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.