Harmonizing Folk and Classical Traditions in Education

 
Introduction

While we aim to cultivate wisdom and virtue through the pursuit of the good, true, and beautiful, it is often the pursuit of beauty that, in a world driven by practicality and efficiency, remains on the back burner. In the progressive world, beauty is often dismissed as unnecessary as it offers no employable outcomes. But as classical educators, we know that beauty is not just an aesthetic preference; it is a fundamental part of what it means to be human. In exploring beauty through music, we often turn to Western art music, overlooking the centuries old traditions of folk music. Folk music offers us a powerful means of fostering music literacy, offers us a way of aligning the developmental needs of young learners, and promotes the transmission of culture to the next generation. Below, I will explore the important role folk music has in classical education, how it can be used to promote music literacy in the elementary music classroom, and how it can connect students to their cultural heritage while preparing them to engage with the world in a more meaningful way.
 
Why Music and Beauty Matter

One of the primary goals of a classical education is to cultivate wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul with truth, goodness, and beauty.¹ The pursuit of the true and good can often seem easier to justify than beauty, though perhaps more and more difficult in today's world. After all, what practical purpose does making something beautiful really have? This is a common belief in progressive education today. Why bother studying the humanities, art, or music if they don’t offer prospective employment down the road? This is also the thought process behind brutalism. This architectural movement of the mid-20^th century aimed to create functional, modular spaces which were largely void of art or embellishment.² These buildings are often used as offices, schools, and government buildings. This strictly functional form gives off an institutional feeling that leaves a person feeling empty and without purpose and breeds a kind of passive nihilism.³ It offers us an absence of worth, a weakened will, and a loss of purpose. Perhaps the musical equivalence to brutalism in the music world would be a piece like John Cage's 4’33”⁴. In this piece, the performer sits quietly for 4 minutes and 33 seconds while the ambient sounds of the audience are meant to be the “music”. This piece, and others like it, removes beauty from the art and allows the vacuum left behind to be filled with chance noise. It is this lack of beauty, and the vacancy it creates in us all, that is the reason why we need beauty surrounding us.

But music is a unique form of beauty, one that connects us to others: both those with whom we share our music now as well as those who have sung our songs in the past and will sing them in the future. The Medieval philosopher, Boethius, best known for his book, The Consolation of Philosophy, was an avid proponent of studying music. He not only echoed the Platonic teachings which regarded music to be the highest of the arts, but also he taught that music stands before philosophy. Music evokes the ethics which are necessary for discipline of thought, making it an indisputable prerequisite for philosophy.⁵ It is this belief, held by philosophers and musicians since antiquity, that music is capable of improving or degrading the morals of men, that makes what and how we teach music in our classical schools of the utmost importance.
 
The Role of Folk Music in Developing Musical Grammar

When considering the musical realm, the search for beauty often leads us to Western art music. And for good reason. Truly, the ethereal sounds of Josquin des Prez’s Ave Maria, the emotional depth of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, or the drama and grandeur of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen are worthy of deep and immersive study. Nevertheless, while cultivating an appreciation of the great works of Western art music are certainly noble pursuits, they are not well-suited for teaching music literacy in a grammar school. Our first graders do not learn to sing by studying Die Walküre! This is where we can pull from the century’s old traditions of Western folk music.

Why use folk music? Dorothy Sayers advocates for teaching to the intellectual capacities of children at different ages.⁶ In the grammar stage, students should learn by imitating and memorizing. Grammar school is a time to develop a strong foundation in facts. Students learn to read by engaging in age-appropriate literature that both fits their reading level and targets their interest. First grade students might enjoy Frog and Toad, but they do not attempt to read Crime and Punishment. This is not because the work is not worthy of study, but because there would be too much for them to comprehend; they would quickly be overwhelmed and lose interest. Classical schools have spent years carefully choosing literature, organizing it to fit our phonics lessons, selecting vocabulary that is age appropriate, and highlighting the most meaningful passages for students to commit to memory. It is time we were just as careful about crafting how we teach our students music literacy.

While art music is essential for a deep appreciation for the beauty of music, to pass on the transformative effects of music, we must not limit the study of music to strictly music appreciation. It must also include music performance and music literacy. Folk music is aligned more closely with the developmental stages of elementary students for teaching music literacy. The Hungarian composer and music educator Zolton Kodály developed a system of teaching music literacy in the early 20^th century using the folk music of Hungary. He advocated for the use of simpler music, music from traditional folk songs of their culture, from which they can learn to speak and read the language of music in a sequential manner.⁷ That is, like a language arts teacher might teach a word by segmenting the sounds, counting the sounds, then blending the sounds, Kodály broke down the folk music from Hungary into different rhythmic and melodic elements that should be taught separately and in a particular order, then combined to create the whole song that students can read, write, and perform. Different elements are added to their musical skills each year as they advance, building a musical vocabulary that they can use to decode more and more difficult music every year. Kodály believed that folk music could provide a foundation on which Western art music would later be built upon.⁸ Folk music is the grammar of musical literacy. 

