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Scoring with Voices from the Dust BowlBy Laurel R. SingletonPublished on 01/10/2009 When filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen used American roots music in their hit film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, they sparked a revival of interest in this musical genre. Their film, a comic retelling of The Odyssey set in the 1930s southeastern United States, inspired this idea for an integrated language arts/music activity in which students retell Cinderella and select music from Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection to serve as their story’s “soundtrack.” Begin the activity by playing one or two audio clips from Voices from the Dust Bowl or from the Grammy-winning CD O Brother, Where Art Thou? Ask students if they are familiar with this kind of music and if they know any of the terms used to describe it. (Bluegrass, American roots music, folk music, Southern vernacular are names variously ascribed to this genre of music.) Explain that American roots or folk music is the music created by ordinary Americans who sing or play instruments in the course of their everyday lives. The term was once used primarily to describe music of white, rural Southerners, but has now been expanded to include the musical traditions of other ethnic groups as well. Replay the clips or play one or two other songs and ask students to describe the music. What instruments are used? (Most commonly guitar, fiddle, banjo, and harmonica; students may particularly note the absence of drums.) What are the songs about? (Love, religion, hard times, community life, etc.) Are the melodies hard or easy to sing? (Generally, folk music is easy to sing, with lots of repetition and predictable patterns.) You may want to point out that folk music is part of an oral tradition, learned by hearing it from others rather than through written music. It reflects the culture of the groups who create and sing it. The singing has been described as “earthy” and is less precise than in other musical forms (the singer often slides up to the note, for example). Introduce students to Voices from the Dust Bowl, explaining that Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin recorded the material in this collection at federal labor camps. During the Depression, many people from the Dust Bowl states, particularly Oklahoma and Arkansas, headed for California hoping to find work. Unfortunately, many were unable to do so and could therefore not afford to pay the rent for homes for their families. They camped out wherever they could find a place. This resulted in unsanitary conditions and other problems. The federal government created the camps to solve these problems and provide a safe place for the migrants to stay. People in the camps often gathered to sing and play music; many of these songs were captured in the recordings provided in Voices from the Dust Bowl. Ask students if they are familiar with the movie and soundtrack O Brother Where Art Thou? The filmmakers did two interesting things in creating this film: (1) they retold a classic story (The Odyssey) in a 20th-century setting and (2) they used American roots music for the soundtrack. Explain that students are going to undertake a similar task. They are going to retell the story of Cinderella set in a migrant labor camp in 1940 and they are going to select songs from Voices from the Dust Bowl to provide the background music for three key scenes from their story. For each song selected, they should write a one-sentence explanation of why the song is appropriate for the particular scene. Students should work in pairs or triads to complete this assignment. If time allows, you may want to let students search for possible songs; if time is limited, however, you may give them a list of titles they should locate and choose from. A possible list includes:
Excellent resources for additional teaching about American roots music are available from PBS. Other American Memory collections that could be explored by students to learn more about folk music are Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection, California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties, and Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip. [send article to a friend] [print full article] [return to front page] |
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