The Golden Book he was music supervisor for the Grand Rapids, Michigan, public schools. When he edited this book, he had retired from Northwestern University’s School of Music.
11. Lilla Bell Pitts, Mabelle Glenn, Lorrain E. Watters, and Louis G. Wersen. Our Singing World. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1959 edition. Grade 3, Singing and Rhyming.
12. Brian Shifflet. "A History of Ten Influential Women in Music Education 1885-1997." MMus. Bowling Green State University, 2007. 33, 34. Most of his information came from Gerald L. Blanchard. "Lilla Belle Pitts: Her life and Contributions to Music Education." EdD dissertation. Brigham Young University, 1966.
13. Pitts.
14. Pitts. Also, Beattie, The American Singer.
15. Eunice Boardman and Beth Landis. Exploring Music 4. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966 teacher’s edition.
16. They included many more pieces of music in their introductions to classical music. I only included pieces with words that were meant to be sung.
17. Many of the international songs also appeared in songbooks published by Lynn Rohrbough’s Cooperative Recreation Service in Delaware, Ohio.
18. The spiritual kept from the 1966 edition was "My Lord What a Morning." Several of the spirituals added in 1971 came from camp meetings and were not uniquely African American. They included "This Little Light of Mine," "Rocka My Soul," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "Trouble in Mind."
19. The 1966 African song was the white’s "Marching to Pretoria." The other new African songs in 1971 were a "Congo Lullaby" and "Laboring Song."
20. The 1971 book included the Jamaican "Banana Boat Song" popularized by Harry Belafonte. There was one Mexican song in 1966, and two more in 1971.
22. National Association for Music Education website. Quoted by Brandon K. McDannald. "A Comparative Summary of Content and Integration of Technological Resources in Six Beginning Band Methods." MA thesis. University of Central Missouri, May 2012.
22. "MENC: The National Association for Music Education and the Nine National Music Education Standards." Its website.
23. Boardman, 1971. 4.
24. "Eunice Boardman Papers, 1942-1997." University of Illinois library website.
25. "Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation Receives Large Gifts." Mu Phi Epsilon, The Triangle 101:14:Spring 2007.
26. Sam Hinton. "A Naturalist in Show Business." April 2001. University of California San Diego library website.
There always has been a discrepancy between how children learn and how they are taught. Philosophers since Jean-Jacques Rousseau have argued children learn as their bodies and minds develop, and teachers would be well advised to match their methods to nature.
The posts on how children learn music [1] and the ones on lullabies [2] suggested children absorbed their aesthetic senses long before they ever babbled a tune or banged a table or shook a noise maker suspended over their cribs. No teacher began with a tabula rasa.
Formal vocal music training in the United States was an offshoot of Protestants’ need to sing in church. It assumed congregants were literate enough to read the Bible. However, music was expensive to reproduce, and early hymn books only gave names of familiar tunes with texts.
Later music leaders wanted to eliminate the monotony by introducing new tunes. But first, they had to teach people to read music. Early singing-school books began with sections of music fundamentals. Whether people in the sporadic schools actually learned to sight read, or learned the songs as they sang them from a leader who could read wasn’t recorded. The presence of a few in a community who could sing from printed notes was enough to introduce variety into the repertoire.
Lowell Mason took music training into the public schools in Boston in 1838, [3] and in 1864 he published the first graded series of music books in this country. [4] As schools grew from one-room multi-purpose buildings into elementary and secondary schools, the number of levels expanded from Mason’s three.
