Traditional Music Program
The Traditional Music Program brings traditional Appalachian music into the daily lives of people by helping communities build and sustain ongoing events such as jam sessions, square dances and storytelling events. The program organizes music and storytelling instruction for youth and adults, residencies, jam sessions, concerts, and radio broadcasts.
2005 saw dramatic growth in the Traditional Music Program. The Passing the Pick and Bow program continued to bring traditional music and storytelling classes to youth in Letcher and Pike Counties in Kentucky. Old Time Days brought master fiddle and banjo players and teachers, such as Jimmy McCown, Dirk Powell, and the Foghorn Stringband, to students and to WMMT’s airwaves. TMP organized the Mountain Music Teachers Association, a group of around 30 musicians, university scholars, community organizers, K-12 teachers, and music teachers from around the southern and central Appalachian region who come together to research and develop curricula, program models, teaching tools and resources for the teaching and integration of traditional mountain music, storytelling and dance into K-12 classrooms. The year ended with Pick and Bow students collaborating with Appalshop’s Roadside Theater in the annual Christmas in Appalachia.
In 2006, the Pick and Bow program is expanding to include classes in Dickenson County, Virginia. A partnership with the Lonesome Pine Office on Youth and The Ralph Stanley Museum in southwest Virginia will involve TMP in organizing music classes and jam sessions, radio broadcasts from concert venues, an online database of musicians and venues, and a summer music camp for at-risk youth. TMP will help organize traditional music schools at the Cowan Creek center in Kentucky and Mountain Empire Community College in Virginia. Old Time Fiddle Day was May 9; Old Time Banjo Day will be October 28. The new Recycled Rhythms program will conduct workshops in percussive dance (a.k.a. clogging) and such instruments as bones, spoons, and washboard. TMP and the Mountain Music Teachers Association will create a website for teachers, musicians, and community organizers who want to integrate music into the classroom or start their own after school music classes. MMTA will also issue a music curriculum and at least one instructional DVD.Traditional Music Program Media Links:
