Music learning requires memory ability. Jane Ginsborg’s research led her to the conclusion that singers who consciously work toward memorization are more efficient in that task than those who rely on incidental learning through repetition or long-term exposure. She 302
contends that those singers who use an array of memorization methods are faster and more accurate than those who use fewer “modes of attempt.” Informants for this research who 303
learned the bulk of their folk songs and ballads during childhood do not recall any of their models having employed specific teaching and learning methods. However, it is possible that they availed themselves of multiple memorization methods and simply forgot. Those informants who first engaged in folk song and ballad learning in late childhood and during adulthood report having exercised purposeful memorization strategies. They also report learning as a result of being immersed in the music performance culture (see Appendix A).
In the context of folk music learning, memory ability is of great significance. One common belief among informants for this research is that they possess, or more accurately,
Ginsborg, “Classical Singers Learning and Memorising a New Song.”
302
Ibid., 93.
possessed superior if not extraordinary memory abilities in their youth (see Appendix A). Cecil Sharp makes note of the extraordinary memory abilities of the folk when he states,
To those unacquainted with the mental qualities of the folk, the process of oral
transmission would be accounted a very inaccurate one. The schoolman, for example, accustomed to handle and put his trust in manuscripts and printed documents, would look with he deepest suspicion upon evidence that rested upon the memories of unlettered persons. In this, however, he would be mistaken, as all collectors of folk-products know well enough. My own experience enables me to vouch for the amazing accuracy of the memories of folk-singers. 304
Brooke Tidwell explains that the process of folk music learning has changed. Her
experience was certainly different from the tradition described by earlier scholars. While she did participate in learning through oral transmission and immersion in the music culture, she did so under more modern circumstances. She participated in workshops at the Folk Center where musicians provided music learning experiences that might be thought of as comparable to the kind of learning that takes place in family traditions. She believes that these workshops are a satisfactory substitute for family musical traditions. Perhaps her “relentless interest” in folk 305 306
singing was the primary contributor to her musical skill and repertoire acquisition abilities. Although Brooke was enrolled in private music lessons for a short time, she contends that the ease with which she could memorize music precluded any need to learn to read notation. She says, “It was so easy for me to memorize the melody in my head, and do it by ear, that her [Brooke’s piano teacher] trying to force me to read the music—I didn’t like that.” 307
Sharp, English Folk-Song: Some Conclusions. 16.
304
Brooke Tidwell, June 9, 2019.
305
Ibid.
306
Ibid.
Brooke has noticed a difference between the amount of effort needed to learn instrumental music versus vocal music. She says, “[To learn] a fiddle tune, you might sit down with somebody and they’d . . . break it down in parts to teach it to you and that, I think it’s a little bit different with the songs. If there’s words to something, then the melody sticks in my head really easy. So, I don’t, I didn’t necessarily have to ever have a repeat of the melody of something.” This 308
observation is supported by the findings of Reyna Leigh Gordon. Gordon’s research reveals that strong connections between the syllables of song texts and their rhythmic settings increase the ease with which a song is memorized. In addition, Gordon’s findings suggest that when a song’s text setting adheres to the norms of a well-known genre, the song is easier to remember. 309
It is likely that the relatively simple rhythmic and melodic structures of folk songs and specific knowledge and familiarity with the norms of the genre is what causes heightened memory abilities among folk musicians. Brooke answers the question, “How long does it take to memorize a song?” She says, “Used to, I could—if I could just get like an hour stretch—I could memorize one because I could really focus on it.” She further explains that a ballad with many 310
verses might be easier to learn “because you just have to learn the story and because the words kind of flow poetically, you can remember what place you’re at and you can learn those [more easily].” Brooke says that even if she forgets parts of a song, she can easily secure it in her 311
memory by revisiting recordings. 312
Ibid.
308
Gordon, “Neutral and Behavioral Correlates of Song Prosody.”
309
Brooke Tidwell, June 9, 2019.
310
Ibid.