The first school collections, like Pat’s Pick in Michigan, [5] resembled the community songsters published during and after World War I. [6] They relied on public domain material including Stephen Foster and Civil War songs, religious works like "Shall We Gather at the River," rounds, and British tunes like "Comin’ thro’ the Rye" and "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes." Henry Pattengill believed:
"Songs for youth should be cheery, lively, and catchy. Let there be much singing by rote. Sing for the fun of it. Teach the good old songs by heart. Sing for opening, sing for closing, sing between meals." [7]
The textbook industry developed to support school boards. It was only a matter of time before it offered series with unique books for each elementary-school grade. Some early ones in The Progressive Music Series were organized to introduce elements of music like "Melodies in the Major Scale; the Quarter-Note Beat." [8]
Many of the lyrics were written specifically for the books to European folk tunes. They didn’t completely abandon the community song repertoire. A collection edited by the Progressive Music team in 1932 included a section of "Assembly and Community Songs" in addition to the pedagogical ones. [9]
After World War II, public school singing books contained even more specially composed songs, leavened with songs children already knew like "Grand Old Duke of York" [10] and "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." [11] Lilla Bell Pitts encouraged the use of folk material [12] like "Donkey Riding," but did not use folk melodies for the original texts. [13] Community songs were not included except for Christmas carols and some religious items. [14]
In the 1960s, publishers were criticized because their texts were bland and ignored the contributions of women, African Americans, and other cultural groups. Textbook editors responded by expanding their pool of songs.
Eunice Boardman and Beth Landis had issued a fourth grade book in 1966 [15] that contained 105 songs. [16] Only 13 came from African Americans, Africans, Arabs, Asians, or Spanish-speaking countries. They revised the book in 1971, keeping the basic format, but changing the 116 songs so 39 came from previously underrepresented groups. [17]
Still, there were none that were identified as African American. Instead, five were described as "Spirituals" in the headnotes seen by students. [18] "Kumbaya" was introduced as one of the four African songs. [19] While the women added Native American songs, they dropped the only Irish song and had nothing from four other large immigrant groups: Poles, Italians, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. [20]
In the 1970s, school districts started cutting their budgets for music. Currently, music educators think they can justify music classes if they imitate science courses and provide a rigorous curriculum. In the 1990s, the National Association of Music Educators developed standards that defined "the knowledge, skills, and understanding that all students should acquire in the arts." [21]
It no longer was enough to know how to sing or play an instrument. Now the well-trained child was expected to improvise, compose, analyze and describe what he or she heard, and understand "music in relation to history and culture." [22]
The version of "Kumbaya" that appeared in the Boardman and Landis singing book had an illustration that showed six children, three males, three females. Three had dark skins. One white girl was blond, the second was brunette, and the white boy had red hair. The caption read: "This song comes from Africa. People everywhere enjoy singing it."
The song was included in a section of "Music from Far Away." The editors suggested teachers ask their nine-year-old students to find Africa on a map. They assumed the children would already know it was important because the "ancestors of many Americans came from Africa."
Having placed the song in its cultural context, elementary school music teachers were expected to explain "kumbaya" meant "come by here" and recognize it as a "song of worship" like the previously mentioned "Rocka My Soul." The latter was described as a "rousing spiritual" that "expresses feelings of well-being and joy." [23]
Boardman and Landis suggested that once children knew the song, teachers could go farther and discuss how their students should "sing this song to communicate the feelings expressed in the words." This was supposed to lead to an introduction of concept of dynamics and phrasing, with variations in crescendos-decrescendo patterns in each line.
Next students were given more information on finding a home tone and recognizing a key. They were asked to translate the "Kumbaya" tune into numbers: 1 3 5 5 5 6 6 5. They could also play the chords in the book on their autoharps, sing along to a piano accompaniment, or listen to an a capella baritone recording.
Credits
"African Folk Song." No publishing credit was given.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: no notes given
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: four-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: slowly
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Autoharp Chords: C F G G7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: one syllable to one note, except for final "Lord." A descant was provided with the piano accompaniment, if the teacher wanted to explore harmony with "Kumbaya."
Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: the piano played the melody with the right hand and chords with the left. The chords sounded at the beginning of each measure and each phrase. The final line had chords for every beat.
