Perseverance Pays Off
The History of My Singing Bird
by Denise Bacon

The history of My Singing Bird cannot be told without going back to the beginning. It took 25 twenty years to bring it to a publishable state and another eight years to find someone to publish it. There were many bumps and obstacles along the way; it took many voices, many points of view, various kinds of expertise to solve the problems, but in the end it was a mutual goal realized. Essentially, this article is also a history of one attempt to identify a stream of quality American folk music that would be suitable for pedagogical use in the developing Kodály movement.

To describe My Singing Bird’s journey, some background and perspective are useful. Peter Erdei first came to the United States in 1968. We wanted to experiment in a public school setting to see if Kodály’s ideas could be adapted for use with American school children. We knew that our first task must be to identify and analyze American folk music. He spent most of his time researching folk music while I spent most of mine trying to raise money. In September 1969, when the Ford Foundation grant I had applied for materialized, allowing us to establish the Kodály Musical Training Institute (KMTI), we were barely ready. Peter was to teach a first grade class that would be a model for our first three students in a school that had consented to have a daily music program. He had culled about 35 songs suitable for first grade from over a thousand he had meticulously researched, and was scarcely able to keep ahead of the children. We planned a systematic development, one grade at a time, and we knew we would need songs for grade two the following September.

Peter and I realized that our efforts in 1968 and 1969 towards developing a sequential curriculum for school use were not enough and that we needed much more material. Therefore, at Mrs. Kodály’s suggestion, we invited a young Hungarian musicologist and member of the Folk Music Research Group at the Academy of the Sciences in Budapest to come to KMTI for an indefinite period. Katalin (Kati) Komlos continued the work Peter had started and spent much time at the Library of Congress, as well as Harvard’s Widener and the Boston Public Library, collecting and analyzing songs of many cultures, suitable for various age levels.

It was Kati’s work at KMTI that resulted in publication of 150 American Folk Songs to Sing, Read and Play (Boosey and Hawkes 1974 – publishers of KODALY’s CHORAL LIBRARY). This collection was accepted by Boosey and Hawkes in 1972 and was eagerly awaited by both students and faculty for two years before its final appearance. By June 1974, Peter, Kati and I were so upset by the delay in publishing this material we so urgently needed for both academic year and summer courses that we petitioned Boosey to allow us to reproduce it ourselves for use in the forthcoming summer course. They agreed on condition that anyone who was given such a copy destroy it at the end of the course. We could not wait yet another year, so we agreed. The students and faculty were thrilled with the book, because at that time, there was nothing like it available to American music educators, and they were furious when they had to return it. I’m not sure we ever got them all back because there were over 100 participants that summer and I remember sorrowfully taking some 87 copies to the dump, saving only one copy for historical purposes.

The “150”, as it is now known by legions of both Kodály and mainstream music educators, was so successful that Peter, Kati and I realized we needed to produce a second volume with more material for higher grades. We already had considerable material in the collection that Kati Komlos had built up, but needed much, much more. Sadly, we lost Kati in September 1974, since she felt she had been away from home long enough. But the work she did from 1970-1974 was the basis for the sequel to the original “150”, that was eventually to become My Singing Bird (which made its debut at OAKE’s San Antonio Convention). It is no laughing matter or accident that the book was over twenty years in the making; rather it was a continuous effort on the part of many people who had a common goal -- namely, to bring to fruition a collection of superior quality for all age levels that could help advance the Kodály movement.

After Kati Komlos returned to Hungary, Toni Locke, a graduate of KMTI’s first class, was employed by KMTI to continue Kati’s work. With her long-time interest in folk music and newly acquired knowledge of Kodály-Bartok techniques in folk music research, acquired during her year’s study in Hungary (at that time KMTI’s diploma consisted of one year at KMTI and one year in Hungary), Peter and I felt that she was the best person to adapt the Hungarian classification/analysis system to newly found American material. Toni made many valuable contributions to the on-going work at KMTI, but eventually left for California, where she was employed by Holy Names College, and where she produced the excellent volume Sail Away, which can certainly be considered a sequel in both spirit and techniques to the original “l50”.

Floice Lund, another early KMTI student, followed Toni Locke. She was employed as Director of Curriculum Development and soon established a Resource/Materials department. Simultaneously, she taught grades five and six in our Needham, Massachusetts model School. Her aim was to work closely with other faculty members, learning their needs and filling their requests for materials. When the Kodály Center of America (KCA) was established in 1977, she came to work part-time for KCA. She greatly expanded its folksong collection, became editor of the KCA Choral Series, and also produced an excellent book, Research and Retrieval, which was a great help not only to our students but also to many students in other Kodály programs interested in creating their own retrieval systems. In 1980 she founded “Support Services”, an independent agency for the distribution of Kodály and other publications, and a consulting service for the general music education public.

