- study guide: about the instruments
song history and lyrics to learn
cognitive skills level l and ll questions
- how to make a one string pork-n-bean guitar
- administrators: booking a performance and quotes
- letter of recommendation
In addition to touring schools, Jeff has traveled throughout the country for over 20 years performing for youth during the summer as part of the, "Summer Reading Program." Jeff wants to, "Make a Splash" at your library this summer!
Picture: Legendary Mountain Fiddler, Byard Ray, shown here giving Jeff a lesson
Appalachian Mountain Music Study Guide
Before radio and phonographs, the only way to enjoy musical entertainment was play yourself or find musicians to play live. Throughout America, local bands play the music people wanted to hear for dances, house parties, formal concerts, and religious purposess. The music they played reflected local and personal tastes, various ethnic backgrounds, and currently popular song and dance.
The mountains of the Appalachian South received technological innovation much slower than most of the country. The tradition of string bands playing for parties (read dances) and on back porches survived much longer there. The southern highlands, therefore, contain even today a vast repository of ballads and breakdowns that represent a culture once common to all of us.
The music played there, however, comes not from an isolated, untainted environment. Appalachian music mixes influences from older pop music, swing, Afro-American, jazz, blues, and string band music, even Celtic and Eastern European music. As tunes faded from popularity elsewhere, Appalachian pickers were just learning them.
When major record labels first sold recordings of string band musicians from the Southeast during the 1920's, they marketed the records as old time tunes, music only one generation removed from the mainstream. These string bands employed the fiddle and banjo, which had reached the mountains during the nineteenth century, and relative newcomers such as the guitar, mandolin, and autoharp. The sound these folks created on those so-called mountain instruments is the basis of country music, but mountain music contains an amazing variety of sounds and styles as pickers have tried to satisfy their listeners' request.
By the 1950's it seemed that Appalachian music lived on only among a few old pickers and in bluegrass music, a high-speed commercial variant of the string band sound invented during the mid-1940's. During the 1960's, however, a whole new generation discovered mountain music and its variety of expressive, and often danceable, music.
These younger musicians work to ensure Appalachian music's survival by playing, recording, and teaching the instruments, songs, and styles. Many of the revivalists are urban people. Jeff, however, learned his mountain music the old fashioned way, at home in the mountains of Virginia. He thus combines the revivalism and scholar of the new generation with the oral tradition and good time approach of the music's natural practitioners.
The fiddle is our friend the violin played mountain, bluegrass, country, or Celtic style. The essential differences are that the fiddle plays dance music, and traditionally, the fiddler held the instrument to his chest instead of tucking it securely under his chin. That permitted the fiddler to sing or call square dances, but prevented his hand from leaving the first position.
The fiddle is the most basic of mountain instruments. It is light, small, and thus easily carried about by travelers. It provides a wonderful dance beat, is fairly loud, and readily retuned to allow the fiddler a large variety of music. Until the banjo made its way into the hills, the fiddle was the instrument.
In order to produce mountain dance music, the fiddler uses short, choppy bow strokes emphasizing rhythm. As the banjo and guitar came to Appalachia, string bands developed. The fiddler served prominently in early country music, but lost popularity with the evolution of the Nashville sound. It remains an essential element of old time music and an important, but not mandatory, bluegrass instrument.
The fiddle has four strings, is played with a bow, although it can be picked by hand for rhythm, and is made of light wood. Many a mountain musician built his own fiddle.
The banjo is the most American of musical instruments. It developed from African roots, and achieved popularity with white performers during the nineteenth century. Whites brought the banjo to its modern forms and adapted the instrument and playing styles to fit music with Celtic and European roots.
The banjo thrived on southern plantations and thus became a hallmark of the blackface minstrel bands of the mid-1800's. After the Cival War a banjo craze flourished in the major cities leading to banjo orchestras. The tenor (four string) banjo was a feature of Dixieland and other early jazz.
Minstrels on boat shows that followed rivers into the southeastern hinterlands exposed mountain musicians to the five string banjo during the mid-1800's also. These people began playing their music on "the five." The banjo filled a prominent role in early string band music, but had fallen by the wayside until Earl Scruggs, new generations have again opened up the instrument's potential exploring jazz and avant garde music.
