Discuss Traditional and Cultural Music

[Julie Palmieri]

Discuss the traditional and cultural music in the community where you work.

[Erika Svolos]

This is a great question for working on cultural humility and working from a cultural responsive lens. Take some time to consider the various cultures and diverse communities within the area you are working in.

[Sean FitzGerald]

I work mainly in special education classrooms in a school district that is close to 95% hispanic so I try to utilize music that is culturally appropriate. Most of the songs I have found and started using come from the students themselves, teachers, and paraprofessionals. I hadn’t done a lot of work with hispanic clients previously so it has been a learning curve, but I have really enjoyed experiencing more of the culture. I don’t work with anyone under 4 years old in the district so I would be interested to see if there are any major differences used in early childhood work with hispanic clients. If anyone has any knowledge, I would love to hear about it and work to expand my repertoire more!

[Jorden Liteplo]

All I know is la banana, but Sean have you heard of Charlotte diamond? She’s a really popular children’s musician in Canada and she does all her songs in English, French and Spanish!

[Kayla Stubblefield]

Charlotte Diamond is great. Thanks for bringing that up 🙂

[Jorden Liteplo]

So I live in Vancouver BC which is a cultural melting pot. In my specific area we have a large Persian culture as well as East Asian. I have tried a Song which was translated into Cantonese but this was an interesting challenge due to the fact that Cantonese has tones, which didn’t go with the melody of the song. We also have many coastal indigenous populations in my area. I have to tread very lightly around cultural appropriation with this music because I am clearly not indigenous. I do though have one drum song that was thought to me by a Salish teacher who ‘ gifted’ it to me with the intention of it being passed on. Very cool!

[Erika (TeamRH)]

Hi Jorden,

Thank you for sharing with us about the importance of considering cultural appropriation when using instruments/music and the challenges with translating songs into a different language.

-Erika Svolos

[Leah Strand]

I try to be culturally aware with everything I do. In my internship I worked with a lot of kiddos and parents who were very different culturally. I was in Florida so the area and people were new to me being from small town Ohio. Things I had considered before, but never got to actively use were coming up. The main thing that kept coming up was holidays. I’ve always known not everyone shares the same holidays or beliefs, but I had never truly been in an area where beliefs religions and cultures were so different. So planning my sessions around our clients considering what they celebrated and what they didn’t played more of a role in my early experience.

[Kayla Stubblefield]

Cultural awareness is so important.

[Kayla Stubblefield]

I currently live in Athens, OH- which is only a little over an hour from where I grew up in WV. Appalachian culture is not a culture shock for me, and I am still learning new things about Appalachian culture every single day. Having the intersection of being a person of a color, I feel that I can relate to a lot of the kids and teens that I work with who have intersectionalities. I recognize that my lived experience of being a POC in America is certainly not the same as the next person with intersectionalities, so I always try my best to remain culturally aware, unbiased, and ready to learn.

Lots of the clients I work with in Appalachia enjoy oldies and contemporary county music, rock and roll, metal, hip hop & r&b, and folk. In Athens specifically, a lot of people love Indie music.

[Angie Snell]

The small community where I live is on the southeast corner of Michigan, just across the Ohio boarder. The majority of the community is Christian and the school calendars historically revolve around the related holidays. When I first moved here, the musical styles of choice by students, families, and staff seemed to be country, folk, and pop. I admit it took me a bit to adjust after working in Detroit and experiencing multiple cultures and musical styles. However, over the years there have been a growing number of Hispanic, Black, and Middle Eastern families who have moved to and become more prominent parts of the community. Early on, I found I had to advocate for more diverse music and recognition of other cultural traditions and holidays. The community outreach part of the MT program I worked to develop played a role in shifting the school music concerts and gatherings. It was effective to remain focused on musical preferences of the students and their families, while building relationships in the sharing of music. The common factor that I experienced in the two different cities was the presence of multi-generational music styles and how important those different musical styles were to each of my students as related to their families and to their same-aged peers.

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