Day: April 27, 2024

Free download of Malvina Reynolds songbooks

Nancy Schimmel is the daughter of Malvina Reynolds. On her website, she is offering free downloads of her mother’s songbooks The Malvina Reynolds Songbook, There’s Music in the Air, and Tweedles and Foodles for Young Noodles.

With these songbooks, you can get lead sheets for Malvina Reynolds’s most famous songs — for free. I’m especially pleased to see this, since I lost my copy of There’s Music in the Air during our move from California to Massachusetts.

The Malvina Reynolds Songbook has “God Bless the Grass” (p. 29), “It Isn’t Nice” (p. 40), “Little Boxes” (p. 44), “Magic Penny” (p.50), “Turn Around” (p. 81), and “What Have They Done to the Rain” (p. 90).

There’s Music in the Air has all of these except “It Isn’t Nice,” but it also includes “You Can’t Make a Turtle Come Out” (p. 94). This songbook also has the lesser-known but hilarious song “Let Us Come In” a.k.a. “The Party-Crashers’ Carol” (p. 48). (Somewhere I have a 3-part madrigal-type arrangement of this latter song, which I’d be happy to share to anyone who wants it.)

Tweedles and Foodles has songs I’ve never heard before. It’s also unusual in that it has both guitar chords and simple piano accompaniment. Looks like there’s some fun songs in there — “Rabbit Dance” looks like fun, and maybe I’ll learn it.

Thank you, Nancy Schimmel, for your generosity in giving away your mother’s music for free!

Ecojustice and music education

I’ve started reading an article about combining ecojustice education with music education. It’s kind of theoretical, but there’s good content buried beneath the academic prose style. I’m fascinated with the topic, because our ecojustice camp curriculum includes singing and natural soundscapes as crucial curriculum components.

Below is the abstract of the article (followed by a full citation and a link to the full article):

“Children who are supported throughout childhood and adolescence to both
maintain their sense of wonder in nature, and honor and explore their
wild human nature, are well positioned to mature into soulcentric adults
capable of living into their purpose in service to both their culture
and the whole of life. However, our society’s ecocidal culture and
unjust institutions often replicate oppressions and promote egocentric
behaviors that preclude thriving. Additionally, many children are
alienated from nature and are thought to have nature-deficit disorder,
which can include both mental and physical maladies. In this article I
explore conceptions of ecojustice education to further illustrate
pathways for curriculum development in music education that might
encourage children and adolescents to maintain their sense of wonder in
nature, fully develop their sensory capacities, support their mental and
emotional wellbeing, attune more carefully to their wild nature and
soul’s purpose, and contribute to the environmental and social
commons — all which might support human flourishing and the continued
survival of our species.”

Citation: “Music Education for Surviving and Thriving: Cultivating Children’s Wonder, Senses, Emotional Wellbeing, and Wild Nature as a Means to Discover and Fulfill Their Life’s Purpose,” by Tawnya D. Smith, Music Education, School of Music, College of Fine Arts, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States. Frontiers in Education, 16 April 2021, Sec. Educational Psychology, vol. 6, 2021 — https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.648799 — Link to the article.