Columbia High School - Kumbayah

Topic: Pedagogy - Vocal Harmony
Elementary school vocal music books in the 1960s were moving away from teaching the singing on key and sight-reading that dominated my fourth-grade classes in 1954, and were attempting to teach music instead. Series like that of Eunice Boardman and Beth Landis [1] may have assumed specially trained teachers saw students more often than the once a week of my childhood. They certainly set forth a curriculum analogous to arithmetic, rather than anthologies used to teach reading.

Lorrain Watter’s fourth-grade book was organized into three sections: rhythm, melody, and harmony. It told students the last occurred when two notes sounded at the same time, but that three were needed for a chord. It then introduced the two main triads in western music, the tonic and dominant seventh. [2]

After teaching nine-year olds the basics of western harmony, Watters used "Kumbaya" to begin a section of two-part songs. Each line began in unison, and split into parallel thirds on the second syllable of kumbaya. The "oh Lord" in the final line, which used two notes for one syllable was sung in unison, while the following "kum" and "ba" were in thirds. The last note, "ya" was in unison.

The Magic of Music used "Kumbaya" as an opportunity to discuss the concept of intervals, the "distance from one note to another." After showing all the ones possible in a seven-note scale, it asked students to name intervals used in "Kumbaya."

Watters’ team assumed nine-year olds had access to bells, autoharps or a piano and could use them to hear the sounds he was describing. In 1955, he had teamed with the National Autoharp Sales Company of Des Moines to inform primary school teachers they could use the strummed instruments [3] to accompany their students when they sang. He had written:

"in the intermediate grades the pupils themselves learn to play it for class singing in two- and three-part harmony." They also can "learn the relationship of the tonic, sub-dominant and dominant chords —and their uses in harmonization and in musical accompaniment." [4]

While elementary schools in the 1950s and 1960s used hard-bound text books, junior high schools had specific class periods for choirs or glee clubs who worked from sheet music. [5] At that point, the focus shifted back to tonal accuracy and the ability to read music.

Madison Short began teaching vocal music in secondary schools around Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1960s. [6] As mentioned in the post for 4 July 2018, he was adamant his students become proficient in sight reading. What his choristers didn’t remember, but what was obvious from a concert recording of "Kumbaya" in 1973, was he also drilled them on tone.

The girls’ beginning choral group [7] sang pure tones with no obvious vibrato. During the first two verses, they sang parallel thirds. On the last two the sopranos sang a parallel line that was much higher. The piano introduction was limited to playing the last lines in chords. Thereafter, it was subdued, primarily playing chords at the beginnings of measures.

The harmonic style was influenced by Saint Olaf Choir in Northfield, Minnesota. Its founder, Melius Christiansen, had trained in Leipzig where church choirs still used young boys for the alto and soprano parts. [8] To imitate the sound of undeveloped voices, he discouraged the use of tremolo, especially among his sopranos. [9]

When Short was studying in New York, Melius’ son Olaf was the Saint Olaf conductor. The a capella choir continued to sound the way it had under Melius, but the effect was achieved through "pure unison," rather than the elimination of tremolo. Like his father, Olaf still believed "the extent and pitch deviation of the vibrato must be controlled so as not to create a sound that was ‘too earthy and sensuous for religious music." [10]

Performers
Magic of Music
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: two parts
Instrumental Accompaniment: autoharp
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Columbia High School
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: Columbia High School Intermediate Girls’ Chorus
Vocal Director: Madison Short
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
Magic of Music
African Song

From Chansons de Notre Chalet, copyright 1957, 1959, 1962 by Cooperative Recreation Service, Inc.

Notes on Lyrics
Magic of Music
Language: English
Pronunciation: no comment
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

Columbia High School
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom BAA yah
Verses: kumbaya, crying, praying, singing

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
Magic of Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 3/4
Tempo: slowly
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Autoharp Chords: C F G G⁷
Dynamics: pianissimo
Basic Structure: strophic repetition

Singing Style: one syllable to one note except for final "Lord;" strict parallel thirds

Columbia High School
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderate

Basic Structure: theme and variation, with changes in parallel harmony in third and fourth repetitions

Singing Style: one syllable to one note; voices merged into clear chords

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: piano played chords at the beginnings of measures

Notes on Performance
Columbia High School
Occasion: Spring Concert, 24 May 1973
Location: Columbia High School, Decatur, Georgia

Clothing: the photograph of the group uploaded to YouTube showed the girls wearing short-skirted dresses. Most wore their hair straight like Mary Travis of Peter, Paul and Mary. The one Black girl had a full Afro.

