Topic: Pedagogy - Vocal Range
"Kumbaya" began to be included in public school music texts in the middle-1960s when students demanded more relevance from their classes. It was ideal because it was popular enough to give children a sense of participating in their culture, without being as inflammatory as "We Shall Overcome." [1]
The publisher of "Kumbaya" would have granted reprint permission with few conditions, and while the text included the word "Lord" it had no specific religious content. As mentioned in the post for 12 October 2017, that term for the deity was used by Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.
Equally important, the melody fit educators’ observations of children’s abilities. In the 1930s, Karl Gehrkens had told teachers that voices of children in third grade ranged from middle C to high F, and by sixth grade the lowest note was B-flat below middle C. [2] Later, Orpha Duell and Richard Anderson reported children had a difficult time hearing small intervals in music like half steps. [3]
Charles Leonhard’s team was the first to recognize the utility of "Kumbaya" in 1966. Their fourth-grade book’s version began on middle C and rose to the orchestra’s A through a series of seconds (A to E to G), then descended at single step intervals (A to G or G to F to E to D to middle C).
Discovering Music Together was the second incarnation of a text book series that had begun when Irving Wolfe was working with Charles Fullerton to revise the latter’s One Book Course in Elementary Music [4] that had been published by Follett in 1933. [5] Fullerton’s daughter purchased control of the copyright [6] after her father’s death in 1945. She and Wolfe produced Together We Sing in 1950. [7]
Max Krone became involved with the series in 1951, and his wife, Beatrice Krone, was one of the editors of the 1955 [8] and 1963 editions. [9] They ran the Idyllwild School of Music in California. Their version of "Kumbaya" was recorded by the Girl Scouts at the 1965 National Roundup in Idaho’s Farragut State Park. [10]
Leonhard took over the new Follett series that still included Beatrice Krone, Wolfe, and Margaret Fullerton as contributors.
Discovering Music Together was very much in the spirit of the folk music revival associated with Pete Seeger, who often appeared at Idyllwild. [11] Leonhard had studied with Lilla Belle Pitts, who as mentioned in the post for 24 June 2018, advocated the use of folk songs in school texts. It was the early 1950s and collections of American folk songs by Carl Sandburg [12] and the Lomaxes [13] were popular. While he was at Teacher’s College, Columbia, Leonhard taught students "to create accompaniments to folk and popular songs for school use." [14]
The two largest sections of the fourth grade Discovering Music were devoted to "Music from the U. S. A." and "Music around the World." It followed the outlines of Sandburg and the Lomaxes by including chanteys, cowboy songs, and other work songs. These songs followed a page that described the ways rhythms were notated. [15] A headnote introduced the idea that work songs had unique rhythmic patterns. [16]
The international section had a page devoted to the concepts of "Melody and Chords." [17] It noted "many melodies are built on the tones of a chord." This was followed up with the footnote to "Kumbaya" that asked "what chord do the first three tones outline."
Leonhard paired it with "Wo-Ye-Le," a canoe chant from Lake Tanganyika which it said "helps the men work together in even rhythm." [18] The illustration [19] with "Kumbaya" showed five men standing in a long boat with poles to propel it along a river with trees overhanging the banks They were wearing loin clothes.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: class
Instrumental Accompaniment: none in student’s book
Rhythm Accompaniment: none in student’s book
Credits
African spiritual
Cooperative Recreation Service
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: not specified
Verses: kumbaya, singing, praying
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: three-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 G7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: unison, one syllable to one note, except for final "Lord"
Notes on Performers
Leonhard’s father had a hardware store in Anadarko, Oklahoma, which he lost in the agricultural depression that followed World War I. Leonhard spend most of his youth doing chores on their dairy farm and practicing piano. [20] After he graduated from the University of Oklahoma he taught music in Duncan, Oklahoma, [21] while spending his summers earning a master’s degree from Teacher’s College, Columbia. He graduated in 1941, taught a year in two Dallas high schools, [22] then enlisted. [23] After the war, Leonhard returned to Teacher’s College [24] to earn a PhD. He taught a few years there, [25] before going to the University of Illinois where he spent the rest of his career. [26]
Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." 92 in Discovering Music Together, Book 4. Edited by Charles Leonhard, Beatrice Perham Krone, Irving Wolfe, and Margaret Fullerton. Chicago: Follett Publishing company, 1966. There was also a teacher’s edition and a set of recordings, but I couldn’t locate copies of either.
End Notes
1. The only band method book to use "We Shall Overcome" was edited by Art C. Jenson. Learning Unlimited. Level 1. Trumpet/Cornet. Winona, Minnesota: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1973. 35.
2. Karl Wilson Gehrkens. Music in the Grade Schools. Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1934. The subsequent research summarized by Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman in 1971 focused on how high students could sing; Gehrkens was one of the few to mention the lower limit. (Musical Characteristics of Children. Washington: Music Educators National Conference, 1971.)
3. Orpha K. Duell and Richard C. Anderson. "Pitch Discrimination Among Primary School Children." Journal of Educational Psychology 58:315-318:1967.
4. "Charles A. Fullerton Papers." University of Northern Iowa, Rod Library website.
5. Irma H. Collins. Dictionary of Music Education. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2013. 108.
6. George N. Heller. Charles Leonhard. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1995. 119.
7. Collins. 282.
8. Irving Wolfe, Beatrice Perham Krone, Max T Krone, and Margaret Fullerton. Together We Sing series. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1955
9. Irving Wolfe, Beatrice Perham Krone, and Margaret Fullerton. Together We Sing series. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1963.
10. Girl Scouts. Senior Round Up, Farragut State Park, Idaho, 1965. "Kum-Ba-Yah." The 7" album was made by Maxwell House Coffee and distributed as a promotion. The entire recording was uploaded to YouTube by grettajetta on 3 November 2015.
11. Larry Eisenberg remembered meeting Seeger at Idyllwild in 1957. Larry Eisenberg. "It’s Me, O Lord." Tulsa: Fun Books, 1992. 63.
12. Carl Sandburg’s The American Songbag, published in 1927 by Harcourt, Brace, was reissued as Carl Sandburg’s new American Songbag in 1950 by Broadcast Music.
13. John Lomax and Alan Lomax released American Ballads and Folk Songs in 1934. Macmillan reprinted it in 1943, and nearly every year after that through 1951, according to WorldCat.
14. Heller. 61. Heller’s source was Eunice Boardman, who was then one of Leonhard’s students. She was mentioned in the post for 24 June 2018.
15. Leonhard, Discovering. 4:38.
16. Leonhard, Discovering. 4:40.
17. Leonhard, Discovering. 4:80.
18. Leonhard, Discovering. 4:93.
19. Carl Martin was listed as the illustrator for the volume. I could find nothing about him on the internet.
20. Heller. 10.
21. Heller. 24.
22. Heller. 44.
23. Heller. 46.
24. Heller. 50.
25. Heller. 60.
26. Heller. 72.
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