311
Ibid.
Kathy Sutterfield has also noticed a connection between her interest level, melody and text combinations, and the ease with which she can memorize songs. Toward the effect of that 313
combination she explains,
I don’t feel like I’m super talented. And so, you know, a lot of us have our own thing Like, I cannot color. If you give me a coloring book, I can’t color. I can’t draw. I have no artistic anything. But this, you know, my brain sticks to music and tunes, so if I hear a song that I like, the melody, the words, it just sticks in my brain. And, it goes over and over. So, if I were someplace and a little lady sang “The Three Babes,” well, by the time I went home, I had gone over that melody so many times in my head that I would have the melody. And then I would start looking for versions of it to find words or whatever. 314
Kathy says that the process of memorization is more difficult for her now than it once was. According to her, “It used to be that I could just sing over a song a time or two and have it. . . . Now, how long does it take? I can still do it in a day, but it used to be that I could do it in a matter of a few minutes.” If she has not performed a song in a long time, she might need to 315
review the song to recall it correctly. She says that she performed so much that many songs are secure in her memory, but that she “might not get the verses in the exact same order . . . .” 316
Kathy says that when she recalls a song she can often hear the voices of the “little old ladies” 317
from whom she learned in her mind. She says, “They would be singing a lot of times, sort of, in their falsetto voice, you know how they’d hang onto their words or slur them. That’s just—I wish other things would stick in my brain as well as the words . . . .” She notes a point here that is 318
Kathy Sutterfield, June 20, 2019.
313 Ibid. 314 Ibid. 315 Ibid. 316 Ibid. 317 Ibid. 318
supported by the research of Michael Weiss wherein he found that vocal qualities increase memory ability. It is possible that prominent vocal qualities, such as those Kathy describes, 319
influence the strength of memories.
Kay Thomas obtained her love of poetry and recitation from her father who impressed its importance on her at an early age. He also exposed her to folk songs. It is likely that through 320
this early and long-term exposure to the folk song genre and practice in memorization that she increased her memorization abilities. Kay explains that memory tasks are more difficult now than when she was younger. She says, “I can really see a difference in—as time goes on it is harder to learn and harder to keep. I can remember words from things that I learned as a girl much easier. It’s like those songs and poems that I learned when I was in my 20s—I could
probably do better on that than something I learned not long ago.” She says that if she wants to 321
learn a song now, it might take as much as a week to learn three verses. However, it was easier when she was younger. She says, “It amazes me that at 18 or 20 I could learn things a lot faster and easier.” When she was playing and singing with Clyde Blair and other musicians at the 322
Folk Center, she had the opportunity to use recorded examples of songs, but she “was young enough, and it was more of the way people learned things a long time ago is you
remembered.” 323
Weiss, “Vocal Timbre Influences Memory for Melodies.”; Weiss, Trehub, and Schellenberg,
319
“Something in the Way She Sings.” Kay Thomas, June 19, 2019.
320 Ibid. 321 Ibid. 322 Ibid. 323
If Kay forgets parts of a song and wishes to refresh her memory, she says that she would make use of the archived folk song collections or consult her collection of song lyrics and notes. She says, “If it was a song from Ollie Gilbert . . . . I’d try to find [a recording of] Ollie . . . so that I could remember how they did the songs.” She explains that she would also contact other folk 324
singers who knew the person from whom she originally learned and ask for help. The same is 325
true of Mary Gillihan. She says, “I would bring together several people. . . . I call it the collective consciousness. Sometimes you just have to, you know, to bring the whole piece of work
together.” This kind of communal remedy for forgotten details is likely responsible for the 326
persistence of variants. It also strengthens authenticity standards, and keeps the regional style characteristics similar across generations.
