School:What did you learn about Folk?

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 04:43 AM

See also post I have just put on 'Recording Of Golden Vanity' thread.

~M~

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: GUEST,Johmc
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 08:55 AM

I remember using McTell's "Old Brown Dog" in lessons and getting an emotional response from the younger ones. And Dylan's "Hollis Brown" for social commentary. "The twa Corbies" featured in quite a few poetry anthologies and, of course, Burns songs for Burns suppers must have had some effect.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Bettynh
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 11:37 AM

Art's Place

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Mooh
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 11:58 AM

Next to nothing, except there were one or two decent songbooks with a few traditional melodies that aware teachers would use.

My early folk schooling came from home. Mum's Scottish heritage, Dad's English heritage, their church-folk influence, camp songs, boy scout and girl guide songs, all combined with the requisite music theory.

I dare say that if my piano studies had included some folk music I would have stuck with it longer, but Conservatory books in the '60s and '70s were pretty much all "classical" (that is to say classical, baroque, romantic...).

As for other folk culture, nada.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Howard Jones
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 01:40 PM

Not a lot. I had a very old-fashioned music teacher who focussed almost entirely on classical music. However his teaching methods completely failed to spark any interest in me - for example we spent an entire term analysing Beethoven's 5th, going through the score while he played bits on the piano, without ever hearing it. It was only in the final week that he played the record - by which time we were all heartily sick of it. It took another teacher, an enthusiastic amateur, to awaken in me an interest in classical music.

The teacher recognised I was musical, and invariably wrote, "should learn an instrument" in my report, but he refused to recognise the guitar as a musical instrument, so the school didn't provide lessons in the instrument I wanted to play. I had to teach myself, at home.

We did a bit of singing of folk songs, but without any context. Also, one of the English teachers, perhaps in an attempt to be trendy, set us studying a Bob Dylan album, and another got us to write our own versions of Donovan's "Universal Soldier".

There was a school folk club, the main attraction of which was that it was run jointly with the local girls school (mine was all-boys). It was dominated by a girl who sang her own songs, until a friend and I subverted it and converted it to trad. It even gave me my first paid gig, bottom of the bill behind a local duo and Martin Carthy (who didn't turn up due to a booking snafu - I still have the press cutting saying I "stood in" for him, which wasn't exactly the case!)

Besides that, the usual repertoire of scout songs and rugby songs, sung at full volume in the back of the CCF's 3-tonner (the teacher driving it would bang on the roof as we approached a village, to tell us to shut up, and would bang again when we were out of it so we could carry on).

I came away from school knowing very little about music.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Tootler
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 03:00 PM

Rob Naylor,

I don't take the Tom Paxton song too literally, but its general tone summed up in a lot of ways the the kind of education I received in a small rural grammar school. When I first heard it back in 1965, it resonated with me.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 05:40 PM

Bettynh,----------Thanks so much.

At that site, if you put the word "map" in the search feature. 3 items will come up---1) my folk song map, 2) Sam Hinton's folk song map, and 3) a picture I took of Jo MAPes. -- aren't computers wonderful!!?

The maps can also be seen by clicking on "recent comments" ------- I just refreshed both maps by adding a new comment for each one!

Art

The maps are viewed best by printing them out and holding them in your hands!!

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Aug 10 - 06:23 PM

Almost everyone here (in this thread, at least) seems far younger than I am.

I attended grade school in Minnesota from 1935 until 1941 (if I reconstruct it right), and from that time I can recollect only three songs which were identified as "folk". Each one was from another country, with words applied which seem not to have had anything to do with the original. Other than the bare assertion of the origin of the tunes, nothing was taught to us.

A song called "Centa, Sweet Centa", alleged to be built on an Italian folksong. I can still sing it. Nice tune, but not much content in the text. Kind of cute.

A sort of romanticized song called "Island of My Desire", which the book said was based on a song from the Phillippines. The words given, on their face, could not have been the original text, I think. Nice tune, though, when we were learning to sing in parts.

And lastly, "Jenny Wren is Building in the Willow". Full of vacuous, precious words. This was English in origin, so said the book. Only when I was about sixty, when I took up the banjo, did I hear that tune again, as a very common banjo tune, without any words that I've ever heard.

Oh, and now I do remember an American folksong from that time: Old Dan Tucker.

