THE PURE GOLD COIN: A COLLECTION OF ITALIAN SONGS FOR CHILDREN FROM LO ZECCHINO D’ORO, AN ITALIAN CHILDREN’S MUSIC COMPOSITION FESTIVAL By Jennifer Nicole Giustino A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Music Education—Master of Music 2018 THE PURE GOLD COIN: A COLLECTION OF ITALIAN SONGS FOR CHILDREN FROM AN ITALIAN CHILDREN’S MUSIC COMPOSITION FESTIVAL LO ZECCHINO D’ORO, ABSTRACT By Jennifer Nicole Giustino The intent of this study was to present a collection of Italian songs for children in an effort to provide teachers with reliable resources so that they can engage in creating multimusical experiences and culturally responsive teaching in the elementary general music classroom. While there are many music textbooks that provide repertoire for K-5 music classrooms, there is a dearth in the variety of countries and cultures that are represented in those books (Mason, 2010; Simmons, 2008). Italy is one country that falls within this category, despite the existence of an annual music composition competition festival for children, Lo Zecchino d’Oro. The purpose of this research was to collect songs from Lo Zecchino d’Oro and investigate their significance in Italian society so that they can be contextualized for future use in American elementary music classrooms. Research problems were as follows: (1) to present a collection of children’s songs from Italy, (2) to provide contextual information about each song, and (3) to develop age-appropriate suggestions for American music teachers who wish to incorporate these songs into their elementary music classroom settings. It is my hope that this study will help support culturally responsive teaching for American music educators and preservice teachers who may work with students of Italian heritage, and help American music teachers and students better understand the world of their peers (both in Italy and the United States), fostering multimusicality in the music classroom. Copyright by JENNIFER NICOLE GIUSTINO 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 Multiculturalism in the Classroom ..................................................................................................5 Culturally Responsive Pedagogy .............................................................................5 Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy as an Alternative Ideology ...................................6 Fostering Multimusicality in the Music Classroom ............................................... 7 Bimusicality ................................................................................................8 Multimusicality ...........................................................................................8 Lack of Diversity in Multicultural Repertoire .......................................................11 Integrity of Song .................................................................................................. 12 The Italian Connection ..................................................................................................... 17 Brief Background of Italy .....................................................................................18 Italian Communities in America ...........................................................................18 Italian Festivals ......................................................................................................19 The Lack of Study on Italian Children’s Songs .....................................................20 Lack of representation in music textbook series .......................................20 The need for ethnomusicological study of Lo Zecchino d’Oro ................21 Summary .......................................................................................................................................23 Purpose and Problems ...................................................................................................................24 CHAPTER II RELATED RESEARCH ...............................................................................................................26 Ethnographers Experiences in Collecting Children’s Songs .............................................26 Blacking: Venda Children’s Song ........................................................................26 Koops: Children’s Music in The Gambia ..............................................................28 Children’s Music in the Mediterranean .............................................................................32 Pieridou-Skoutella: Children’s Music of Cyprus ...................................................32 Delorenzi-Schenkel: Children’s Music of Greece .................................................35 The Prominence of Italian Festivals ................................................................................. 38 Crociani-Windland: Central Italian Festivals .......................................................38 Tak: Southern Italian Festivals .............................................................................41 Ethnography and Music Education ................................................................................... 44 Peters: Students Conducting Ethnographic Research on Italian Music .................44 Summary ...........................................................................................................................46 iv CHAPTER III DESIGN, PROCEDURES, METHODOLOGY, & ANALYSIS .................................................50 Researcher Background and Perspective ..........................................................................50 Design and Procedures ......................................................................................................51 Trustworthiness .................................................................................................................54 Participants ........................................................................................................................56 Data ...................................................................................................................................58 Analysis .............................................................................................................................59 CHAPTER IV FESTIVAL BACKGROUND .......................................................................................................61 Lo Zecchino d’Oro: The Roots .........................................................................................61 Festival Purpose and Logistics ..........................................................................................62 Lo Zecchino d’Oro as a Cultural Phenomenon .................................................................65 Media as a Medium of Transmission ................................................................................66 Festival Themes .................................................................................................................69 Media ....................................................................................................................69 Community ...........................................................................................................70 “Everyone Knows