Notes on Performers
Boardman earned her music degrees from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, Columbia Teacher’s College, and the University of Illinois. She taught music in Iowa public schools before becoming a university professor. [24]
Landis earned her music degrees from the universities of Denver and Michigan. She later became music director for the Riverside, California, public schools. [25] Sam Hinton remembered she staged an annual sixth-grade sing where all the schools in the district sang a "stirring arrangement of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’" that was "augmented by a section of bass voices borrowed from the music department on the Riverside Campus of the University of California, with an added flourish of trumpets from the brass section of the U C Riverside band." [26]
Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." 34 and 236 in Exploring Music 4. Edited by Eunice Boardman and Beth Landis. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971 teacher’s edition.
End Notes
1. See the posts for 21 September 2017 - 1 October 2017 or click on the "Learning Music" topic in the index at the right of the screen.
2. See the posts for 3 January 2018 - 27 January 2018 or click on the "Lullabies" topic in the index at the right of the screen.
3. Wikipedia. "Lowell Mason."
4. Lowell Mason. The Song-Garden. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1864.
5. Henry R. Pattengill. Pat’s Pick. Lansing: Henry R. Pattengill, 1905. When I was doing research on camp songs in the 1970s, several people told me they had used this when they were in school.
6. An example of a community songster was one edited by John Beattie, et al. The Golden Book of Favorite Songs. Minneapolis: Schmitt, Hall and McCreary, 1915. My sixth grade teach used this book in the 1955-1956 school year. It included more of the Scots, Irish, and English songs and fewer religious songs than Pat’s Pick.
7. Pattengill. Frontis page.
8. Horatio Parker, Osbourne McConathy, Edward Bailey Birge, and W. Otto Miessner. The Progressive Music Series. Book Two. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1920 edition.
9. Osbourne McConathy, W. Otto Miessner, Edward Bailey Birge, and Mabel E. Bray. The Music House: One-Book Course. New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1938 edition.
10. John W. Beattie, Josephine Wolverton, Grave V. Wilson, and Howad Hinga. The American Singer. New York: The American Book Company, 1954. Book 3 At the time Beattie edited The Golden Book he was music supervisor for the Grand Rapids, Michigan, public schools. When he edited this book, he had retired from Northwestern University’s School of Music.
11. Lilla Bell Pitts, Mabelle Glenn, Lorrain E. Watters, and Louis G. Wersen. Our Singing World. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1959 edition. Grade 3, Singing and Rhyming.
12. Brian Shifflet. "A History of Ten Influential Women in Music Education 1885-1997." MMus. Bowling Green State University, 2007. 33, 34. Most of his information came from Gerald L. Blanchard. "Lilla Belle Pitts: Her life and Contributions to Music Education." EdD dissertation. Brigham Young University, 1966.
13. Pitts.
14. Pitts. Also, Beattie, The American Singer.
15. Eunice Boardman and Beth Landis. Exploring Music 4. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966 teacher’s edition.
16. They included many more pieces of music in their introductions to classical music. I only included pieces with words that were meant to be sung.
17. Many of the international songs also appeared in songbooks published by Lynn Rohrbough’s Cooperative Recreation Service in Delaware, Ohio.
18. The spiritual kept from the 1966 edition was "My Lord What a Morning." Several of the spirituals added in 1971 came from camp meetings and were not uniquely African American. They included "This Little Light of Mine," "Rocka My Soul," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "Trouble in Mind."
19. The 1966 African song was the white’s "Marching to Pretoria." The other new African songs in 1971 were a "Congo Lullaby" and "Laboring Song."
20. The 1971 book included the Jamaican "Banana Boat Song" popularized by Harry Belafonte. There was one Mexican song in 1966, and two more in 1971.
22. National Association for Music Education website. Quoted by Brandon K. McDannald. "A Comparative Summary of Content and Integration of Technological Resources in Six Beginning Band Methods." MA thesis. University of Central Missouri, May 2012.
22. "MENC: The National Association for Music Education and the Nine National Music Education Standards." Its website.
23. Boardman, 1971. 4.
24. "Eunice Boardman Papers, 1942-1997." University of Illinois library website.
25. "Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation Receives Large Gifts." Mu Phi Epsilon, The Triangle 101:14:Spring 2007.
26. Sam Hinton. "A Naturalist in Show Business." April 2001. University of California San Diego library website.
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