A Folk Music Approach in the Piano Lesson
By Starr Meneely, Composer and Creator of the PianoForte Method
My childhood was spent in a small community in Western Nebraska in the 1980s. Each week we attended a church in our local small town. Everyone travelled to church from across a vast area of countryside, driving in from farms and ranches, sometimes making more than a two hour journey each way. Because of this, church didn’t end after the morning service, it lingered throughout the day with a giant potluck lunch and the afternoon filled with socialising. I remember that more often than not, we didn’t go home until after dark.
These ‘church days’ hold my earliest music memories. Church services included hymn singing accompanied by the piano or organ. We used hymnal books that had music in four vocal parts, not just lyrics. There were always members of the congregation who would sing different parts. My mother always sang the alto voice. After lunch, the afternoon often included a sing along, with someone pulling out a guitar and groups of people chatting and singing together.
My family moved away when I was 12 years old and my music experiences expanded and grew in different ways, but those early ‘country church’ musical experiences formed a strong foundation in who I became as a musician and teacher. Interestingly, although this is my personal story, it goes beyond being anecdotal, there is research behind this reasoning and it can help guide the way we teach music, by giving our students a strong musical start that goes beyond the keyboard.
Traditionally, music has always played an important part in communities and culture. Music is found throughout history in the everyday life of every society. When traditional societies made music together it reflected a collective meaning or emotion, it connected them though a common struggle for survival (Potter & Sorrell 2012).
Collective music was used as a way to express the emotions and traditions of a group of people who lived, worked and died together. When music is valued this way by an entire community it naturally includes everyone in its creation. In societies like this, children grow up immersed in the everyday music-making of their culture. This is how history is learned, through the stories and songs of people passed down through each generation. A.L. Lloyd phrased this beautifully in the essay The Meaning of Folk Music, “Behind each individual folk song is an amorphous mass of ancestors” (Leach and Palmer 1978, p.5). Music is not something outside of people and when children grow up within a musical community it becomes part of language and identity.
This is why folk music is such a powerful medium that is able to transcend generation after generation. It connects us to each other and to our history. The brain absorbs these experiences on a emotional and cognitive level, music becomes an integral part of who we are and not just an extra-curricular activity.
How to Teach in a Folk Music Way?
We rarely know how much musical experience a child has had when they arrive at our studio door. Even if we ask parents, they might not think to tell us that they always sing together in the car or that every year they throw giant Christmas carol sing-along parties. Parents imagine that ‘musical experience’ means classes and ‘proper lessons’, or that parents are professional musicians. However, it’s these other experiences that make the biggest impact on the musical development of a child - when music is part of life and community.
We can recreate this environment in piano lessons in a way that resonates with the human desire to connect and learn together. We simply need to take the approach of making music together.
It really is this simple - Make Music Together.
Every concept, idea, theoretical and technical lesson can come from a place of music making. I’ll share a couple of examples of how this can work. In the early weeks of lessons every new idea can be experienced first, before it is presented in notation or piano playing.
IDEA - TEMPO:
Give the student some type of percussion instrument, something that makes it easy to keep pulse. You should also have an instrument of some kind, play the piano or ukulele, or play a different sounding drum. Together, slowly chant the Spider Chant:
“Spider, spider on the web . . .” etc. (PianoForte Level One, Lesson 4)
On each repeat increase the speed until finally it is so fast that it is difficult to maintain pulse. Immediately repeat the slow version to emphasise the difference. Casually explain that in music we say “tempo” when we are talking about how fast or slow the music is.
Elaborate on this concept by asking them to give tempo indications for the music they have learned so far. The songs My Bike, By the Sea and Slow Cat might all need different tempos. Experiment together by playing each piece at various tempos. Encourage them to decide what tempo they like best. ALWAYS play and sing along with them on the piano or another instrument. The collective music making experience is so important when learning new concepts.
IDEA - STORY TELLING
Together learn the little melody for the Story Song One Little Fox. Use different instruments to explore different ways to sing it together. Xylophones or metallophone are wonderful for this, but other auxiliary percussion instruments work also well.
Read the story together and sing the melody each time the story prompts you to do so. Eventually, the melody can be transferred to the piano and the same level of collective creativity can stay the same.
Not just for Beginners
This type of music making approach does not need to stop when the student becomes more advanced. Making music together can always be included in the learning process. This can be done as simply as playing and singing piano duets together. Rose Red and Poor Bird in Level 3 are perfect examples of this. Each of these pieces can be played and sung in canon, or the two pieces can be played and sung together as a duet (it’s beautiful this way!).
Even piano repertoire can include folk music elements. We can have fun drumming along to Bach Minuets or adding instrumental accompaniment to little pieces by Gurlitt. The idea is that we are always creating an environment of music making and connection.
Someone asked me once if the quality of music that children are exposed to matters. There is a much bigger answer to this question, but the simple answer is that is doesn’t seem to matter. The most valuable thing we can do for children musically is just include them in making music, anywhere, anyway - just as long as it’s together.
References
Leach, R. & Palmer, R. (1978). The Meaning of Folk Music. In Lloyd, A.L. (Ed.), Folk Music in Schools. Cambridge, UK. Cambridge University Pres
Potter, J. & Sorrell, N. (2012). A History of Singing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