If there were any other claimed folk tunes taught, I don't remember them.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: JHW
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 04:56 PM

Singing Together in primary school a long time ago.
Wonder what happened to all those booklets - are they archived somewhere?

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 06:15 PM

I went to Catholic schools from first grade through college, and we had music every semester. In grade school, we learned hymns and Gregorian chant in choir practice, and I think classroom music was mostly folk songs and songs from musicals, and lots of Stephen C. Foster. "Goober Peas" and "Long, Long Ago" are two that stick in my memory, alsong with "Camptown Races" and "O Susanna" (which I learned in harmonica band).

In high school, we had a year of classical music appreciation and identification, a year of theory, and a year that exposed us to popular music.

College was chant and hymns, and music theory - I was in a Catholic seminary for high school and college.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: GUEST,DJ
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 06:31 PM

The first folk song I learned in school was Why Paddy's not at Work Today ten years ago, as part of our physics class.
After seeking out this song on the web I became an ardent Folkie.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 06:56 PM

Oddly I was lucky beginning in 7th grade. For a year or more previous to that, I had been learning quite a lot of folk songs from Burl Ives' early 45s and LPs, starting on a ukulele, and had just gotten my first guitar.

Maine-based Bill Bonyun sang at our school assembly (he also spent time at my home teaching me guitar chords and igniting my lifelong love for traditional music with his own infectious enthusiasm). Tom Glaser also sang at our assemblies. Seems as if my Quaker grade school in eastern Pennsylvania was alert to folksingers.   (Even Walt Kelly of Pogo fame spoke to us once and I, a budding cartoonist and fan, got to meet him and shake that talented hand ... what a cool school. In that respect at least.)

We even had an avocational folksinger in our school administration. The new principal of our grade school came to us in my 7th grade year from the Pine Mountain Settlement School in southeastern Kentucky, a center for folksong and folklore activities. He played the autoharp and sang authentic traditional songs like "Cherry Tree Carol" and "Devil and the Farmer's Wife."

In high school our assembly programs included Oscar Brand, the Duke of Iron and, as I got better singing with guitar, me. Our shop director kindly recommended me to the local radio station, where I was interviewed and sang. A fellow student loaned me his book of Florida folksongs out of the kindness of his heart, and I was twice awarded Book Awards for which I chose the one-volume Child Ballads and Padraic Colum's Irish Folklore.

Special credit goes to a Britisher, the grandson (if I remember correctly) of Alfred Lord Tennyson, who guested in our English class one day with a fascinating tape of music from boatmen recorded in India, which began my lifelong love of Indian music.

In college I was able to take part in inaugurating and performing at the first Dartmouth College Folk Festival, where Jean Ritchie and Alan Mills headlined. And I was instrumental in bringing Pete Seeger to Dartmouth for a concert. Neither, probably, would have happened if I were not all over the place performing traditional songs, giving concerts and entertaining at a fraternity in a school that was sorta bemused, largely unaware of folksongs, but receptive.

All in all, for schools in the 1950s which began largely ignorant of traditional folksongs, I was lucky to get a really memorable and formative response.

Gee, until I summed it up just now, I don't think I realized how good it all was.

Didn't make school any easier in other respects, of course, but you can't have the moon.

Bob

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Kent Davis
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 10:38 PM

I was in the Orangeburg County, South Carolina, public schools from 1966 to 1972 (1st through 6th grade). We had a travelling music teacher for part of that time and, at least in 4th grade, our homeroom teacher taught us music using "Time for Sounds", an education television program on a UHF channel.

Some folk and folkish songs which I believe I learned in school are:

Senor Don Gato (Was a Cat)
Erie Canal
Hawaiian Rainbows (with hula motions!)
John Brown's Ford (Had a Puncture in It's Tire) (This was not in our
    books or on T.V. The teacher taught us this parody, and hand
    motions to go with it, on her own.)
Do Your Ears Hang Low (The same teacher taught us this one, also
    with motions.)
This Land Is Your Land (This Land Is My Land)
Aiken Brown
Ach, Du Lieber Augustine
Valeri, Valera (I Love to Go A-Wandering)
Frere Jacque
Goober Peas
The Rattlin' Bog
There's A Hole In the Bottom of the Sea
There's A Hole In the Bucket (Dear Liza)

There were other songs that I had heard from other sources, but which (I believe) we also sang or heard in school:
Cindy (Get along Home, Cindy, Cindy)
Oh, Susannah
She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain
Go Tell Aunt Rhody
John Henry
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Ezekiel Saw the Wheel
Where, O Where, Has My Little Dog Gone

Thanks, Mr. Happy, for encouraging me to ponder some happy memories.