An examination of Jeff's banjos shows that it is essentially a drum with strings stretched across the head. Although bluegrass banjos are quite elaborate technologically, the mountain instrument has stayed closer to the roots. They are often fretless, and some still employ animal skin heads. Jeff will explain that a banjo can be built of such simple materials as a cookie tin, wood, and wire. The distinctive, frailing style of mountain banjo picking preserves its role as a dance instrument and gives old time music its bouncy, danceable feel.
You know the lap or Appalachian dulcimer. It's that gracefully hour glass shaped wooden instrument that hangs on the wall, and you've never seen anyone play. The dulcimer developed in America from Middle European antecedents. Many claim that it, like the banjo, is a truly American instrument.
The basic idea of the lap dulcimer is a fingerboard on top of, rather that extending from, the soundboard and the body. Thus, the dulcimer has no neck. Marvelously un-standardized, the dulcimer always has been and continues to be, a folk instrument. It has anywhere from three to six strings, and can be strung in a myriad of ways. The player, more often than not untrained, can flat pick, strum, pluck, or finger-pick the dulcimer.
It can produce delicate melodies, be chorded to accompany folksingers, or in the hands of modern innovators, be used to provide driving rhythms or to play mountain fiddle tunes at high speed.
Easy to learn, lacking in musical dogma, and relatively inexpensive, the lap dulcimer is an excellent first mountain instrument.
Background song information, type of instrument played for the song and lyrics to learn:
The Crawdad Song
Well into the twentieth century, black and white string band musicians swapped songs and playing styles. "The Crawdad Song" originated with Afro-American pickers, but soon became one of the best known mountain songs. Jeff plays guitar on this tune.
You get a line, I'll get a pole, honey.
You get a line, I'll get a pole, babe.
You get a line, I'll get a pole,
We'll go down to the crawdad hole,
Honey, babe of mine.
Along came a man with a sack on his back,
honey.
Along came a man with a sack on his back,
babe.
Along came a man with a sack on his back,
Got all the crawdads he can pack,
Honey, babe of mine.
What you gonna do when the well runs dry, honey?
What you gonna do when the well runs dry, babe.
What you gonna do when the well runs dry,
Sit on the corner and have a good cry,
Honey, babe of mine.
Mole in the Ground
Jeff learned this tune from the repertoire of Bascom Lamar Lunsford (1882 - 1973.) An Asheville lawyer, among many professions, Lunsford spent most of his life collecting and performing mountain music. He founded the Asheville Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, the grandaddy of all folk festivals.
"Mole in the Ground" is an example of what is called a zipper song. That means it's easy for the singer to make up new words to fit the tune. This can be a great followup activity to Jeff's visit. Let each pupil in turn make up his own verse. Jeff accompanies himself on banjo for this song.
I wish I was a mole in the ground.
Yes, I wish I was a mole in the ground.
If I's a mole in the ground, I'd root that mountain down,
Oh, I wish I was a mole in the ground.
I wish I was a lizard in the spring.
Yes, I wish I was a lizard in the spring.
If I's a lizard in the spring, I could hear my darlin' sing,
I wish I was a lizard in the spring.
Other lines can include, "I wish I was a....pig in the mud; cat that was fat;
a dog on a log, etc.
1. Describe the performance we saw today.
2. Name at least 2 instruments the musician played.
3. Name at least 2 of the songs we sang today.
Cognitive Level 2 Questions:
1. Compare and contrast the guitar and the dulcimer in both appearance and
sound.
2. What was your favorite instrument in the performance? Explain why it was your
favorite instrument.
3. What was your favorite song from the performance? Explain why it was your favorite song.
How to Make a One String Pork-N-Bean Guitar:
1. Recycle an old tin can (the top should already be cut out for you.)
2. Lay the can upside down and make a hole in the center of the can with a small nail.
3. Lay the can on a piece of wood (14"to 24" long) slightly more toward one end of wood (with cut out top facing longer end of wood. Wrap tape around them to hold together.
4. Place a screw eye toward end of long side of wood and screw into wood part way. (This will later be used to tighten your string.)
5. Put guitar string through the hole in your can and nail it onto the wood (opposite end of screw eye.)
6. Wrap guitar string around screw eye through the screw eye first and then looping two to three more times over and under guitar string. Tighten your guitar string using screw eye (a tool such as a screw driver can be helpful to turn the screw eye to tighten.
And there you have it! A "One String Pork-n-Bean Guitar."
Administrators and Directors:
Let your students catch a rising star and experience America's rich folk music heritage in the process. Jeff Robbins, a southwestern Virginia native, presents an upbeat, informative program of southern Appalachian music, stories, and dance.
