 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2015-09-07 17:13
I was thinking about songs that were once commonly included in beginning method books, but are seldom seen or heard nowadays.
The Blue Bells of Scotland seemed to be in every book written before 1970, but I haven't seen it in a long time. Other songs in this category include Long, Long Ago, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, the Cornell University Alma Mater, and Aloha Oe.
Any other suggestions for this list?
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Author: knotty
Date: 2015-09-08 01:08
I guess political correctness runamok had it's share in some of the disappearances. Like My Old Kentucky Home.
~ Musical Progress: None ~
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Author: Chris_C ★2017
Date: 2015-09-08 01:45
Our band has occasionally wondered whether it would be possible to put on a a concert composed entirely of politically incorrect pieces - The Black and White Minstrel's Rag; Golliwog's Cakewalk; the Ketelby "In A Persian Market" (which is great music but not very acceptable chanting) and so on. Dangerous, of course - irony isn't always appreciated - so we haven't.....
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2015-09-08 01:49
My Old Kentucky Home is an anti-slavery ballad. I don't think pc has much to do with its exclusion.
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2015-09-08 05:25
Piano books have the same issue. One of my childhood favorites to play is I am sure banished now. Especially the way it was illustrated in my old book. I would be ashamed now for my grandkids to look at it, and to have to explain to them the way things were. Some changes are good. Though certainly not all.
(I don't even want to name the title- it brings back too many unkind lyrics. Nice tune, though. I do like the idea of new lyrics for old songs. Trouble is, too many people "hear" the old ones when they hear the tune.)
I think I've read that "Shine" is on some folks' bad list. Too bad- such a great song, check out Pete on YouTube. I looked up the history- even though it might sound self deprecating, it actually was written and is usually seen as prideful and in your face at those who would make fun of the writer. So some do see it as positive. Though many would rather just avoid anything that even raises such an issue.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2015-09-08 05:29)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2015-09-08 06:19
Sorry, Mark, but "My Old Kentucky Home" is very far from an anti-slavery ballad.
It begins with nostalgia for the old days of slavery, "'Tis summer, the darkies are gay."
"By 'n by hard times come a-knocking at the door" = the loss of the Civil War and the outrages (to true Confederates) of Reconstruction.
"The day goes by like a shadow o'er the heart,
With sorrow where all was delight.
The time has come when the darkies have to part,
Then my old Kentucky home, good night." -- Oh, the woe of losing our slaves.
Ken Shaw
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-09-08 06:25
Maybe not, but you can't do a song in a public school that includes a line like "...the darkies are gay..." intent or context notwithstanding.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-09-08 06:45
Y'all can see why there is controversy over the use of "My Old Kentucky Home" at the Kentucky Derby. Yes, it is a tradition and I doubt if folks in Louisville will ever let go of it, but every year there are those who point out the "outdated" nature of some of it's key lyrics.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: James Langdell
Date: 2015-09-08 19:48
I think one reason those tunes disappear from newer tutors and method books is that they no longer serve the original function. Instrumental tutors would include melodies like that because they were already familiar as songs to most people. That gave a point of reference to someone learning an unfamiliar instrument to know when the notes were right. These days, when most children have never heard these melodies before, they don't assist learning an instrument in the same way.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-09-09 04:58
There are several sides to this problem. One is that the tunes, as James observes, aren't any longer current and don't serve as a rote model for learning to read notation for modern kids.Another is that to put current popular material that kids might recognize into today's lesson books would cost a fortune in rights payments (if the permissions could be gotten at all). What's left are Twinkle, Twinkle, Hot Cross Buns, Lightly Row and a few other basic 5 or 6 note tunes. Beyond that it has turned out easier, it seems, for the method book editors to write their own tunes through the first and much of the second level and then begin to use classical tunes that are too old for copyright protection but famous enough to be "tunes everyone should know."