It” ............................................................................................71 Cultural Importance ..............................................................................................73 Child-Centered ......................................................................................................75 Summary ...........................................................................................................................75 CHAPTER V FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS ......................................................................................77 Collection of Songs ...........................................................................................................77 Song Themes .....................................................................................................................78 Fun .........................................................................................................................78 Important Message ................................................................................................79 The Songs ..........................................................................................................................80 Child-Centered Learning ......................................................................................80 Songs About Food .............................................................................................................84 Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè ........................................................................................85 Diction for Difficult Words ..................................................................................87 Background ...........................................................................................................87 Context ..................................................................................................................88 Classroom Applications ........................................................................................89 Il caffè della Peppina ........................................................................................................91 Diction for Difficult Words ..................................................................................93 Background ...........................................................................................................93 Context ..................................................................................................................94 Classroom Applications ........................................................................................95 Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina ...............................................................................................97 Diction for Difficult Words ................................................................................100 v Background .........................................................................................................101 Context ................................................................................................................102 Classroom Applications ......................................................................................103 Songs About Animals .....................................................................................................105 Il pulcino ballerino ..........................................................................................................106 Diction for Difficult Words ................................................................................108 Background .........................................................................................................108 Context ................................................................................................................109 Classroom Applications ......................................................................................110 Quarantaquattro gatti ......................................................................................................112 Diction for Difficult Words ................................................................................114 Background .........................................................................................................114 Context ................................................................................................................115 Classroom Applications ......................................................................................117 Volevo un gatto nero .......................................................................................................119 Diction for Difficult Words ................................................................................121 Background .........................................................................................................121 Context ................................................................................................................123 Classroom Applications ......................................................................................124 La banda dello zoo ..........................................................................................................127 Diction for Difficult Words ................................................................................129 Background .........................................................................................................129 Context ................................................................................................................129 Classroom Applications ......................................................................................130 Il valzer del moscerino ....................................................................................................132 Diction for Difficult Words ................................................................................134 Background .........................................................................................................134 Context ................................................................................................................134 Classroom Applications ......................................................................................135 Popoff ..............................................................................................................................137 Diction for Difficult Words ................................................................................139 Background .........................................................................................................139 Context ................................................................................................................140 Classroom Applications ......................................................................................141 Il coccodrillo come fa? ....................................................................................................143 Diction for Difficult Words ................................................................................145 Background .........................................................................................................145 