Audience Perceptions
Joseph Valles started a Facebook page for former choir members at Columbia to exchange memories. [11] He discovered another Facbook group had been formed by alumni of Hapeville High School. One woman who majored in music said:

"As a music major at UGA, I learned absolutely nothing new in music theory for the first two years. Mr. Short had already taught us these concepts through his site singing method, but more importantly he inspired us, taught us to believe in our abilities and that music was so much more than math and sound." [12]

Another woman said:

"Today, at 63 years old. I am still influensed by what he taught. I have continued to be involved in music at church throughout my adult life and credit Mr. Short for my firm foundation in music. At the present time I am in our church’s Chancel Choir, a ladies ensemble and the Praise Band." [13]

Notes on Performers
Watters was the music director for public schools in Des Moines, where he also conducted the town band. [14] During World War II, "he developed a plan for teaching wounded and bed-ridden war veterans in hospitals to accompany their own singing with the Autoharp." [15] As mentioned in the post for 24 June 2018, he helped Lilla Belle Pitts edit her school music series.

Short’s father was a Baptist minister who assumed his son would follow him. [16] Instead, he studied piano at Juilliard. [17] After teaching at Columbia for sixteen years, [18] Short moved to a small town near Athens where he was teaching when he died at age 61. [19]

Availability
Magic of Music
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." 123 in The Magic of Music, Book 4. Edited by Lorrain E. Watters and five others. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1967. 123. 1971 edition was the same. There also was an accompanying record album.

Intermediate Girls’ Chorus, Columbia High School, Decatur, Georgia

YouTube: uploaded by jevalles on 26 February 2013.

End Notes
1. For more on the series edited by Boardman and Landis, see the post for 24 June 2018.
2. Watters. 115.

3. The autoharp was a zither with buttons associated with chords that controlled which steel strings sounded when they were strummed. It began to be mass produced in this country in the 1890s, and was sold by mail order catalogs. Sara Carter made the most influential early country music recordings with the Carter Family in the 1930s. (A. Doyle Moore. "The Autoharp: Its Origins and Development from a Popular to a Folk Instrument." New York Folklore Quarterly 19:261-174:1963.)

4. Lorrain E. Watters. A Teacher’s Guide for the Golden Autoharp. Des Moines: National Autoharp Sales Company, 1955. 4.

5. I don’t know where the transition occurs in middle schools that combine some grades from the older elementary schools and some from junior highs. The lowers grade can vary from fourth to sixth and the upper level is usually eighth grade.

6. Joseph Valles. Introduction to "Madison ‘Reb’ Short Was My Choral Director." Facebook group. 23 February 2013.

7. Joseph Valles. YouTube notes. "This was the beginning class to introduce girls around age 13-14 to the women’s glee club repertoire. It is probably the first time they had sung in parts and stood up on a stage in formal attire to perform together."

8. Alan Zabriskie. "Evolution of Choral Sound of the St. Olaf Choir and the Westminster Choir." PhD. The Florida State University, spring 2010. 7.

9. Zabriskie. 10. Melius was influenced by "the German mode of choral singing." [page 7] This was the same style that led John Wesley to promote "one clear melodious sound" among Methodists. [original quotation in post for 1 July 2018]

10. Zabriskie. 28. He was quoting Olaf C. Christiansen. "Solo and Ensemble Singing." Bulletin of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. 21(3):17:1965. Unlike his father, Olaf did not require his choir members be able to sight read. He wanted individuals who would blend with their sections, and they "mainly learned the notes in sectional rehearsals." (Zabriskie. 19.)

11. Valles, Facebook, Columbia.

12. Jan Brown Abernathy. "Hapeville High School Varsity &/or Large Chorus." Facebook group. Comment posted 30 January 2011. UGA was the University of Georgia.

13. Julie Judy Buchanan Jackson. Facebook, Hapeville. Comment posted 25 January 2011.

14. Item. The Des Moines Register, 3 July 1950. 16.
15. Watters, Autoharp. 2.

16. Patty Jean Cooley. Facebook, Columbia. Comment posted 12 April 2016. She was Short’s daughter.

17. Valles, YouTube.
18. Valles, Facebook, Columbia. Comment posted 20 February 2013.
19. James McRaney. Letter published by Valles, Facebook, Columbia, on 21 January 2011.