Activities

• Make a can-jo

  

  With recycled products and kitchen trash, children can create their own music on their own manufactured instruments. Appalachian musicians sometimes had to use what was at hand when store-bought musical instruments were not available or affordable. The Foxfire Books are full of examples of this type of resourcefulness. The can-jo is Russ’s adaptation of the traditional washtub bass that is commonly used in Appalachian musical settings. Materials needed: large coffee can, wooden yardstick, string, paperclip, 2 nuts and bolts.

  Directions: Punch a hole in the center of the bottom of a tin can (lid has been removed). Setting open end of can on a counter, drill two holes through the yardstick and the can so that stick extends up from closed end. Fasten with 2 nuts and bolts. Drill hole in other end of stick. Push string through the hole in the can and fasten to a paper clip inside the can so that the string cannot pop out. Stretch the string to the hole in the far end of the yardstick; tie securely and tighten as much as possible. (See picture.)

• Learn the Virginia Reel

  This is one of the most popular dances of the Southern Highlands. One good source for the dance is Traditional American Dance Book by Rick Meyers, 1983. Directions from the traditional dance community in Norfolk, Virginia, were found on the Seven Cities of Southeastern Virginia Folk Dance Connection web site and are included below.

  This dance is performed in long lines, up and down the hall. Imagine clearing the cabin of furniture and rolling up the carpet in order to have a dance! The fiddlers stood in the doorways to take up less space and to be heard equally well in both rooms of the cabin. “Stay all night, stay a little longer…“

  Instructions for Dancing the Virginia Reel
  ------------------------------------------
  
  Longways dance in sets of 5 or 6 couples. 
  All the men on the "right" when looking down the hall,
  all the ladies on the left. ( Stand across from your partner)
  
  Join hands in long lines, Go forward and back 8 beats of music
  
  Right hand turn your partner 8 beats
  
  Left Hand turn your partner 8 beats
  
  Do-si-do (back to back) with partner 8 beats
  
  Top couple take two hands,
  Sashay 16 beats down the center of the set and back 
  
  Top couple "reel the set" (top couple only)
  -- hook right elbows with partner, turn 1-1/2 times. 
  Top gent then goes to the first lady in the ladies line,
  top lady goes to the first man in the man's line 
  and they turn left elbows once around.
  
  Top man and woman then meet again in the middle, 
  turn right elbow once around with each other,
  then left elbow with the next person in line, etc.
  Continue "right to your partner, left to the next"
  until the top couple has "reeled" all the way down the line.
  This takes about... 48 beats (or so...)
  
  Top couple then sashays back up the middle to the top, and separate from each
  other. They "peel off " down the respective outside of the lines, (men down the
  men's side, lady down the ladies side) go to the bottom and make a two-handed
  arch. All the other couples follow them down to the bottom and up through the
  arch, leaving the top couple at the bottom, and the second couple at the top
  ready to start the dance over!!
  
  That takes about 32 beats (or so)
  
  ***************************************
  
  A line of 5 (or 6) couples can make it one time through the whole dance in two
  repetitions of a 64-beat tune. (Notice all of the above figures "add up" to 128
  beats.
  
  It will not always match the music exactly, though. The more important part is
  to keep smiling and have fun!!
  

• Make a clothespin dancer or a limberjack

  

  Clothespin dancers or a limberjack

  Using patterns provided in Homemade Instruments by Dallas Cline, collect materials and create dancers for accompanying your homemade musical instruments (see number 1). Call in grandparents to help with your building projects. Have them share some of their toy memories and demonstrate their favorite homemade pastimes, as in the Foxfire Book of Toys and Games.

• Collect a story from your ancestors

  Who are your ancestors? Make a family tree to find out. Ask questions and tape the answers or write them down. A good way to jog the memories of relatives is to show them an old quilt and ask for the story of its making. Other things work well, too: a treasured piece of furniture that’s been in the family a long time, an old dish lovingly stored in the corner cupboard, a faded photograph. Along the way collect the family stories you hear from your parents, your grandparents, or favorite uncle or aunt. Polish one up and share it with your classmates. The class could put their family stories together in a book.

  

• Map your migration

  Here is a map that shows the 420 counties officially designated as the Appalachian Region. On a United States, North American, Western Hemisphere, or World Map, track your family’s migration. Compare with others in the class. Compile a composite map of migrations. The Appalachian residents migrated from Europe, British Isles, Africa, Native America…. and are still migrating today….

  

• Make a Dulci-can

  Dulci-can with painted coffee can. Dave Whitacre’s modified bridge design creates a louder sound.

  Dulcimer, a word that comes from the Latin dulce melos, means “sweet sound.” A lap dulcimer is a traditional Appalachian folk instrument played in the Southern Highlands. Brought into the mountain wilderness by European settlers who migrated west from eastern seaboard cities, the dulcimer carried their Scots, Irish, and English tunes from Celtic homelands to America’s interior. The mountain dulcimer has ancient roots that probably reach back to Scandinavian origins. It is mentioned in the Book of Daniel 3:5 with other instruments of the time making “…the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick.” It is interesting to note that, according to Sara Johnson, the Kitchen Musician®, “the word in the original Hebrew text is now known to mean something other than ‘dulcimer’; and it is believed the King James translators were doing the best they could with knowledge available to them at the time.”

  The dulci-can shown here is a straight-ahead utilitarian version of its more graceful hand-carved wooden ancestor of hourglass or teardrop shape. Made from a fretted fingerboard, three geared tuners, three guitar strings, and a recycled coffee can for a resonator, it can be played on a lap or a table top for even greater resonation. This particular design comes from the fertile imagination of David Ball of Knoxville, Tennessee.

  Materials needed to complete this project are listed below. This project is intended as an on-site, guided activity taught by the artist. Expect to pay $20.00 to cover materials for each student.

  • Fret wire
  • 3 geared tuners
  • Wooden bridge
  • 2-012 and 1-022 ball end strings
  • Large coffee can
  • Board (pre-cut, pre-drilled, pre-slotted)

  Note: If you want to try and cut the fret slots, go to Stewart McDonald’s Fret Calculator for fret spacing measurements.