Context ................................................................................................................146 Classroom Applications ......................................................................................147 Overarching Suggestions for Culturally Responsive Pedagogy .....................................149 CHAPTER VI SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, & SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ................................................................................................................................153 Summary .........................................................................................................................153 Conclusions .....................................................................................................................154 vi Implications .....................................................................................................................157 Suggestions for Future Research ....................................................................................158 Coda .................................................................................................................................160 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................162 APPENDIX A Italian Diction Guide ...............................................................................163 APPENDIX B Interview Questions ..................................................................................168 REFERENCES ...........................................................................................................................173 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Consonant Diction Chart ..............................................................................................165 Table 2. Vowel Diction Chart .....................................................................................................166 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè ....................................................................................85 Figure 2. Il caffè della Peppina .....................................................................................................91 Figure 3.1. Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina ........................................................................................97 Figure 3.2. Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina (pg. 2) .............................................................................98 Figure 4. Il pulcino ballerino ......................................................................................................106 Figure 5. Quarantaquattro gatti ...................................................................................................112 Figure 6. Volevo un gatto nero ...................................................................................................119 Figure 7. La banda dello zoo .......................................................................................................127 Figure 8. Il valzer del moscerino ................................................................................................132 Figure 9. Popoff ..........................................................................................................................137 Figure 10. Il coccodrillo come fa? ..............................................................................................143 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Making music instruction relevant and meaningful to students should be a concern of all music educators. Yet the lack of diverse and appropriate repertoire available for use by teachers makes it difficult for them to integrate music that relates to their students’ cultural identities into their classrooms (Campbell, 2002). This difficulty also may be attributed to a lack of access to resources and training that help teachers hone their skills in both culturally responsive teaching and multicultural education (Abril, 2006; Campbell, 2002; Kelly-McHale, 2013). As a result, “token multiculturalism” has become commonplace in music classrooms, where staple songs from a few common cultures are incorporated into a curriculum because they are represented in standard music education text and song books (Mason, 2010). Due to the dearth of easily available repertoire that represents many different cultures, multiculturalism and culturally responsive teaching in the classroom sometimes has narrowed in approach to that of “musical tourism,” during which teachers meet national standards by creating a unit centered around a few of those token nations, ‘exoticize’ their presence in the classroom, and then move forward with their regular Eurocentric curriculum (Hess, 2015). Teachers often approach the classroom through a Western classical framework and take on an “add world music and stir” approach, teaching Other1 songs out of their cultural context (Hess, p. 339). The allure of doing such communicates the idea of exoticism to students, wherein the typical hegemonic curriculum 1 I use the word Other to refer to musics typically considered outside of the Western classical music paradigm. Hess (2015) identifies Other as “a broad category that includes music learned formally and informally, music with a variety of transmission practices that may or may not include written aspects, and music that may be fused with other music or be an entity to itself” (p. 337). 1 remains as the dominant curricula focus, with a sprinkle of music from Other regions and/or cultures as an additive to a largely Eurocentric curriculum. Multicultural education developed during the early 1960s in response to the Civil Rights movement with an aim to validate all students’ cultures in the classroom. Banks (2013) defines multicultural education as, “an idea stating that all students, regardless of the groups to which they belong, such as those related to gender, ethnicity, race, culture, language, social class, religion, or exceptionality, should experience educational equality in schools” (p. 25). This ideal is encouraged at the national level through the National Core Arts Standards, from anchor standard #11 (subcategory of Connecting) calls for teaching that encourages students to “relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding2.” Music education began to shift towards multiculturalism in the classroom just after the Tanglewood Symposium in the 1960s. Since then, more inclusive and diverse curricula have been a goal of music educators. Volk (1998), a music educator and researcher defines multiculturalism in education as, “the acknowledgement of the diverse population in the United States, and the intent to help students understand the world and the American society in which they live” (p. 3). She recognized that the United States was becoming more diverse in terms of cultural representation and believed that educators should strive to incorporate music from cultures that do not just represent the dominant classroom culture, to help foster the idea of multimusicality. When persons are multimusical, they are able to engage with different types of musicking (Campbell, 1997). The concept of multimusicality suggests that