The last few weeks have been full of fun, community, and music as our Youth Stringband Program continues into spring!
Our group of advanced students have learned several new tunes recently. Two weeks ago Mac Tranyham taught the group the song “Roscoe,” and this week Jared Boyd continued teaching in the key of G sharing the song “Mary Wants a Lover”. Jared was introduced to this song at the Floyd Old Time Get Together, and everyone had fun learning it together (even the teachers!). The group continues to practice the songs they’ve learned in previous weeks — and they are picking up the pace with several of them! We look forward to the next few weeks and seeing what they’ll add to their growing songbook.
Our students at the EcoVillage have been having a blast, too. The Appalachian Arts & Outdoors classes started wall hanging projects, learning how to weave using cardboard looms. Weaving has a long history in Appalachia, and the students discussed how weaving was vital for basket and rug making, and the creation of cloth for clothes. Dancing remains a big focus in our classes: Gina’s Appalachian Enrichment class is learning how to waltz, and Ipi’s class learned the Virginia Reel! Jam classes remain popular, and students continue to grow more confident playing in these mixed instrument groups in addition to learning songs in their instrument and skill specific classes. Songs like “Groundhog,” “Sourwood Mountain,” and “Angeline the Baker” are growing favorites, in addition to classics like “Old Joe Clark” and “Cindy”.
In addition to our planned curriculum, students across both campuses are working on a student-led Songbook project. This project started in the Advanced class, but has spread to interested students in the beginner and intermediate groups as well. For this project, students seek to learn more about a particular song, interviewing their teachers and doing additional research to learn more about the history of the song and their teacher’s own history with the song. The students then write up that history, write down lyrics as they learned them (if they exist), and illustrate the song (or the history of it as shared by their teacher). We plan to start showcasing highlights from this incredible work in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out! It’s awesome work, and we love seeing our students dive into the history and culture of the song they are learning to play in this community.