I'm not sure how Foster's tunes got into the methods of the early 20th century. Maybe the rights fees were cheap back then, or maybe copyright law wasn't so scrupulously enforced back then. I assume his songs were protected well into the 20th century. Maybe they didn't start to appear until mid-century. In any case, since for good reason or not school music programs don't have kids sing Foster's lyrics in classes anymore, those songs have probably died with my generation (I'm an early Baby Boomer) and, as James says, no longer serve the purpose they once were meant to serve. Too bad - they were very attractive melodies and may yet make a comeback in method books (where no lyrics are involved) but later in the sequence where familiarity isn't so important because the students have achieved a stronger reading ability. Some, after all, have reached the level of "tunes everyone should know."
Karl
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Author: donald
Date: 2015-09-09 08:57
What I have always found interesting is how certain tunes are well known within different generations (often only separated by a year or two) based on what TV programs they have seen.... and by socio-economic grouping (ok, I mean "class")
- Teaching at private schools in Auckland most kids have heard "My bonnie" and "Skip to my Lou" but once I am outside certain suburbs in the central city almost none know those songs.
- Songs like Schuberts Unfinished Symphony and the Womble song are known to certain generations due to being on after-school TV, but then the show will go off screen and 2 years later none of my students know that tune. Oddly enough certain things will come back at strange times (the 1980s Wombles were known to 10 year old kids in 2006). EVERYONE knows Get Smart theme tune (I don't have a clarinet version, but one part of the tune is similar to a part of The Pink Panther, and I'll often ask my students "what does this remind you of" and be surprised how many pick that up) and The Adams Family.
- No one knows or likes "Old Folks at Home"
- Protestants seem to know "Shaker Tune/Lord of the Dance" but not Catholics.
Skip to the, I mean my, loo is a mystery to young children and they often don't get the "Lou/loo" jokes because they really think it's a Loo and if they knew anyone called Lou wouldn't be skipping to them.... likewise exactly why Bonnie is lying on the the ocean is a bit of a mystery and requires valuable lesson time to explain....
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-09-09 12:01
Silversorcerer wrote:
> Educational purposes in schools would wipe out most copyright
> claims. If you are teaching music with the song books, it is a
> State educational purpose. Just try to get a claim against a
> State entity. Sovereign immunity? You are going to the court
> that enforces copyright law to register a claim against the
> State that appointed the court and wrote the law.
I wasn't talking so much about what a teacher can get away with in a school setting. I used to use tons of (then) current movie and TV tunes with my kids at school, but they weren't in the lesson books. I had to bring them in myself, either, early on, in hand transcriptions or later done in Finale. Whether or not that constituted fair use under the copyright law seems at least equivocal - l wouldn't have wanted to be a test case. My point was only that the method books can't include those tunes without paying for rights - too expensive and, to Donald's point, also in many cases too dependent on time and place for their familiarity.
> In general, whatever they
> want to put in a textbook will be there, copyright
> notwithstanding.
That may be a practical view from a lay perspective, but I doubt if Alfred"s or Belwin Mills's lawyers would want to suggest that to their editors.
Karl
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Author: donald
Date: 2015-09-09 13:02
As far as I can tell, the Simpsons will NEVER disappear- and one day they will knock on my door to arrest me for all the copies of the Simpsons theme tune that I've printed out for students... Of course someone probably said that once about the Blue Bells of Scotland...
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2015-09-11 07:41
I think still see Long, Long Ago and Aloha Oe in the band books. As others have pointed out, there are only so many tunes one can use without running into copyright issues. Many of the old folk tunes are not familiar to the young, just as using West Side Story to access Shakespeare isn't very workable anymore. That doesn't mean you can't use them, it just means they take a little background like a short symphony theme in the same book does. There is also more inclusion of international themes in band books. I think that works since they aren't familiar either but give the kids the opportunity to hear and play different sounds from different cultures.
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2015-09-11 07:45
I bet nobody uses "Happy Birthday to You".
Wait- am I in trouble for mentioning the title? What if I said the tune is GGAGCB GGAGDC ggGECBA FFECDC? (Hope that's right, I did it by playing my imaginary piano.)
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2015-09-11 07:50)
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2015-09-11 07:53
"Good Morning to You"? Actually I have heard that Warner Bros days of cashing in on that song may be numbered.
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