Topic: Pedagogy - Vocal Rhythm
Music education was a small world into which student teachers were initiated. While Lowell Mason changed the repertoire of singing schools, he made no great changes in the pedagogical techniques. That came with the establishment of Teacher’s College as the graduate school of education within Columbia University.
The school had begun as an independent progressive project to train teachers for the poor of New York City. When it affiliated with Columbia it 1898, its focus shifted to providing "reliable knowledge about the conditions under which children learn most effectively." It developed its strong bent toward assimilating immigrant children into democratic life when John Dewey joined the faculty in 1904. [1]
The Lincoln School was established in 1917 with money from John D. Rockefeller as a laboratory for Teacher’s College researchers to test their ideas. Many of the students came from families like his. [2]
Satis Coleman began teaching music at Lincoln in 1920, and published her research with children five- to nine-years-old in 1922. She began with the hypothesis that children’s development recapitulated the evolution of humans from savagery to civilization. While that theory largely has been abandoned, it gave her the freedom to introduce children to music from other cultures, both ancient and modern.
She reasoned before children could play a melody by ear on the piano, they had to have a concept of melody. To achieve that they had to be able to sing rhythmically. That led her to begin with movements like marching and dancing as ways to instill regular rhythms. [3]
From that basis she taught singing by imitation. [4] Once her students could carry a tune, she let them experiment with drums and rattles. She counseled parents:
"With only a few suggestions from a parent many children will be able to make a variety of drums of things already at hand. Anything that is cylindrical and hollow can be made into a barrel drum if the edges are smooth enough to be covered by a skin or cloth or stiff paper, for instance a hat box, a round oatmeal box, a coffee can, a pail with the bottom removed, a section of gourd, section of hollow log, butter tub, mailing tube, all kinds of kegs, etc." [5]
When her students switched to melodic instruments Coleman had them play one, then two, then three notes. At that point, they could manage melodies. Her primary example was "Hot Cross Buns." [6] When their range expanded to six notes, they could handle "London Bridge" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." [7] These three songs became standards in instrumental education. [8]
Soon after Coleman published Creative Music for Children, Peter Dykema joined Teacher’s College [9] and added Twice 55 Games with Music to the series of community songbooks he had been editing for Clarence Birchard. [10]
While he was chairman of Teacher’s College’s music department, Lilla Belle Pitts took classes and began experimenting with children of Italian immigrants in a New Jersey junior high school. Dykema later hired her as a lecturer. [11] One person she taught was Charles Leonard, [12] who, in turn, mentored Eunice Boardman. [13] Lorrain Watters was one of the co-editors of Pitts’ Our Singing World series [14]
The web of personal relationships between public school music theorists at Teacher’s College should not obscure the fact others were independently making similar discoveries. Carl Orff began working with young children in Münich, Germany, in 1925. [15] Like Coleman, he began with percussive instruments then progressed to melodic ones. [16] After some experimentation, he settled on the soprano recorder as the ideal instrument for children. [17]
His influence spread in the late 1950s. Doreen Hall introduced his ideas in Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music in 1956. [18] In 1961, his former student, Gunild Keetman, began training teachers in Orff’s methods in Austria. [19] The University of Toronto hosted an international conference on Orff, with his participation in 1962. [20] Then in 1968, the American Orff-Schulwerk Association was organized in the United States. [21]
These efforts coincided with innovations in the manufacture of recorders. During World War II, Schott [22] began substituting plastic for wood. Carl Dolmetsch produced an improved one made from Bakelite in 1948 that was heavy and fragile. [23] A Japanese company introduced lighter, nearly indestructible ones made from AB plastics in 1966. [24] Others sold cheaper versions in bulk packages to school boards. [25]
By 1971, the theories of Orff, Coleman, and others at Teacher’s College had merged into a single view of childhood music represented by the version of "Kumbaya" included in a third-grade music book edited by William Sur.
He used the CRS version, but substituted "knocking" for singing." One headnote indicated it was suitable for recorder. I doubt this meant children should sing along with the recorder. Even though its music used middle C, it was pitched an octave higher. [26] I would think it would be difficult for eight-year-olds to sing parallel eighths.
Instead of the recorder, Sur included chords for stringed accompaniment. However, while guitars and ukeleles were then widely played, he explicitly suggested the teacher use an autoharp and strum the chords "three times to a measure." Watter’s role in introducing the autoharp to public schools was mentioned in the post for 12 August 2018.
More interestingly, Sur incorporated Coleman’s oatmeal box drum. He identified the song to students as an "African folk song" and informed teachers "the African people have used many kinds of drums." He further suggested they
"have the children play the drum part on a small drum. Have them experiment with different percussion sounds as, for example, that produced by hitting oatmeal boxes."
The drum part included in the students’ book followed the melody with a dotted-eighth-note followed by a sixteenth for "yah, my." They were to use even eighth notes for the remainder of each measure, which contained one quarter note and two eight notes. Presumably, they were to beat slowly to match the suggested tempo, rather than rapidly as children might do naturally.
