Charles Leonhard - Kum Ba Yah (1970)

Topic: Pedagogy - Vocal Rhythm
Meter existed as a word before rhythm did, and both terms first were applied to language. The Oxford English Dictionary reported meter first appeared around 900, [1] and the first published use of rhythm occurred in 1560. [2] The two appeared in a 1657 commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, the one as a characteristic of hymns and psalms, [3] the other as the way they were sung. [4]

Willi Apel and Grosvenor Cooper suggested rhythm meantime was progressing from the Xxx of polyphony in the 1300s to the Xx of counterpoint in the 1500s. With Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier of 1722 "the effect of the measure-to-measure rhythm became much simpler, because of the strong accents in regular recurrence that pervade and regulate the entire fabric." [5]

The conceptual separation of meter from rhythm occurred in England when scholars began studying rediscovered Greek works. In 1737, Edward Manwaring declared "Metre is therefore Rhythm, but not all Rhythm Metre." [6] A generation later, in 1786, John Gillies observed "accent regulated the melody" and "quantity regulated the rhythm of ancient music." [7]

Metric pattern came to be seen in mathematical terms as even binary subdivisions. Lowell Mason even described the time signature as a fraction in which "the upper figure, or NUMERATOR, showing the number of parts, or kind of measure; and the lower figure, or DENOMINATOR, showing the particular note used on each part of the measure, or the variety of the measure." [8] He then defined the different forms like half notes as derivatives of quarter notes. [9]

This became simplified into a hierarchical tree that appeared in some band books [10] and some teacher’s editions of singing books. [11] At the top was a whole note. Below it were two half notes connected by lines to the parent. Below them were four quarter notes similarly associated to half notes.

At the same time singing schools were emphasizing regular rhythmic patterns, minstrel shows featured singers and musicians who began measures with single eighth notes in syncopated patterns. Stephen Foster’s "Camptown Races," written in 2/4, began with a series of regular eight notes for "De Camptown ladies sing dis song." "Doo-dah!" used the syncopated eighth followed by a dotted-quarter. The left hand of the piano accompaniment played whole or quarter notes on the first beats; the right hand played chords that matched the voice in the verse and even quarter and eighth-note patterns on the refrain. [12]

Ragtime piano, which emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, used a short-long melodic motif played by the right hand against a strong march tempo by the left. [A] Big bands in the 1930s and 40s spread syncopated African-American rhythms via radio and recordings. By 1950, Louis Kifer Myers said "children learn songs with the most intricate rhythmic patterns after hearing them over and over again on the radio," [14] but noted their teachers and songbooks only presented evenly divided metric patterns. The emergence of Elvis Presley in the middle 1950s widened the chasm between what children heard and what they were taught. [15]

Public school music books editors perpetuated the schism between classroom and playground. In their 1971 revision, Eunice Boardman and Beth Landis began their section on music fundamentals with melody and ways to explore music through singing. Rhythm was relegated to dance and playing percussion instruments. There was no concept the voice could have rhythmic qualities. [16]

Charles Leonhard’s team abandoned even that acknowledgment that rhythm existed in popular music in its 1970 revision of Discovering Music Together. They replaced their earlier organization based on American and international folk songs with the pure music theory approach used by Lorrain Watter’s team in 1967. [17] Four units were devoted to melody, rhythm, harmony, and "singing in harmony." The last primarily used echo songs, rather than two simultaneous parts.

They began their fourth-grade text with a summary of music concepts presumably introduced in an earlier volume. Next, nine-year-olds were taught to verbalize a song before they sang it. That meant converting the notes to "do re mi," identifying the note that represented "do," and using coordinating hand symbols as they sang syllables. In addition, they were expected to say the rhythm with the syllables "tah-ah" for a half note, "tah" for a quarter note, and "tee" for an eight note. Finally, they had to clap the rhythm before they were allowed to sing.

The use of "do re mi" went back to Medieval Europe, [18] and was widely used by people like Mason in singing schools. The counting system was borrowed from Alan McHose who trained generations of musicians at the Eastman School of Music concerned with teaching students to read music. [19] Colin Walley attributed the current interest in rhythm syllables to Carl Orff, [20] who "reminded us of the importance of encouraging children to feel rhythms through words," [21] rather than movement or dance.

Leonhard’s group moved "Kumbaya" from the unit on international songs to the opening section on reading music. The version looked the same as it had in the 1966 book because it cost money to change graphics. [22] It showed the first three notes as "do mi sol" that had been used to show the opening phrase was a broken chord. It also still had the symbols for chords that previously had been used for autoharps.

The comments about chords were replaced with observations on the "uneven rhythm" patterns in the song. The measure that began "yah, my Lord" used a dotted eighth, an eighth, and a quarter note. It wasn’t syncopated since it didn’t begin with the short note, but it was irregular. Leonard’s group informed them the first two notes should be counted as "tee dee."

The penultimate measure in fact had hidden syncopation: "Lord" began with an eight note and changed to a dotted quarter. It ended with two eight notes. Students were told that translated to "tee tah-ee tee tee."

To make room for the longer comments and illustrations of motifs, the line with the words for the second and third verses in the 1966 edition was dropped. The song became a simple one-verse iteration of "kumbaya."

The publisher made one other change. The painting of African men poling a long boat, which had appeared with "Kumbaya" in the earlier edition, was moved to the "African Canoe Chant" [23] that had been on the opposing page. The empty space on the "Kumbaya" page was replaced with a photograph of a wooden statue of an African American with his head facing upward and his hands close to his chest.