Kent

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: GUEST,Johnmc
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 04:06 AM

Nice one, DJ; we did Wooden Heart for Carpentry.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: leeneia2
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 10:04 AM

In my schools, we didn't learn anything 'about' any kind of music. We sat down, we opened our music book (or leaflet) and we sang until class was over.

Maybe it was just as well. Most of the day was filled with adults talking. Music class was a nice break from that.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 12:57 PM

In the Los Angeles educational system of the Fifties, no one really knew much about folk music. I was an odd-ball. I was pleasantly surprised that in my high school,after I graduated, a valuable folklorist emerged from there, Norm Cohen who wrote Long Steel Rail, an informative book on railroad songs.

At my time at Fairfax High School, folk music was anathema to the middle-to-upper class students who fit the stereotype of the provincial high schoolers of the time. (I may have been the first "hippie" there in their eyes because I had long hair, wore jeans and played the guitar). I was also left-of-center which occasionally got me into hot water particularly when I refused to "drop" or "duck and cover" for atomic bomb drills.

Woody Guthrie was known only to a few people when I visited him in Topanga Canyon.
"This Land Is Your Land" was not well-known at the time. No one in my high school
knew any of the names we all know now such as Leadbelly, et. al. Pete Seeger, if anyone knew anything of him, would have been considered a "dirty red". I was reviled by a choral teacher there with the unfortunate name of Homer Hummel for singing a folk song in the local playing area. The kids loved it. Phil Spector has mentioned the unfortunate Hummel in his autobiographical notes.

Although I did go to junior high school with Jerry Lieber (later of Lieber and Stoller) who actually did know about folk music and the blues.

Because of the Net, Mudcat, and so many sources for information, this has been suitably corrected. We now can use a search engine to find our favorite traditional singer.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Mick Woods
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 01:31 PM

I remember well singing Hog Eye Man as a round also John Pearce lend me your grey mare and that song that chants a load of names ending with Uncle Tom Cobbley and all!

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 02:28 PM

Grade school for me was in the 1930s. The word 'folk' was not part of the vocabulary, although we sang cowboy songs and were taught Spanish songs (northern New Mexico).
Old songs by Foster, and other composed songs like "Walloping Window-blind," I remember. Also minstrel songs inc. Old Dan Tucker.
Folk and folklore were not taught as such.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 07:43 AM

While at a friend's birthday party last night, I got to chatting with other guests & got on topic of school & music.

Apart from me, 'er indoors & the hostess & partner, none of the others were musical.

Again staggered/ outraged by numbers of people who said at school, teachers had told them they couldn't sing or weren't musical!

How horrendous!

I guess they were then forever persuaded that this was true, so never sang or attempted an instrument.

Anyone similar experiences?

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Mooh
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 08:36 AM

Mr Happy...What a crock! Yeah I was told I wasn't musical at school at the same time that I was competing in vocal competitions, completing conservatory piano exams, singing soprano in church, going to summer music camps.

I didn't mention it earlier in the thread, but the high school I had to attend (small town) had no music, art, or drama programs. My only high school arts credit is grade 9 typing! I had so looked forward to arts programs as my older siblings had excelled in them, but my family moved just before I entered high school. Didn't learn anything about music at school after grade 8 anyway. Thank God my parents got me private instruction and we had music at home.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 09:31 AM

I think I first heard the phrase "folk song" when I was about five. I had a 78 album that may have had the words in the title. I'd recognize the sleeve if I saw it today: a cartoon farmboy in a hill-shaped white hat strumming his guitar under a tree while his dog watched. At least that's how I remember it.

In grade school (public, i.e. city) in NYC about 1956, at least one of our teachers led us in songs from "The Fireside Book of American Folk Songs." She explained that people used to make up their own songs before there were radios, phonograph records, and TV. They often used folk songs to spread the news. Once or twice a folk revivalist showed up to entertain a school assembly in the auditorium (or "assembly room" as we called it).

