Tereza Kubalová - Kumbaya

Topic: Pedagogy - Instrumental Rhythm
The gap between the way children learn and the way educators think they should be taught is not as wide as the chasm between what textbooks suggest and what teachers do. For instance, Tim Roesch said: "As a child I remember learning to play a recorder and how I was treated when I asked if I could write my own music for the instrument." He also noted he had talked to a first-grade teacher who "was reprimanded for trying to teach the children to write and read music." [1] His major point was Carl Orff’s [2] ideas had been transformed into a form of regimentation rather than exploration.

My experiences with a rhythm band in first grade were similar. I’ll admit my recollections from 1951 are limited to being assigned instruments, preparing a piece for a school assembly, and never again seeing the instruments after the performance. I have no memory of being allowed to experiment in the ways suggested by Satis Coleman. [3] I have no idea how good or bad I was compared to other children, but my impression at the time was those children whose parents had influence were given the desirable melodic instruments like blocks and triangles, and the rest of us were relegated to a chorus of rhythm sticks.

Children’s experiences are as varied as the personalities of their teachers and the cultural environments in which they operate. Gillian Irwin discovered Orff’s recorders had been introduced into Javanese schools so long ago no one was sure who was responsible: the Dutch before World War II, the Japanese during the war, or sometime in the 1980s. [4]

She wondered why the European instrument was used when some Indonesian bamboo flutes were equally adaptable. The people she talked with hadn’t objected, perhaps because they learned "Western tunes, Indonesian one-hit wonders, traditional tunes from Java and elsewhere in Indonesia, and patriotic and national tunes." [5]

The Orff instrumental method spread farther than Asia and North America. A woman from a Spanish-speaking area posted a video on YouTube of two teenaged girls playing "Kumbaya" with a tom-tom like drum head and a ganzá-like long tubular shaker. They were seated on the floor and singing the kumbaya verse to amuse a toddler. The little girl followed their movements while holding her doll, picked up a recorder and began blowing it and turning, became distracted when it came apart, put it together, and resumed moving.

Tereza Kubalová posted a video of a more complex version of the rain, fire variant of "Kumbaya" that also was inspired by Orff training. A group of teenagers, perhaps in a Czech high school for the graphic arts, were in a bare, white-walled classroom with a collection of rhythm instruments and plastic pipes of different lengths on the floor.

At an unseen signal, one person began singing "kumbaya my Lord." Others joined in parallel harmony on the third line, and diverged into chords on the last line. They then began clapping rhythmically as they walked into a semi-circle. They continued the claps as they sang a verse in a foreign language.

At the end of the verse, individuals walked into the center, picked up an instrument, and returned to their places. One girl began beating a five-gallon/liter plastic container with a skull-and-bones on the side. Others join her. Most shook rattles, one beat a pipe on the floor, while another blew through a longer one. The tempo increased until they stopped and replaced the instruments.

They began singing "kumbaya, kumbaya" to a melody in a minor key. With repetitions, they diverged into several parts. They next took a step to the right on the first kumbaya of the phrase, and stepped back to the left on the second kumbaya. One person occasionally sang what sounded like "someone’s singing Lord" while the group continued the "kumbaya kumbaya phrase" and the step right-left routine.

Next they sang "rain, storm, fire, wind, kumbaya." They continue the "kumbaya kumbaya" motif but replaced the hand claps and singing with humming and finger snaps. They stopped, did more asynchronous finger snaps, and reached again for their instruments. This time one person played a melody on the recorder while the others played rhythms.

After they replaced the instruments on the floor, they began what sounded like an eastern church chant. They ended laughing.

Performers
ximechacla
Vocal Soloist: one adolescent girl
Vocal Group: second adolescent girl
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum, shaker

Tereza Kubalová
Vocal Soloist: different girls took the lead
Vocal Group: nine girls and three boys, all high-school aged
Vocal Director: not visible
Instrumental Accompaniment: plastic pipes, recorder
Rhythm Accompaniment: shakers, rattles, hand claps, finger snaps

Credits
None given

Notes on Lyrics
ximechacla
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom bye YAH
Verses: kumbaya

Vocabulary
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: open-ended; moved from repetitions of kumbaya verse to chanted repetitions of syllables of the word kumbaya.

Tereza Kubalová
Language: English and foreign language, perhaps Czech
Verses: kumbaya

Vocabulary
Pronoun: possibly someone
Term for Deity: Lord

Basic Form: repetitions of single phrase and single verse
Unique Features: rain, storm, fire, wind, kumbaya chorus

Notes on Music
ximechacla
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: rhythm driven repetitions
Singing Style: shouted or chanted

Tereza Kubalová
Opening Phrase: rain, storm, fire, wind, kumbaya
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: medley
Singing Style: chordal harmony

Notes on Performance
ximechacla
Occasion: nothing stated

Location: floor, possibly in a kitchen or playroom; a brightly-colored painting sat on the floor to the girls’ right.

Microphones: none

Clothing: older girls wore slacks and tops; the toddler was in a dress with leggings.

Tereza Kubalová
Occasion: probably done for the video camera
Location: classroom
Microphones: none
Clothing: school clothes

Notes on Performers
ximechacla identified the girls in the video with the toddler as "the niñas virtuosas de lince" or the virtuous girls of a middle-class district in Lima, Perú.

Tereza Kubalová uploaded two other videos to YouTube from the Zábreh village of Ostrava on the border between Moravia and Silesia in the Czech Republic. One was from the Ostrova secondary art school, the Strední Umelecká Škola v Ostrave.

Availability
ximechacla
YouTube: "kumbaya----" uploaded by ximechacla on 20 August 2010.

Tereza Kubalová
YouTube: "Kumbaya" uploaded by Tereza Kubalová on 10 April 2014.

End Notes
1. Tim Roesch. Comment posted 14 March 2018 to "Why Did We Learn to Play the Recorder in School?" WQXR [New York] Blog.

2. For more on Carl Orff, see the post for 30 August 2018.
3. For more on Satis N. Coleman, see the post for 30 August 2018.

4. Gillian Irwin. "Victims of Globalization? Reactions to Learning the Recorder in Indonesian Music Classes." Ethnomusicology Review website. 28 March 2018.

5. Irwin.