The book’s designer introduced other photographs drawn from African-American sources into this revision. One was a portrait of N. Nathaniel Dett, who wrote the "Juba Dance" that appeared on page 69. Another was a sculpted head on page 137 of a Black man entitled Self Portrait by Douglas R. Williams.

The graphics designer probably thought the statue represented a man in prayer, but, without the praying verse, the photograph of Minority Man I had no meaning. In fact, the African-American artist, Ed Wilson, intended it as a satire of "a begging attitude minority people were expected to assume" by the dominant society. [24]

Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: class
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
Same as 1966 edition

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: not specified
Verses: kumbaya; 1966 had three verses

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

Basic Form: one-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
Same as 1966 edition

Availability
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." 31 in Discovering Music Together, Book 4. Edited by Charles Leonhard, Beatrice Perham Krone, Irving Wolfe, and Margaret Fullerton. Chicago: Follett Educational Corporation, 1970 revised edition.

End Notes
1. "Ymenbec misenlice metre." Anonymous old English translation of Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Translated as "book of hymns in varied metre" by Thomas Miller. London: N. Trübner and Company, 1890. 485. Cited by The Oxford English Dictionary. "Metre." Edited by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 edition. 9:697. Emphasis added.

2. "For nothinge is more pleasaunte than hys syle, nothynge purer than his speache, nothynge apter or more pleasaunt than hys Rythme." Ihon Daus on Clément Marot. London: Ihon Daye, 1560. 201. Translation of Johannes Sleidanus’ commentaries. Cited by OED, "Rhythm." 13:874. Emphasis added.

3. "They used all decent and grave variety of rhymes and Meeters in their Hymns and Psalms." Anthony Sparrow. A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer. London: T Garthwait, 1661. 361. Cited by OED, Metre. 9:697. Emphasis added.

4. "One began and sang in rhythm, the rest..hearing with silence." Sparrow. 314. Cited by OED, Rhythm. 13:874. Emphasis added.

5. Willi Apel. "Rhythm." Revised by Grosvenor Cooper. 729-731 in Harvard Dictionary of Music. Edited by Willi Apel. Cambridge: Belnap Press, 1969 edition. Quotation, 731,

6. Edward Manwaring. Stichology. London: Manwaring, 1737. viii 27. Cited by OED, Rhythm. 13:874.

7. John Gillies. History of Ancient Greece, its Colonies and Conquests. London: A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1786. I.v 179. Cited by OED, Rhythm. 13:874.

8. Lowell Mason and George James Webb. The Psaltery. Boston: Wilkins, Carter, and Company, 1848 edition. 7. This was the language that drew the ire of Jesse Bowman Aikin mentioned in the post for 1 July 2018.

9. Mason. 8.

10. Harold W. Rusch. Hal Leonard Elementary Band Method. B^b Cornet or Trumpet. Winona, Minnesota: Hal Leonard Music, Inc., 1961. 11.

The Yamaha Advantage, discussed in the post for 11 July 2018 included the chart of page 7 of both the trumpet and percussion books. Accent on Achievement, discussed in the post for 26 August 2018, printed it on page 5 of the percussion book but did not use it in the trumpet book.

11. Eunice Boardman and Beth Landis’ Exploring Music 4 showed the table on page iv of the 1966 teacher’s edition, and page xv of the 1971 teacher’s edition. They were discussed in the post for 24 June 2018.

12. S. C. Foster. "Camptown Races." Baltimore: T. D. Benteen, 1850.
13. Wikipedia. "Ragtime."

14. Louise Kifer Myers. Teaching Children Music in the Elementary School. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1956 edition. 36

15. The gulf between the academy and popular music remained. Debbie Hays remembered: "In 8th grade, when all of us teenage girls (especially me) were falling head over heels in love with the Beatles, we got a class lecture from him about the Beatles, how they were NOT musicians, couldn’t read or write music, blah, blah, blah, but to this day I still love the Beatles and Opera." ("Madison ‘Reb’ Short Was My Choral Director." Facebook group. Comment posted 27 January 2012). The teacher was discussed in the post for 12 August 2018.

16. For more on the text edited by Boardman and Landis, see the post for 24 June 2018.
17. For more on Lorrain Watter’s text, see the post for 12 August 2018.
18. Apel, Harvard. "Solfège," 785-786, and "Solmization," 786-787.

19. J. R. McEntyre and Harry Haines. Rhythm Master. Book 1. E^b Alto/Baritone Saxophone. San Antonio: Southern Music Company, 1992. 33.

20. Orff’s role in music education was discussed in the post for 30 August 2018.

21. Colin Walley, Beth Douglas, and Glen Harrison. Fanfare Act 1. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, and Company, 1969. 331. ii. Walley identified his method as "French Rhythm Syllables." Paul C. Varley, Junior, traced this and McHose back to "Pierre Galin, Aimé Paris, Paris’ sister, Nanine and her husband Emile Chevé." ("An Analysis of Rhythm Systems in the United States: Their Development and Frequency of Use by Teachers, Students, and Authors; and Relation to Perceived Learning Preferences." EdD diss. University of Missouri-st. Louis, August 2005. 47)

22. Leonhard’s 1966 edition was discussed in the post for 8 July 2018.
23. The song was "Wo-Ye-Le" on page 50.

24.  "Ed Wilson." 454-461 in Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson. A History of African-American Artists. NY: Pantheon Books, 1993. 455.

Charles Leonhard - Kum Ba Yah (1966)

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.