Paul Greaver - Kumbaya

Topic: Lullaby - Instrumental
B. F. Skinner once said he kept his child from crying by placing it in a warm environment where it could move about freed from the constraints of clothing. [1] Other professionals have told parents to resist the urge to rock their infants to sleep. [2] I suspect there have been times, in the wee hours, when those parents have wondered when those specialists last held a fretful baby.

Midnight crises become more stressful if the mother or father does not know any lullabies, because it is hard to maintain a rocking rhythm without singing, walking, or sitting in a moving chair. One woman told a friend that was when she played a CD:

"She said it was a saving grace when Eddie would wake up crying in the middle of the night. She would hold him close and rock to the music until he drifted back off to sleep. Mary said the music was soothing enough that she was also able to fall back asleep after Eddie was tucked back in, rather than laying awake frazzled." [3]

The particular record she played was Paul Greaver’s Guitar Lullabies. His version of "Kumbaya" was fairly complex, for musicians have a difficult time playing monotonously. Many of pianists mentioned in the post for 23 January 2018 had been so trained they could not stop themselves from emphasizing the melody, and if they had succeeded their adult audience would have been confused.

It is easier to prevent one line from attracting attention on a guitar because young musicians tend to either play just the melody or only the accompaniment. Blues musicians like Lightnin’ Hopkins and Rosetta Tharpe emphasize the melodic line, but classical ones do not. After graduation from college, Greaver became a follower of Rajneesh in Oregon. [4] Exposure to meditation music probably made it easier for him to alternate between two tones in his accompaniment and maintain a consistent volume.

What is harder for musicians to overcome is their sense of form. Western music tends to move from the simple to the complex, from a statement or a theme to variations upon it. Lullabies have a different logic: they either remain the same or become progressively simpler or slower as the infant gets drowsier.

Greaver played four repetitions of the standard "Kumbaya" tune that fell into the general ABA pattern, with B more varied than A. He began by playing the melody one note at a time with parallel thirds from the end of the third line through the fourth. The notes were played distinctly, with the reverberations filling the gaps. This was the only time the music called attention to itself.

On the second iteration, Greaver alternated between two notes in his accompaniment. Some were minor in the third line. The accompaniment became a bit louder in the third repetition, with the use of stronger strums on down beats, but returned to the alternating two notes in the final iteration. This time many of the intervals were small. The very last line was slower and softer.

Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Paul Greaver, guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
© 2010 Music For Little People
Author, Composer: Traditional
Author, Composer: Paul Greaver
Music Publisher: Sudhananda Music (BMI) [5]

Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: slow

Basic Structure: repetition of melody with variations in accompaniment

Instrumental Style: classical with one hand playing both the melody and the accompaniment. No modifications in dynamics or tempo, except at the end.

Notes on Performance
Cover: realistic drawing of a mother’s face leaning toward a baby’s head in the sound hole of an acoustic guitar.

Audience Perceptions or Notes on Audience
The reviewer for a website recommending music to parents indicated she confused her own taste and that of her readers, with the needs of an infant:

"The African lullaby Kumbaya also gains complexity as it goes, creating a bass made up of beautiful triads." [6]

Notes on Performers
Greaver grew up in an artists’ family in Maine and Michigan, then studied guitar at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and North Carolina School of The Arts. After recording for years under the name Antar Sudhananda, he moved to northern California where he worked as a sound engineer for Music for Little People. [7]

Availability
CD: Guitar Lullabies. Music For Little People. 1 January 2010.

Reissue: Guitar Lullabies. Music For Little People. 6 January 2014.

YouTube: uploaded by Universal Music Group North America on 26 July 2015.

End Notes
1. B. F. Skinner. "Baby in Box." Ladies Home Journal, October 1945. 535-540 in Skinner. Cumulative Record. Edited by Victor G. Laties and A. Charles Catania. Cambridge, Massachusetts: B. F. Skinner Foundation, 1999 definitive edition. Summarized by T. Gordon and B. M. Foss. "The Role of Stimulation in the Delay of Onset of Crying in the Newborn Infant." Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 18:79-81:1968. 79. Skinner did acknowledge infants cry when they were hungry or needed to be changed.

2. See post for 15 January 2018.

3. Mary. Quoted by Audra Rundle. Review of "Guitar Lullabies by Paul Greave." Little One Books website, Seattle, Washington.

4. "Sudhananda by Sudhananda." CD Baby website.
5. Notes uploaded to YouTube.
6. Rundle.
7. CD Baby.