different cultures have different epistemological ways of engaging with music. Hess (2018) argues that many 2 http://www.nationalartsstandards.org/ 2 musics follow different epistemological frameworks, and that engaging students in multiple types of music epistemologies can allow students to understand that people engage with music in a variety of ways. She questions whether teachers reflect on the ways in which they transfer information of Other music cultures, and if those ways appropriately represent the culture’s epistemology or reinforce the dominant way of musicking; which, for many classrooms is representative of Western classical canon. Culturally responsive teaching emerged in the early 1990s when a shift toward more equitable teaching was encouraged as a result of the growing diversity of student populations (Lind & McKoy, 2016). Lind & McKoy (2016) define a culturally responsive approach in music education as “valuing what students already know and finding ways to expand upon that prior knowledge” (Lind & McKoy, p. 132). Through this type of pedagogy, teachers strive to incorporate different aspects of students’ individual cultures into the classroom. The concept of culturally sustaining pedagogy is a subset of culturally responsive teaching. In this pedagogy, the teacher strives to foster connections between a student’s cultural identity outside of the classroom and their student identity in the American classroom, with the hope of bringing them together to create a clearer and more wholesome student self-image (Paris, 2012). One way in which teachers can cultivate this pedagogical approach in a music classroom is through the inclusion of music from students’ individual cultures. Though related, multiculturalism and culturally responsive/sustaining teaching are separate concepts that sometimes are sometimes conflated inadvertently in the context of educational practice by teachers (Kelly-McHale, 2013). Again, even those teachers striving for culturally responsive or sustaining sometimes focus on the idea of “visiting” countries in their classrooms with the aim of being more responsive and to create curricula that is more culturally diverse. As a result, they may inadvertently tokenize 3 particular cultures by only using staple songs from commonly used music education textbooks; yet, many of those songs do not represent the culture with integrity. Furthermore, it is sometimes common for music of some cultures to only be introduced in a classroom around a holiday that is symbolic of that culture (Campbell, 2002). In doing so, teachers can perpetuate insensitive norms by only raising issues of diversity on staple holidays that might not be of great importance. In this study, I hope to collect and bring attention to children’s songs from Italy and contextualize those songs for use in American music classrooms as a way to combat the tokenism and lack of meaningful cultural representation that exists in elementary music repertoire. I hope to eschew tokenism by allowing the voices of Italian children, parents, and officials involved with the Lo Zecchino d’Oro (The Pure Gold Coin) festival to guide the contextual information about each song. The contextual information then will influence practical classroom applications for each song. Furthermore, I hope that these applications provide teachers with accessible options to enrich their efforts in promoting learning about songs from different cultures in the music classroom. In this chapter, I recognize the need for multimusicality and culturally responsive teaching in American music classrooms as a result of the increasing diversity of students’ cultural backgrounds in those classrooms. I explain why engaging children with songs from various cultures is important in helping students develop musical cultural identities relative to their heritage and should take place in the elementary music classroom. Then, I point out the lack of diverse repertoire that is appropriate for and available to classroom teachers. Last, I examine the sparse research that exists about Italian music for children and identify the need for collecting music from Italy to support multiculturalism in the classroom with the goal of making their music more accessible to the elementary general music teacher. 4 Multiculturalism in the Classroom Culturally Responsive Pedagogy The United States is built on the foundation of immigration, assimilation, and multiculturalism. Consequently, many American public schools comprise students who represent a rich variety of cultural backgrounds. Culturally responsive teaching is defined as, “a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of including students’ cultural references in all aspects of learning” (Lind & McKoy, 2016). The main idea is that teachers should strive to incorporate facets of students’ cultural identities outside of the classroom in their lessons as a way of being responsive to their students’ needs. Though the trend of including more “world” music in curricula continues to grow, thoughtful consideration of which cultures to incorporate into the classroom does not always occur (Campbell, 2002). Furthermore, songs and musical traditions sometimes are incorporated in culturally insensitive ways, which can alienate students. Kelly- McHale (2013) reported a disconnection between students and teachers in her case study on the incorporation of Mexican musical repertoire in a general music classroom. She found that students felt as if they were being forced to deny their cultural beliefs and identities in the classroom because of the glaring differences between home and school music. Yet, Kelly- McHale reported that teachers in the same school believed that they were bridging the gap adequately between the Mexican student population and other students in the school. Furthermore, they identified the Mexican students as model students and expressed no concerns about their musical learning development. In American classrooms, it is important to realize that not every student comes from the same ethnic and cultural background, and that generalizing the United States into one categorical culture is complex, and almost impossible. (Banks, 2013). Thus, to enhance all students’ musical 5 development, multiculturalism in the music classroom is warranted through the engagement of music from different cultures. Yet, Campbell (2002), and Lind and McKoy (2016) recognize that, while an increase in multicultural material in the classroom has occurred since the 1990s, there are still students whose cultural identities are not supported in their school settings. Researchers in music education who support the idea of culturally responsive teaching make it clear that teachers should learn to use their students’ cultures as a resource rather than feel burdened by them. If teachers work together with students to contextualize songs appropriately, both will engage in a positive classroom experience (Kelly-McHale, 2013; Lind & McKoy, 2016). However, due to the lack of resources and knowledge about how to accurately represent their students’ cultures, teachers are struggling to teach in ways that are culturally responsive (Mason, 2010; Simmons, 2008). Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy as an Alternative Ideology “Culturally sustaining pedagogy,” a term coined by Django Paris (2012), supports the idea of teachers trying to “Sustain linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling” (p. 1). Paris suggests that, while culturally responsive teaching is vital, it is the concept of embracing all students’ identities to foster cultural pluralism in the classroom as a way of combating the perpetuation of monocultural and monolingual ways that is of greater importance. In other words, teachers should aim not only to be responsive, but rather they should be supportive of sustaining the ways that students learn in relation to their heritage. It is possible for one to be responsive and accepting of a student’s heritage and culture in the classroom but engage in a way that is not culturally sustaining of how they learn or exist in their culture. For example, one could teach a song in a different language to students who speak that 6 same language, but not look into how the song might be a part of that particular music culture aside from the language. The goal of culturally sustaining pedagogy is to help bridge and connect a student’s home culture to school culture, so that learning is more comfortable for the student. This is especially important for students who do not represent the dominant culture. Paris (2012) classifies most American public schools’ dominant culture as white and English-speaking. He asserts that the most successful teaching will be in effect when the teacher supports students by offering access to the dominant cultural competence through a path that begins with their own cultural learning identity. For example, one can focus on teaching a certain pattern to students by singing a song in Italian that has that rhythmic value. However, since children in Italy may not normally focus on that musical attribute of the song when learning or singing it, the teacher could use a song in English in the same lesson to break down the rhythmic pattern; yet, still introduce the Italian song in a culturally sensitive way, perhaps through dance or in a listening at another point in the lesson. Once the teacher addresses the rhythmic pattern in the English song, the teacher can refer back to the Italian song and point out the pattern as a way of fostering connections between the musical cultures. With this example in mind, culturally sustaining pedagogy more readily supports the notion of incorporating music of other cultures into a classroom so long as teachers maintain the way in which the cultures learn their own music. Fostering Multimusicality in the Music Classroom Both culturally responsive and culturally sustaining pedagogy lend themselves well to the music classroom due to music’s functioning as a form of expression and communication in many 7 cultures. Kodály (1967) argues that teaching songs from other countries to children is the best way to introduce different types of music in the classroom, for the way in which children first learn language is “unilingual.” He points out that folksongs from many cultures are ideal for use inside the classroom and suggests that teachers should begin with music of the native tongue, and then expand their repertoire to incorporate “neighboring or related music” and later, “music of more distant people” (p. 61). Bimusicality. Coined by Hood (1960), an ethnomusicologist in the field, bimusicality states that people can have more than one understanding of a music; in understanding, the person demonstrates proficiency in both the technical requirements and the stylistic nuances of the music (O’Flynn, 2005). Teachers can consider the concept of bimusicality when looking for ways in which to foster a music education that supports building upon the known. For example, some students already may have a foundational knowledge of a musical style they a familiar with from home; however, that music style might not be present in typical music classroom curricula. Bimusicality allows students who engage in a different style of music at home to have a space to express their musicality in the music classroom. Furthermore, children who are unfamiliar with the different music style can learn of the different music style and begin to develop a greater understanding of how there are different types of music making experiences in society (O’Flynn, 2005). Multimusicality. While bimusicality more specifically suggests that people can be proficient in two musical languages or styles, multimusicality supports the idea that people can develop an understanding of multiple types of musicking (Quesada & Volk, 1997). Through the lens of multiculturalism, the idea of “multimusicality” serves as the musical equivalent of multi- linguicism. Multimusicality exposes students to a diverse set of music practices and expands 8 their worldview (Abril, 2006; Campbell, 2002; Hess, 2018; Kodály, 1967; Koops, 2002). Abril (2006) and Koops (2002) more specifically identify that, for many students, school may be their only exposure to music from cultures different from their own. Thus, it is most often in the hands of teachers to not only develop students as musicians, but also as human beings (Kodály, 1967). Hess (2018) postulates that students may “find their worldviews challenged when experiencing the worldviews of another” (p. 30), thus fostering multiple music voices and perspectives in the classroom. Music in general, is a medium that allows for potential understanding of other societal factors attached to a particular culture. Volk (1998) argues that by understanding how another culture expresses themselves musically, one can gain more insight into that culture, as music often functions as a mode of nonverbal communication in rituals, political events, or emotional circumstances. However, it is important to note that every person experiences music individually, so no music culture is homogenous in nature. Multimusicality allows the student to learn about others in their community, as well as how they interact with music individually. As Hess (2018) writes, “we come to know ourselves through our encounters with Others”—which is a complex process (p. 28). When students experience music in an epistemological way that differs from what is typical in their own music culture, they become aware of multiple ways of musicking. Pairing this understanding of the “unfamiliar” with music that is “familiar” prepares students to function in society beyond that of the music classroom. Alternatively, a certain familiarity and comfort is stimulated in the classroom among students who identify with the culture of the music in which everyone is engaging. Several researchers also have identified that incorporating songs from students’ own cultures in particular is an important part of increasing children’s level of comfort in the classroom, and they advocate for their use in a music curriculum (Abril, 2006; Campbell, 1998; Kelly-McHale, 2013; 9 Lomax, 1956). Kodály (1967) describes folksongs as offering a variety of perspectives that children often associate with feelings and important memories. Children of all cultures are imbued with a sense of tradition that oftentimes is centered around music (Peters, 2009; Pieridou-Skoutella, 2007). Largey (2014) discusses the idea of “long-distance nationalism3” in his research on music of Haiti in the United States. He asserts that music is a powerful medium through which people can