That was pretty much it till college. I just liked the songs.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: GUEST,Guest - Lin
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 09:49 PM

I went to high school in Southern, California. We were not taught anything at all about folk music. I was hanging out at some local coffeehouses on the weekends and sometimes on school nights so I came to discover folk music there. Also a little bit was played on the radio, (on rock and roll stations.) We didn't have radio stations that played all folk in the Los Angeles area but sometimes you could hear Donovan, some Peter, Paul & Mary and Dylan played on these L.A. rock n' roll stations.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Kent Davis
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 03:18 PM

Besides the folk songs listed in my post of August 20 (above), we also sang:

Red River Valley
O Shenandoah
I Gave My Love a Cherry
Billy Boy

We studied some Child ballads in Jr. High or High School (Southern West Virginia, '72-'77), but they were presented as poetry rather than as song. We read "Lord Randall" (#12), "Edward" (#13), and "Sir Patrick Spens" (58) as examples of English Renaissance poetry. Meanwhile, folklorists were collecting some of the same songs as part of a living Appalachian tradition.      

Kent

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 03:53 PM

All of my public education (including ex-pat British school) included:
Singing:
Instruments:
Sqaure Dances:
Folk Dance:
Round Dance:

The foundation came through the six book series Music for Living
Copyright 1956 by Silver Burdett Company. and was accompanied with a full record set.

EVERY Classroom sang. Not for performance but pleasure.

In the introduction (very condenced) "Point of View: what music can do for children"
1. Pleasure
2. Emotinal release and satisfaction
3. Creative self-expression
4. Self-fulfilment and success
5. Discipline of achievement
6. Sharing and cooperating with others
7. Enrichment for all the years to come
8. Iluminate and interpret a wide range of experiences

The songs and dance connected to the curriculum of history, and social studies, creative art. Every song had a historical background and the teacher's editions are a treasure trove of information.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

I inwardly weep for what some of you have missed forever..

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: Suffet
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 04:24 PM

When I went to the New York City public schools 1954-1963 we were taught a lot of what were called folk songs. Among the songs I clearly remember are:

• This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie)
• Waltzing Matilda (Banjo Patterson)
• Oh, Susannah (Stephen Foster)
• The Camp Town Races (Stephen Foster)
• Over the River and Through the Woods (Lydia Maria Child)
• Kookaburra (Marion Sinclair)
• The Happy Wanderer (Friedrich Wilhelm Möller)
• My Darling Clementine (traditional)
• She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain (traditional)
• Alouette (traditional)
• Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho (traditional)

OK, maybe most of these are not folk songs in the strictest sense of the terms, but that's what our teachers called them.

There are also the songs that we young ones learned from one another, including:

• Bang, Bang, Lulu
• Walking Down Canal Street
• The Bear Went Over the Mountain
• We're Here Because We're Here
• 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall
• I Hate Bosco
• Hitler Had But One Big Ball
• George Washington Bridge

These definitely are folk songs by anyone's definition.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: GUEST,LDT
Date: 03 Sep 10 - 06:39 PM

Someone mentioned about being dicouraged with music.
Instruments - never could afford the instrument/lessons and living in a flat practice was discouraged, quieter pursuits encouraged.
Singing- as a child only ang in groups and if requested for relatives a rendition of I do dite do de the deedide (I do like to be beside the seaside), could be produced but last year of jnr school got hold of a tape recorder. Recorded myself singing and played it back...oh my it was terrible, I never sang again.

Subject: RE: School:What did you learn about Folk?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 04 Sep 10 - 10:58 AM

Between the ages of 7 and 11 I went to a Junior school in the English East Midlands. Our music teacher I remember as a rather bad-tempered old git (he was probably about 35 at the time). He didn't teach me anything about music whatsoever (if you had no 'natural' apptitude you were just 'written off' - no questions asked). He did teach us some English folk songs, though: 'Oh No John' (expurgated version), 'Boney Was a Warrior' and 'The Raggle Taggle Gipsies'. The latter made a curiously deep impression on me. Years later I discovered that the version that we learned at school was very close to that collected by Cecil Sharp from Mrs Emma Overd of Langport in Somerset.
Many years after that I got to meet, in Langport itself, Mrs Overd's great-grand daughters (lovely ladies - as full of fun and life as their distinguished great-grand mother was reputed to be).

That song will always have a very special meaning for me.