Music of the Southern Appalachian Mountains

Suggested Classroom Activities

Please note that folklore is basically songs, stories, and customs passed orally within family or community. They are usually of anonymous origin. Every ethnic group has its folklore, not just Anglo- or Afro-American Appalachian mountain people.

1. Listen to recordings of traditional songs or storytellers.

2. Sing traditional songs.

3. Ask each student to give a brief report of some aspect of folklore in their homelife, e.g., a song or story from their parents or family, a jump rope game, a rhyme, or riddle they learned from a friend or from family (other than a verbatim TV jingle). Have they learned it previously to this report? Do their parents sing traditional songs or play instruments that they learned "by ear"?

4. Invite a traditional community storyteller, singer, or musician to class and talk with them. Teachers, kitchen attendants, and janitors quite often are good sources. Remember, the object is to be conscious of and appreciate all types of culture that surround one.

5. Choose a particular song to discuss--its tune, style, or feeling, its style of lyric composition (why certain terms and phrases are used). Why does its accompaniment or lack of accompaniment make it successful? And, of course, discuss its topic. Are songs like that being written today? If not, why not? Should they be?

6. Write a song--either each person, or as a group or an entire class. It is all right to use an existing song as a basis, which is often done in tradition. Possibly build some variations on traditional songs.

7. Ask a traditional dance caller to come to class and teach