feel a connection to their homeland country, should they happen to live elsewhere. Music generates an emotional attachment that fosters a sense of belonging, connectedness, and feelings of “home” (Largey, 2014). Intentionally incorporating songs from cultures that represent the cultural make-up of one’s classroom gives the students in that classroom a sense of familiarity from which they can make connections to their ethnicity while furthering their education of the subject matter in the classroom. Everyone, even those who engage in the same type of musicking, has a unique musical personality (O’Flynn, 2005). As educators, we strive to encourage children learning about their peers and people in the surrounding community to coexist in a way that is meaningful. This ideal should extend to the music classroom, and creating multimusical experiences in the classroom is one access point in which we can achieve this goal (Koops, 2002; O’Flynn, 2005). Through the implementation of multimusicality as a classroom framework, teachers can provide children with the opportunity to critically engage with different types of music (Hess, 2018; Koops, 2002; O’Flynn, 2005). In studying music of different cultures, students may discover similarities across various styles, or reflect on differences that exist in relation to their own music culture (O’Flynn, 2005). These reflections may extend to larger self-discoveries, wherein students may, “better understand their own particular cultural heritage as well as [gain] a new-found respect for the 3 The idea of “long-distance nationalism” was first referenced by Fouron & Glick-Schiller (2001). 10 culture of the other” (Peters, 2009; p. 207). Overall, multimusicality allows teachers to promote a music education that extends beyond the realm of the classroom, providing students with the opportunity to acknowledge multiple ways of music expression both in their own society, as well as others (Koops, 2002; O’Flynn, 2005). Lack of Diversity in Multicultural Repertoire Including music from different styles and cultures in lessons, however, is more difficult if the music is not readily available to classroom teachers. Mason (2010) conducted a study in which she examined the presence of music from different countries in two main music textbook series publishers: Macmillan McGraw-Hill and Silver Burdett Ginn. She recognized that these two publishers were popular resources for classroom music teachers, and consequently investigated the representation of different countries and cultures in their textbook series: Music Connection, Making Music (Silver Burdett Ginn), Share the Music and Spotlight on Music (MacMillan McGraw-Hill). She found that nearly 50% of the songs were United States folksongs in both McGraw-Hill and Silver Burdett Ginn, with the next highest category being African American music at 5.78% and 5.10%, respectively (Mason, 2010). Mason advocates for greater diversity and representation in the repertoire presented in elementary music textbooks available to teachers. She argues that teachers and students can achieve respect for different cultures through equal representation, not only in the number of countries represented through song repertoire, but with how frequently those songs are suggested for use across grade levels so long as the way in which they are brought in to the classroom represents the music culture with integrity. 11 Simmons (2008) conducted a similar study, comparing music textbook series from Silver Burdett and Ginn and their parent publishing companies from the late 1800s to 2006. In this study, Simmons examined the origins of folksongs specifically designated for 4th grade students. Similar to Mason (2010), Simmons noticed that the majority of repertoire originated in the United States. Simmons (2008) and Mason (2010) also conclude that, while textbooks are becoming more global in expanding their repertoire choices past the United States, they still are leaving out many cultures. Both researchers suggest that more study is needed to determine if music textbooks as a whole neglect as many countries’ folksongs as the Silver Burdett and Ginn music textbook series do. Mason (2010) and Simmons (2008) are not the only researchers who recognized that there is a dearth in representation of repertoire from different cultures. Abril (2006), Campbell (2002), and Palmer (1992) also expressed frustration with the lack of accessible repertoire. Integrity of Song Unfortunately, much of the repertoire use in music classrooms does not adequately embody the culture of its origin. Volk (1998) fears that ‘inauthentic’ songs often can lead to misrepresentation of cultures and perpetuate stereotypical ideas about certain peoples. Thus, it is important to choose music that represents each culture with integrity. Finding quality music, however, is difficult when music textbooks are publishing repertoire that is not representative of the cultural intricacies and contexts in which the songs would be presented or performed in their culture of origin. For example, it is common for textbooks to translate songs into English and then expect teachers to use the English version as a way of culturally representing the song. 12 Kelly-McHale (2013) conducted a case study in which a classroom teacher was asked to incorporate Mexican repertoire in her curriculum because of the large population of Mexican immigrant and second-generation Mexican immigrants students in the school. In an effort to be more culturally responsive, the music teacher first taught “The Wheels on the Bus” in English and then taught the class the song in Spanish. The teacher assumed that, by translating the song to some of her students’ native tongue, she would be a responsive teacher. However, “The Wheels on the Bus” is not a song that exists in Mexican students’ music culture. Thus, she took a Western song and adapted it for the students in a way that did not represent their culture. While this is a common first-step one might take when trying to be a culturally responsive teacher, teachers should recognize that songs often have more context beyond language. When interviewed, the teacher believed she was engaging in culturally responsive pedagogy and impacting her students in a positive way. Yet, when Kelly-McHale interviewed some of the Mexican students, they stated that they did not feel comfortable with the activity and pointed out how the song felt foreign to them, despite its being translated in Spanish. What Kelly-McHale found was that the Mexican children did not appreciate the incorporation of Spanish translations of American songs into the music classroom and were embarrassed when learning them with their non-Mexican peers. While the teacher was attempting to be responsive to the Mexican students in her classroom, they conflated culture with language. The teacher effectively incorporated the Spanish language in to her teaching and a next step would be for the teacher to consider beyond language and into personal affinities or aspects of culture than may enhance the students’ experiences. Kelly-McHale’s study is an example of a classroom music teacher misrepresenting the culture of students in an attempt to engage in culturally responsive teaching. Since culturally 13 responsive teaching is about representing the culture in ways that students recognize