The slow tempo was used as an opportunity for helping "the children develop breath control by asking them to take only one breath for each staff" or line of the song.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: school class
Instrumental Accompaniment: autoharp (optional)
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum (optional)
Credits
Student edition
African folk song
Hymns of Universal Praise, Cooperative Recreation Service, Inc.
Teacher’s edition
Some say that it came from southern United States, got to Africa and was rediscovered there. Regardless of its origins, it is a typical African song, expressing in a very simple manner a great faith. Kum ba yah (Koom bah yah) is the African pronunciation of Come by Here.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: Koom bah yah
Verses: kumbaya, knocking, crying, praying
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: knocking
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 with dignity
Rhythm: duplicated melody
Key Signature: no sharps or flats
Autoharp Chords: C F G7
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Singing Style: unison with one syllable to one note except for final Lord. Sur suggested it be sung "in a slow, dignified manner" with the final verse "sung very softly, almost a whisper."
Notes on Performers
Sur was reticent about his past. In 1943, he told Michigan State he was from New York state and had earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Columbia. [27] He did not indicate the type of degree. Since he was born in 1903, [28] he would have been a student there in the 1920s. If his masters were in music education, he would have had contact with Dykema and possibly Coleman.
After Columbia, Sur earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, where he also taught. He served as chairmen of Michigan State College’s music education program until he retired in 1968. He and his wife moved to Sanibel Island, Florida, where they became hibiscus growers. In 1973, he edited What Every Hibiscus Grower Should Know. [29]
Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Yah (Come by Here)." 139 and 139a in This Is Music for Today. 3. Edited by William R. Sur, William R. Fisher, Adeline McCall, and Mary R. Tolbert. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1971 teacher’s edition.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Teachers College, Columbia University."
2. John M. Heffron. "Lincoln School." State University website.
3. Satis N. Coleman. Creative Music for Children. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, April 1922. 85-88.
4. Coleman. 100-103.
5. Coleman. 192. Emphasis added.
6. Coleman. 110.
7. Coleman. 196.
8. "Hot Cross Buns" was used by 15 of the 28 books I examined beginning in 1960. "London Bridge" was in 14 starting in 1923. "Twinkle, Twinkle" or Mozart’s arrangement appeared in 17 beginning in 1923
9. Dykema became chairman of Teacher’s College’s music department in 1924. ("Peter W. Dykema Dies; Past T. C. Music Prof." Columbia Daily Spectator, 15 May 1951.)
10. Peter W. Dykema. Twice 55 Games with Music. The Red Book. Boston: C. C. Birchard and Company, 1924.
11. Brian Shifflet. "A History of Ten Influential Women in Music Education 1885-1997." MMus. Bowling Green State University, 2007. 33. Pitts taught at the Grover Cleveland Junior High in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
12. George N. Heller. Charles Leonhard. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1995. 39-40. He was discussed in the posts for 8 July 2018 and 19 August 2018.
13. For more on Boardman, see the post for 24 June 2018.
14. Lilla Belle Pitts, Maybelle Glenn, and Lorrain E. Watters. Our Singing World. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1949. Watters was discussed in the post for 12 August 2018.
15. Wikipedia. "Carl Orff." This was the same Orff who composed the Carmina Burana.
16. Wikipedia. "Orff Schulwerk."
17. Maddy Shaw Roberts. "Why do we learn to play the recorder at school?" Classic FM website. 13 April 2018. Before the recorder, the tonette was used in this country, [30] and was included in both editions of Leonhard’s fourth-grade music book that included "Kumbaya." [31] See #12 for more information.
18. Doreen Hall, Keith Bissell, and Emily-Jane Orford. "Orff Approach." The Canadian Encyclopedia. 7 February 2006; last updated 16 December 2013.
19. "Why Did We Learn to Play the Recorder in School?" WQXR [New York] Blog.
20. Hall.
21. Wikipedia. "American Orff-Schulwerk Association."
22. "In Memoriam: Carl Dolmetsch (1911-1997)." Chrestologia, October 1997. Antique Sound Workshop website. I have not been able to find any information on Schott and Company as an instrument manufacturer.
23. Chrestologia.
24. "AULOS Brand." Its website. The recorders were made by Toyama Manufacturing Company.
25. The most aggressive instrument maker today is Lyons. When I looked on Google, I saw it offered packages of 100 recorders for $269.95 or 25 for $69.95.
26. Wikipedia. "Recorder (Musical Instrument)."
27. "Dr. Sur on Faculty." Michigan State College Record, December 1943. 5.
28. William R. Sur in the 1940 United States Census for Madison, Wisconsin.
29. Item. [Fort Myers, Florida] News-Press. 20 October 1973. 17. What Every Hibiscus Grower Should Know was published in 1974 by the American Hibiscus Society of Eagle Lake, Florida.
30. Wikipedia. "Tonette."
31. Leonard, 1966, 60-61, and Leonard, 1970, 54-55. The first tune was "Hot Cross Buns." See #12 for more information.
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