You know how a lot of Violin beginner music is rather uninspiring, or it doesn't fit into your teaching curriculum - wrong keys, too hard, too easy, totally ungraded, doesn't flow readily from one teaching point to the next.....
A few years back, I read an impassioned plea from a violin teacher:
"What can I give my beginners to play?"
Well, I was using Folk songs with my 6 and 7 year old beginner violin classes (the same Folk songs that their Headmaster had taught them to sing at School Assembly) and they just loved them, especially the rollicking ballads!
So I kept right on using Folksongs for all my beginners, from Kindergarten through High School teenagers to adults, and they all still love Folksongs, and so do their families!
And here is something that is important to me, and I'm sure it will be to you too:
I am never BORED with Folksongs. Even the simplest Folksong is a miniature masterpiece.
*Folk music is the basis of all music.
*School children sing Folk music.
*School recorder bands play Folk music.
So, following the old educational theory of proceeding from the known to the unknown, it makes good sense to begin violin education with Folk music.
* Folk Song and Folk Dance are the foundation of all music.
* Folk music is pure music - quality music in good taste.
* The study of Classical Music begins with Folk Music.....
"Folk Music is the Basis of All Music. Every form of vocal and instrumental music we possess has developed out of folk song or dance..." (Oxford Companion to Music)
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Folk music was the most popular music of its time. It has survived because it was popular with many generations of singers, instrumentalists, and their audiences. It has been preserved in aural history, and collected by many collectors who did not want it to be lost. Beethoven, Haydn, Weber, and others were even employed to arrange Scottish and Irish folksongs to preserve them.
Folk Music is the purest music that we have, because it has been edited as it has been passed down through the generations, and all the "rough edges" - sour notes, etc., have been worn away by the passage of time.
The list of famous Folk music collectors includes:
*Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
and
*Robert Burns (1759-96), who wrote new words to old Irish and Scottish melodies (respectively),
with
* George Thompson, who collected old Scottish and Irish songs and Welsh harp tunes, and engaged the foremost composers of the time, including Haydn, Beethoven and Weber, to write accompaniments for them.
*From the "Folk Music Movement":
*Revd. Sabine Baring-Gould (English)
* Revd. John Broadwood; Miss Lucy Broadwood (English)
*Frank Kidson (chiefly English); Mary Neal (English)
* Mrs Milligan Fox (Irish)
* Mrs Kennedy-Fraser (Hebridean)
*Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
and especially
*Cecil Sharp (1859-1924) (Southern Appalachians, USA, (with Olive Dame Campbell))
and in Europe:
*Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
*Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967)
and many others
They can be a very useful additional resource or a remedial tool at various stages of study, and can help to lay down, or consolidate, a good foundation for violin playing.
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