and own, simply translating text is not enough. In this case, teaching music through a Western lens devalued the musical experience of the children. Yet, this type of translation is a common first attempt of classroom teachers (Abril, 2006; Mason, 2010; Minks, 2002). The lack of sociocultural understanding surrounding this classroom experience does not foster the development of musical identities for children of any heritage. In this scenario, some children are experiencing their own culture’s songs in an unfamiliar language, while others are experiencing their primary language paired with repertoire that is not part of their culture. Introducing music from different cultures in a way that does not accurately represent the music of that culture can further engender the isolation and alienation for students whose music is not in the dominant group of repertoire taught in schools (Kelly-McHale, 2013). Teachers should turn to their students as resources when looking for repertoire to bring in to the classroom, as it can help prevent isolation and alienation from happening. Campbell (2002) also recognizes that, while there has been a paradigm shift toward focusing more attention on including music of multiple cultures in the classroom, the issue of how teachers engage those cultures lies in the availability and type of accessible repertoire. She acknowledges that there is an economical reason for the lack of appropriate repertoire, as it is far easier and more economical for teachers to use a textbook series with fully-notated melodies and instructional packages than to find professional recordings from people of each culture, or seek culture bearers that can transmit the music. Sometimes, however, printing music in Western notation can make the music insensitive in and of itself. Hess (2017, 2018) argues that presenting music through a Western classical notational system is antithetical to some music cultures. While a teacher may have positive intentions when introducing a song through Western notation, doing 14 so for a type of musicking that is not typically transmitted through notation changes the nature of the musicking. In fact, the way music is transmitted between people may be an important facet of the music style in a particular culture. Many songs outside of the Western classical music paradigm come from aural/oral traditions, and learning songs through notation does not allow one to capture most of the performance nuances of songs. Teachers should strive to learn music of different cultures in a way that most accurately represents how music of that culture is transferred from one person to another; however, not all teachers have the time nor resources to become fully literate in musicking outside the Western classical canon, resulting in notated songs to facilitate their learning. While music notation may be necessary for some teachers to learn the music, teachers must be aware that the means by which they teach the song to their students might not be appropriate if they do so through notation. For example, children learning a song by rote or with movement and dance may be truer to the integrity of the song. With Western classical canon being the focal point of most undergraduate music education curricula, teachers educated in those curricula often disregard that there are other ways to transmit and engage with music than through notation. For example, one could incorporate songs from another music culture through listening, if that is a way in which people from that culture would engage with the music. Largey (2014) details the importance of recordings in the development of national ties for those who live outside their homeland’s borders with regards to Haitians living in the United States. In his research, he discusses the importance of both live and professional recordings of Haitian Rara music around the Lenten season and how access to this kind of media allows Haitians living abroad to remain connected to this important cultural event (Largey, 2014). Zenker (2004) also supports the idea of media as a main platform for circulating music and points to the importance of this type of informal musiking in many cultures. In his 15 categorization of media, he includes “television, radio, [and] movies,” though he also lists “musical toys, music on the computer, and video games” as additional sources for informal music contexts (p. 123). Teachers should expand their approach to music in the classroom to include informal ways in which music may be transmitted to students if they truly want to foster a connection between a students’ experiences with music inside and outside of the classroom. Music is a powerful medium that is contextually laden. Lucy Green (2006) discusses the idea of “delineated” and “inherent” meanings in her research on popular music in the classroom. Inherent meanings refer to the personal affinities people develop for certain musics during their lifetime, whereas delineated meanings are defined as: “extra-musical concepts or connotations that music carries, that is, its social, cultural, religious, political or other such associations” (p. 2). Providing music as a resource to teachers without proper contextual information as to how the music may function in a particular music culture deprives both teachers and students from the experience of engaging with the music in a way that represents the culture with integrity. Textbooks often provide little guidance about how to teach a song with sensitivity, and it is this lack of guidance about which researchers interested in culturally responsive or multiculturalism in the music classroom express concern (Abril, 2006). Transplanting music from one culture to another will always result in compromises, for there is no way to achieve “absolute authenticity” (Palmer, 1992). Palmer identifies that the more important question is, “what degree compromise is acceptable before the essence of a music is lost and no longer representative of the tradition under study?” (p. 32). Music of all cultures should be viewed with respect in the classroom, and not just as an aesthetic. Only since the early 1990s have music textbook companies realized that integrity of song and cultural authenticity must be represented in their series’ (Palmer, 1992). Over two decades later, not much has 16 changed in terms of the information that accompanies music from different cultures, nor in the representation of music cultures (Mason, 2010). It is nearly impossible to have a truly “authentic” experience in learning music from other cultures unless you are immersed in the culture itself. Nonetheless, this notion should not excuse teachers from doing their best to teach music from different cultures with sensitivity and awareness. Teachers should take advantage of what their school community has to offer and reach out to their students and local community for resources and repertoire that musically represent the cultures of students in their classrooms. When that is not possible, teachers may need to explore other outlets. Italian repertoire for children is an example of this, as there is a dearth in Italian songs available to American classroom music teachers (Mason, 2010; Simmons, 2008). The Italian Connection I travelled to Italy in search of Italian songs appropriate for elementary-aged children to fill the void of Italian repertoire available for elementary music teachers. Annually, a composition festival for children’s music takes place in Bologna named, Lo Zecchino d’Oro and I was particularly interested in songs that were composed specifically for presentation at this festival. Lo Zecchino d’Oro provides a plethora of songs for children of all ages and has had a significant influence on the Italian children’s musical canon. The festival and its music, however, is unknown to most outside of Italy, despite its importance in Italian culture. 