Over the past century, music educators have adapted Kodály’s methods to fit the mother tongue of their own students and incorporate the folk music of their own culture. In the United States, the mission of Kodály has firmly taken root in the elementary music education world. The Kodály Music Institute has chapters in most states which offer workshops, certifications, and graduate degrees to music educators across the country.⁹ There are countless opportunities for music teachers to explore and learn more about the Kodály method, often at no cost, and many wonderful resources with folk song collections that are appropriate for use in elementary schools. Some of these collections, such as the Kodály Collection, have folk songs categorized by different rhythmic and tonal elements, subjects, regions, and types, all of which make identifying the right songs simple for everyone.¹⁰ The Kodály method fits perfectly with the classical approach of presenting material in a sequential manner that corresponds to the student’s developmental ability and is easily accessible to everyone.
 
Folk Music in the Broader Educational Landscape

The use of folk music in our school’s music classes is an important part of breaking down the elements of music to make them more digestible for young students. The process used in the Kodály method for teaching music literacy is not just a helpful way to teach students how to read and write music; it is also a useful tool for learning how to learn. Dorothy Sayers laments that in our current educational systems, our students learn so many subjects, but we fail to teach them how to learn. “They learn everything, except the art of learning.”¹¹ The process of breaking down music into melodic and rhythmic chunks that are more easily understood, using songs that are on their intellectual level, is a transferable skill that can be used in almost any area of study in their future. In addition to the skill that is being called upon for decoding words in phonics, as mentioned above, and the understanding of how to break down challenging skills into smaller and more achievable steps, developing a deeper understanding of and appreciation for folk music can develop the moral character that music tends to inspire in the soul, or the ethos, in a student.¹²  

In addition to the cultivation of a love for truth, goodness, and beauty, a classical education is also about cultural transmission: that is, the transmission of the soul of society from one generation to another.¹³ While art music can serve this purpose to a point, folk music is a more accurate representation of the soul of a society. Art music has historically been created by and for the elites of society (apart from religious music), while folk music is created and promulgated by everyday people. We must understand that, while folk music is typically not as grandiose or thoroughly developed as most art music, many folk songs are able to convey truths that can be just as meaningful as Bach’s cantatas. They can tell us a great deal about not only the people who wrote and sang them for centuries, but also about ourselves and our own human nature. What a great way to “feel the joys and pains of an old man” than to sing his songs!¹⁴ Folk music has been used for the transmission and preservation of culture as well as in education for both teaching music in a general music class and teaching history to students through the folk songs that were popular during a given historical period.¹⁵ It is a “…powerful medium that carries the essence of a culture, encapsulating its history, values, and traditions.”¹⁶ That is, folk music is the best way to preserve our oral tradition and sustain the soul of our ancestors. 
 
Conclusion: Folk Music’s Power to Enrich Classical Education

The benefits of using folk music in a classical school abound. You don’t need to be a music teacher to recognize the value folk music brings to the classroom. It is also an effective tool for enhancing a wide array of subjects, including social studies and history curriculum in schools¹⁷ and offering students a tangible connection to the cultures and time periods they are studying.¹⁸ Folk music, often passed down from generation to generation, can offer a window into the lives of a community, reflecting its history, struggles, values, and everyday life. A truly classical education is not merely the transmission of knowledge but the continuation of the soul of our culture. And perhaps this is a task that is best done through their music. By exploring these songs, students can gain a deeper understanding of the people from a different time and place, bridging the gap between the past and the present. But most importantly, folk music has the power to unite us with our past, and sharing that music with others creates a social bond that brings us together in ways that nothing else can.¹⁹ If we are to incorporate folk music into a classical education, we must carefully consider how to use it in a way that is both educational and meaningful. We need to ask important questions: How can we use folk music to teach not only music literacy but also history? How can we use folk music to pass down our shared cultural heritage? These are important questions that open the door to the opportunity to enrich our students’ education. By bringing folk music into both the music classroom, and the general education classroom, we could not only teach music literacy but also give our students a deeper understanding of the value of beauty in the world.
 
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