February is Black History Month. This is an excellent oppurtunity to teach your students some history of American Music. Our own American music style goes back to the days of slavery when Africans carried over their own folk music and merged it with the European classical and folk music that was brought here by the white folks. This is an awesome opportunity to teach a little history in your lessons.
I grew up in the southern part of the US, and Black History Month was always a very important time in our schools. Because of this, I grew up singing and playing many important songs from the pre-civil war era as well as the jazz age. I’ve compiled a list of songs you might want to consider teaching your kids this month, in honor of this special time:
Spirituals
“Follow the Drinking Gourd” (also presents an opportunity to teach about music’s role in social change)
“Go Down, Moses”
“We Shall Overcome”
“Eyes on the Prize”
“Mary, Don’t You Weep”
Jazz
“Strange Fruit”
“Bye Bye Blackbird”
“Lullaby of Birdland”
Modern
“What’s Going On?”
“Redemption Song”
“Lift Every Voice and Sing”
I learned a few years ago that most Negro Spirituals can be played using just the black keys on a piano. The black keys are also the notes of the pentatonic scale. Sometimes I have my piano students figure out the notes for a Spiritual using just the black keys.
Cool tip! I’m going to give it a try.