Martha Estes and Jeanie Miller were raised in a family that was famous for their singing tradition. They were immersed in the folk genre from the earliest age. They were unaware of the importance and lineage of the songs in their family tradition. Jeanie says, “We didn’t know that when we were growing up—that these were old. They were just family songs.” Martha agrees, 327
“And they sang all the time. I was never taught any of those songs, and never asked
anybody.” Jeanie contends that she and her cousin learned the songs by repetition. To the 328
question of memory abilities, Jeanie says, “Oh, well, we all had—we’re all pretty bright. We were all pretty bright. We could memorize easily and so if you want it—if I wanted to learn a
Ibid.
324
Ibid.
325
Mary Gillihan, October 15, 2018.
326
Martha Estes and Jeanie Miller, June 20, 2019.
327
Ibid.
song, I could learn it like in a day, you know, a few hours—sit down with it—not that long. But other things we’ve learned just by repetition. We had heard it, and we had heard it, and we had heard it” 329
Lyle Sparkman makes the most bold declaration of his extraordinary memory abilities. He says, “I had a prodigious memory as a youngster. I don’t any longer. And, it wasn’t eidetic. I didn’t have a photographic memory, but I had a prodigious memory which allowed me to remember in great detail . . .” He further explains that when he was in junior high school, one 330
of his initial writing assignments was an autobiography composition. He claims that he was not able to communicate the events of his life beyond age 3 because he recalled them in such detail that he would tire of writing. 331
Lyle declares that his music learning began very early in life because of the family singing tradition into which he was born. He says, “When I was really young, my mom and dad would come in to bed, and then they would sing me songs to sleep. . . . And we’d be singing in the car. We weren’t commercial singers, but we were singers, and that’s how that stuff became acquired. This is all unconscious acquisition.” He goes on to say, “There wasn’t a single lick, 332
note, or word written down for the first 18 years of my life.” When taken together, these two 333
statements might be understood as a depiction of oral transmission alone. Taken separately, two facts emerge. First, Lyle’s family engaged in the process of oral transmission. The second of
Ibid.
329
Lyle Sparkman, June 20, 2019.
330 Ibid. 331 Ibid. 332 Ibid. 333
these statements reveals the method by which his musical skill and knowledge was acquired. The music Lyle learned early in life is a result of incidental learning and enculturation. He refers to this process as “unconscious acquisition.” 334
Many of the informants for this research make reference to their ability to easily memorize songs. Some proclaim extraordinary memory abilities. However, they all make statements that point to the use of repetition, written, and/or recorded examples of songs as memory aids. As previously noted, the use of these aids does not exclude the informants from their status as authentic examples of Ozark folk musicians. Nor does their use of these aids diminish their claims of superior memory abilities. As Ginsborg concludes, singers who avail themselves of multiple memorization techniques are more successful in memory recall. 335
Because they are the specific references to learning methods in Ozark folk music, informants’ statements about repetition, immersion in the music performance culture, and, unconscious acquisition deserve further exploration.
Informal Learning
The work of Albert Bandura corroborates many of the assumptions and possible explanations for phenomena previously described in this chapter. Bandura identifies four 336
requirements that allow behaviors learned from models to manifest in the observer. These requirements are: attention to a model’s behavior, retention in memory, reproduction of the
Ibid.
334
Ginsborg, “Classical Singers Learning and Memorising a New Song.”
335
Albert Bandura, Social Learning Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1977).
behavior, and some motivation to reinforce the behavior. If these requirements are accurate, 337
and we apply them to music learning, then we may have a cogent explanation of the heretofore elusive methods of traditional folk music teaching and learning.