Blending education and entertainment, Robbins will familiarize your students with the instruments their grandparents played...the fiddle, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, jaw harp, and guitar. They will grow quiet during his traditional mountain tales, share the joyful energy and participation of sing-a-longs and an unusual, "sit down square dance." Your teachers will also be provided with a study guide for preparation prior to Jeff's program. The performance is 40 minutes in which your students will not soon forget. He makes their heritage so much fun, the students will only later realize how much information they absorbed! His spellbinding method of teaching our mountain musical heritage has taken Jeff to perform in over 7000 schools across our nation. He has been profiled on cable's television's, "The Nashville Network" and has 11 recordings.
The following is a partial list of public, private, and alternative schools he has performed for followed by comments he has received back:
Bethany School, Lake Junaluska, NC
Hillsborough Arts Council, Tampa, FL
Montessori House, Tampa FL
Portland Montessori, Portland, TN
Hanna McClure Elementary, Winchester, KY
Central Elementary, Winchester, KY
Tadmore Elementary, Gainesville, GA
Woods Child Development, Dacula, GA
Brilliant Elementary, Brilliant, AL
Iola Roberts Elementary, Pale City, AL
First Baptist Kindergarden, Pale City, AL
Sistersville Elementary, Sistersville, W. VA
Southmoreland Elementary, Scottdale, PA
Ravenscroft Elementary, Raleigh, NC
Westminster Presbyterian Pre-School, Asheville, NC
Calhoun Academy, St. Matthews, SC
Edisto Primary, Cordova, SC
St. Anthony's Catholic School, Florence, SC
Montessori School, Florence, SC
Thomas Hart Academy, Hartsville, SC
Robert E. Lee Academy, Bishopsville, SC
South Jackson Elementary, Athens, GA
John Milledge Academy, Milledgeville, GA
Brentwood School, Sandersville, GA
Athens Academy, Athens, GA
First United Methodist School, Kissimmie, FL
Montessori School of Celebration, Celebration, FL
Kids-R-Kids, Orlando, FL
Quotes:
"This program was magnificent! All our children and teachers were in awe!"
"My students love this program. We would love to have it again next year!"
"Jeff, we're looking forward to another year of great programming starting up again in Tampa and Hillsborough County this fall, and we're thankful you will again be a part of it. Than you again for your excellent musicianship, performance skills, and rapport with audiences of all ages!"
Lynn Norton
Director of Education
Arts Council of Hillsborough County
Tampa, FL
May 29, 2009
"Jeff Robbins is versatile, a master of music, and a lot of fun for students and staff. We enjoyed his visit very much, especially the dancing."
Barbara Scott
Sun Grove Montessori School.
June 9, 2009
Seaborn Day School
4101 W. Estrella St.
Tampa, Fla, 33629
(813) 282-4744
November 17, 2009
Ref: Jeff Robbins the "Mountain Music Man"
To whom It May Concern,
It
is my privilege to write this letter of recommendation for Mr.Jeff Robbins.
I am the director of a preschool in Tampa Florida. It has been an
honor of our school to have as a special guest for the past three years Mr.
Robbins and his mountain music.
Our students range in age from 18months
to 12 years of age and he totally captivates every age group with ease.
Mr. Robbins not only shares his music with the children but his love for
musical instruments. He shares many different instruments to include a
banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, not to mention several hand made instruments.
He
shares with the children how to make an instrument of their own with such
excitement many of our students go home on the day of the show and start
inventing so they can share their creations the next day with their class.
From students to teachers alike the show is well received and loved by all. His CD Goober Peas is a much loved and well used part of our music library. I would recommend Mr. Robbins' show with the confidence of a hand slapping, toe tapping good time for all in attendance.
It would be my pleasure to speak directly to anyone having any questions or needing further recommendations. I can be reached daily at (813) 282-4744.
Sincerely,
Cathy Worthy
Director
We are presently booking for the 2009-2010 and the 2010-2011 school year(s). Jeff has built a strong and solid following and we hope that your school will take advantage of his presentation of mountain music and its' traditions.
Additionally, we are booking for the upcoming 2010 "Make a Splash at Your Library" summer reading program. Please call or e-mail with any questions and to schedule a performance!
You can reach Jeff at 828-669-5693 or e-mail him at jeffrobbinsmusic@live.com for further information.