During the 70s, there was considerable discussion at KMTI board meetings about whether to put limited resources and hard-to-find funds into academic research or into curriculum development. I suggested that we needed both and could afford to neglect neither; that research would not achieve the results we were looking for if it was not based on the most authentic material of superior quality. The final outcome, based on the difficult economic conditions of the late 70’s and the need to be fiscally responsible, was a decision to ask internal staff, already salaried with other teaching, to contribute whatever they could to continuing the work of the materials/resource department.

During the years of building KCA, Flo, Jon Rappaport and I met frequently to discuss, add and subtract songs from the original collection on which Flo had worked so hard. Realizing that the new faculty at KMTI (I had left KMTI and established KCA in 1977) knew nothing about Volume Two of the “150”, it became clear that it would be up to KCA to complete and publish the work, yet we were getting nowhere fast, since Jon and I had more than we could handle in our own full time positions. We concluded it was best to put one person in charge of the entire project and hired Flo to complete the book on a schedule aimed at turning it over to Boosey and Hawkes by May 1983. In the fall of 1983 Flo and her husband moved to Georgia but continued work on the book. She sent 75 songs to Michael Murray at Boosey in January of 1984; he asked for an August 1984 completion of the full 150 songs, plus indexes and permissions clearances. In July of 1985, Flo brought 131 songs to KCA’s summer course with a promise that the other 19 would soon follow, but in 1986 Flo and Bruce moved to Nebraska and I lost track of them. Peter Erdei, who taught in the 1985 summer course, looked over the collection before he returned to Hungary and felt it needed more work. With Flo gone and Jon no longer working for KCA, I was left alone with the project. Since I was not an expert in the folk music field, and did not believe I should be the one to make a final selection of songs, I sought help from Peter and Ida Erdei. In 1987, a small grant from the Avery Foundation enabled Ida Erdei, an experienced folk music expert in her own right, to assess the whole collection and to make changes she and Peter agreed were desirable. The Kodály Institute in Kecskemét has an excellent collection of American and Anglo –American folk song editions and Ida felt there were many beautiful songs we had not yet uncovered. She made suggestions for about 60 new songs, which Peter, Ida and I discussed and on which we reached agreement on my subsequent trips to Hungary. There was so much to do and no one to do it!

In 1991, Faith Knowles came to work for KCA and I recognized immediately that folk music was her love, passion and expertise. Together, we agreed on the final selection of150 songs, retaining most of Ida’s and Peter’s suggestions. We then ran headlong into the problem of copyright and permissions. To Faith fell the time-consuming and tedious job of corresponding with some 50 or more publishers in addition to those Flo Lund had already contacted, and of securing permissions – some were free and some asked an exorbitant price for the song in question –usually one we especially wanted in the collection. Faith also had to do extensive research to determine which songs were in public domain and therefore needed no permission. By June 1994 the book was finally ready to send to Boosey and shortly thereafter on July 28th, 1994, we received Boosey’s letter of acceptance, projecting 1995 publication. How joyful we were!

However, that is not the end of the story. When the book did not come out in 1995, we prodded Boosey as to when we might expect its publication. This was the beginning of an agonizing experience. The book was thereafter successively promised by Christmas, by Easter and by the summer courses for five years in a row, with no action taken. KCA’s board finally determined we should get the manuscript back from Boosey and send it to another publisher. To retrieve the book took about as much time as had been wasted in anticipating its publication. In all fairness to Boosey and Hawkes, the book is a difficult one to produce, because of the many indexes (especially the one with syllable tone sets, range, rhythm and games), requiring a sequential order of pagination. If one song is changed, or its analysis, all of the index numbers (there were four indexes) or reference to any changed song in textual sections had to be identified and changed. In any event, after repeated requests, to retrieve the book it was necessary to go to New York and sit in Boosey’s office until it was finally handed over.

The book was then sent to Oxford University Press, and after that to Prentice Hall. Both expressed interest in the book, saying it was a scholarly work and needed to be published, but that it did not fit their present markets or publication schedules. Faith and I despaired that the book would ever be published. We considered KCA publishing it, but realized there would be both a marketing and distribution problem – nor did we have the money to print it ourselves.

In 1995 I retired, and Faith Knowles became director of KCA. I had three major goals for retirement: to see that My Singing Bird was published, to find a place that would take over KCA publications, and to find a suitable repository for the KCA/KMTI Archives. (The KMTI section will include documents from its first eight years under my administration).

In conclusion, I am happy to report that KCA graduate Dr. Sandra Mathias, Professor of Music at Capital University in Columbus Ohio, agreed, following consultation with authorities at the university, to take over KCA’s total inventory of publications, and most significantly, to publish My Singing Bird. We are everlastingly grateful for her vision, support and willingness to risk. As of OAKE’s 2001 convention in San Antonio, where the book made its debut, the trials and tribulations of My Singing Bird now pass into history. The problems were important only in that they proved that perseverance pays off when those involved in such a project hold a commitment to the same goal and give their best to it.