Bandura gives an example of the reasons an observer might not accurately learn from a model. He explains, “The failure of an observer to match the behavior of a model may result from any of the following: not observing the relevant activities, inadequately coding modeled events for memory representation, failing to retain what was learned, physical inability to perform, or experiencing insufficient incentives.” The converse must be true in order for an 338
observer to accurately match the behavior of a model. However, in the case of accurately matched behaviors, the observer must succeed in all of these. Bandura notes that the efficacy of observational learning is decreased if performance trials are not attempted by the learner within a short time after modeling occurs. 339
It is not a coincidence that these are the very requirements folk music learners must achieve in order to be successful performers who operate within the norms and standards of the genre. These requirements appear to be the very elements of informal learning that drive oral transmission in the folk tradition. An application of Bandura’s observational learning
requirements to the folk tradition would yield the following premises. If the oral tradition is a successful method of teaching and learning, the oral tradition learner must attend to the proper elements of a model’s performance (e.g., pitch, rhythm, timbre, tempo, text, etc.). He or she must
Ibid., 23-29. 337 Ibid., 29. 338 Ibid., 34. 339
form a precise memory of the details of a model’s performance and possess the physical and technical abilities required to perform the music. In addition to these, a learner must recognize some benefit to performing the music he or she has learned or intends to learn. This perceived benefit may be, as in the cases of Brooke Tidwell and other informants, that the process or 340
product is very interesting to the learner, he or she feels a connection to a loved one through song performance, or the learner recognizes the positive attention a performer receives. Mary Gillihan says, “I’ve got to like something about it, or find some reason why I would learn it other than just because it’s popular. If I don’t like it, I’m not going to learn it.” Another possible 341
motivation to accurately reproduce the musical behaviors of members of the folk tradition might be, as LeCroy and Warnock contend, the likelihood of being excluded from the musical culture’s activities for a lack of appropriate skills or knowledge. 342
Lyle Sparkman explains that when he was young his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents sang daily. He says, “My grandmother Sparkman would sing in the kitchen. She’s singing “The Lass of Loch Royal” [Child 76], and she would sing with a refrain that I’ve never heard recorded in any version. . . . That’s just working in the kitchen, so you pick up that stuff incidentally.” Lyle also engaged in research and further folk singing learning in adulthood. He 343
went to friends and family members in search of more songs and information. Brooke Tidwell 344
Broke Tidwell, June 9, 2019; Kay Thomas, June 19, 2019; Martha Estes and Jeanie Miller,
340
June 20, 2019; Lyle Sparkman, June 20, 2019; Mary Gillihan, October 15, 2018. Mary Gillihan, October 15, 2018.
341
LeCroy and Warnock, “Informal Learning in Music.”
342
Lyle Sparkman, June 20, 2019.
343
Ibid.
had a different experience than that of Lyle. She was not raised in a family that sang old songs as a daily activity. However, she did acquire an in-depth knowledge of the Ozark folk tradition. Brook says, “Around the Folk Center and the Mountain View square, they have people that just sit around and pick and play on Saturdays and Friday nights. I grew up playing there. I’d be out at 2 or 3 in the morning sitting around playing music. . . . You’ll hear a song that you like or think that’s a neat song, then you seek out to learn that song.” 345
Kay Thomas, who learned songs from Ollie Gilbert, Clyde Blair, and others at the Folk Center was motivated by a distinct interest in the music of the Ozarks and respect for the sources of the songs she learned. She says, “If I’ve learned something from Aunt Ollie Gilbert, I would sing it the way Ollie Gilbert did—just to honor her. . . . If you were going to say, ‘I learned this from Clyde Blair,’ you better sing it the way Clair Blair sang it.” She explains that there was 346
no perceptible teaching method or technique at play during the learning process, but that she would attend to the person from whom she was learning and attempt to play and sing the song the way it was delivered to her. Kathy Sutterfield relays similar sentiments and experiences 347
with Folk Center icons, Bookmiller Shannon, Bob Blair, Monte Avery, and others. Kathy gives 348
the most detailed account of teaching and learning of all the informants. According to her, Bookmiller Shannon would say,
‘What do you want to hear today?’ and you might say, 'Oh, maybe your favorite tune today,’ or he might hit off one and I would try it. Of course, the way I learn tunes, you
Brooke Tidwell, June 9, 2019.
345
Kay Thomas, June 19, 2019.
346
Ibid.
347
Kathy Sutterfield, June 20, 2019.
have to get the tune of the melody in your head. If I don't have the melody in my head, I