Use this patriotic folk primer for your music class.
We thought we had to purchase a book for my daughter’s music class this semester, but it was actually a book for the older kids’ group. Still, I am glad we bought it; not only will we possibly use it in a future class, we can also use it while we practice piano music. It will give my daughter a good break from the constant “Mary Had a Little Lamb” she’s been playing.
The book is called Get America Singing…Again! A Project of the Music Educators National Conference. I love that its forward is written by Pete Seeger, a man who appreciates the connection between music and people and justice more than many others do. We tend to see music as this money making machine, something that we use for working out or relaxing to. But the history of music in this country runs so much deeper.
Music was the way that slaves were able to connect with one another and escape to the north; remember “Follow the Drinking Gourd” and “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning?” I get goosebumps just thinking about these songs. They are our history, yet we are taught so few songs like these that actually made a difference in our nation.
