Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 9.03 Music
Presentation #1 Title
A Recipe for Chicken Pie: Peculiar Folk Lyrics in the English Classroom
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
The participatory nature of folk music in Appalachia, especially in late 1800’s through the early 1900’s, has created many versions of lyrics. As people gathered as communities, at conventions or festivals, on porches, and in homes, they have brought a repertoire of tunes, but these are rarely written down. Like any oral tradition, there is a tendency for these tunes and their lyrics to evolve over time and to reflect the current context. One apparatus for this evolution of songs has been the creation of absurd and comic lyrics. Musicians, to entertain their audiences and sometimes to complete with one another, invent verses that extend the narrative of the song in ways that are relevant, sometimes bizarre, and often humorous. Whether well-known tunes, such as Old Joe Clark, Molly Hare, Dooley, or Groundhog, or more obscure tunes, they create an opportunity to for students to explore, analyze, and generate lyrics while at the same time developing an ear for meter, rhyme, structure, and inflection. This paper the presenter’s experiences using these songs in the literature classroom, provides a bibliography of tunes with keyed concepts they illustrate, and a selection of classroom activities.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
J. Michael King is a native of the New River Valley in Virginia, but he now resides in Pikeville, Kentucky where he is an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Pikeville. He earned his Ph. D. at Virginia Tech, focusing on human differences and disability. Both of his Masters degrees come from Radford University in English and Counseling.
A Recipe for Chicken Pie: Peculiar Folk Lyrics in the English Classroom
The participatory nature of folk music in Appalachia, especially in late 1800’s through the early 1900’s, has created many versions of lyrics. As people gathered as communities, at conventions or festivals, on porches, and in homes, they have brought a repertoire of tunes, but these are rarely written down. Like any oral tradition, there is a tendency for these tunes and their lyrics to evolve over time and to reflect the current context. One apparatus for this evolution of songs has been the creation of absurd and comic lyrics. Musicians, to entertain their audiences and sometimes to complete with one another, invent verses that extend the narrative of the song in ways that are relevant, sometimes bizarre, and often humorous. Whether well-known tunes, such as Old Joe Clark, Molly Hare, Dooley, or Groundhog, or more obscure tunes, they create an opportunity to for students to explore, analyze, and generate lyrics while at the same time developing an ear for meter, rhyme, structure, and inflection. This paper the presenter’s experiences using these songs in the literature classroom, provides a bibliography of tunes with keyed concepts they illustrate, and a selection of classroom activities.