17 Brief Background of Italy4 The country of Italy, formally known as Repubblica Italiana, comprises 17 distinct regions, has a total population surpassing 60 million, and is roughly the size of California. Also known as “lo stivale” or, “the boot,” Italy is distinctive in its geographical makeup, ranging from coastal cities to small rural towns and mountain villages. This Mediterranean country is a popular tourist location due to its fashion industry, prized food and wine culture, and capital city full of significant ancient historical landmarks. The official spoken language is Italian, though many citizens speak English, particularly in popular tourist areas. While Italian is the primary language, the difference in dialect from Northern to Southern Italy is quite dramatic, with many people from one region being unable to understand those from another. German, and French also are spoken in some Northern regions, as they share a border with nations that speak those languages. Vatican City, the epicenter of Roman Catholicism, is located in Rome. As such, Catholicism still has a heavy influence on the nation, with most Italians subscribing to that religion. Italian Communities in America5 Italian people have been immigrating to the United States since the early 1800s, but the largest number of immigrant arrivals took place during early 20th century. The majority of Italian immigrants arrived from Southern Italian regions, looking for agricultural work and a chance to escape poverty, although some people from the North immigrated as well to escape political strife. Of the Italian immigrants who entered in the U.S. in the early 1900s, only 50 percent 4 General background information on Italy can be found at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Italy 5 General background retrieved from: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~molna22a/classweb/politics/Italianhistory.html 18 returned to Italy, with the remaining staying to build communities in the areas to which they immigrated. Currently, Italian-Americans represent the fifth largest ethnic group in the United States and are in almost every state of the country, with the most concentrated regions being New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston6. Though these cities contain the largest populations of Italian immigrants, their influence is not limited to the city center as many families move outside of the city limits to start communities in nearby suburban communities as well. Italian Festivals Italy is a country known for its many festivals that take place in various regions. From the Fish Sagra in Camogli (a festival of fish most likely attributed to the patron saint of Camogli) to the famous Palio of Sienna, one can argue that Italians have a festival to celebrate on every day of the year. Ethnographers have studied the festivals and stressed their importance in Italian culture and their interrelatedness to cultural identity (Crociani-Windland, 2011; Field, 1990; Tak, 2000). Field (1990) writes that festivals “are a form of communion” and have been bringing friends and families together to celebrate for centuries (pg. 4). She also writes that people give up days and weeks of time to plan and prepare for certain festivals. Many festivals bring multiple regions and communities together, as persons from all over the country gather to celebrate (Field, 1990; Tak, 2000). There was a critical period following the end of WWII during which some festivals were dying out or losing their grandiose nature (Field, 1990; Tak, 2000). Recently, tourist offices have 6 Population information retrieved from: http://www.pbs.org/destinationamerica/usim_wn_noflash_5.html 19 reinstated many of the festivals that ended during that period to promote tourism and to reconnect local communities with their historical culture. Some festivals did, however, survive by adapting to more modern practices and traditions (Field, 1990; Tak, 2000). Ethnographers have written much, both in Italian and English, on the famous il Palio festival in Sienna, as it is so important to Italian history and culture. However, little research exists discussing other festivals that take place throughout the country. For example, little research or articles exist that describe the festival of Lo Zecchino d’Oro, the annual international composition festival for children’s music. What research does exist is only available in the form of theses or dissertations through the Antoniano Institute archival director. The Lack of Study on Italian Children’s Songs Italian instrumental and vocal music are predominant influences on the United States musical canon; yet, there is a surprising lack of music for children from Italy in United States repertoire (Mason, 2010; Simmons, 2008). While Italy’s musical impact has permeated past its own borders, influencing the development of other Western music cultures, most of that influence is centered around classical composers, such as Verdi and Rossini, and their great works. As such, there is a considerable amount of instrumental and vocal repertoire available to learn and perform for adults and professional musicians. Lack of representation in music textbook series. Mason’s (2010) found that less than .81% of music represented in MacMillan McGraw-Hill Music textbooks from 1995-2006 and .60% in the Silver Burdett Ginn Music textbooks from 1995-2005 was Italian. However, Mason clarifies that she did not specify the nature in which the songs were represented. For instance, she did not note whether the songs were instrumental recordings, vocal recordings, or vocal 20 arrangements designed to be performed by students. Additionally, Mason revealed that there were many inconsistencies in how the textbooks labeled songs from edition to edition, with some labeled as “from the United States” in 1995, but in later editions, labeled as “African American,” as an example. Simmons (2008) also noticed a dearth of Italian songs, noting only one song in The Music Connection in 1995 for fourth grade students. Moreover, her analysis of the 2005 version of Making Music did not list any Italian songs for fourth grade students. The need for ethnomusicological study of Lo Zecchino d’Oro. In ethnomusicological and educational research, there is little concerning Italian songs for children. In fact, the inception of Lo Zecchino d’Oro in 1959 marks the first time Italian children’s music gained popularity. Lo Zecchino d’Oro is an annual composition festival for children’s music that takes place in Bologna, Italy. This festival, which began in Milan in 1959, serves as a contemporary source of Italian music for children. The music is accessible to children throughout the country through a variety of platforms, but the primary resource is the Rai Uno national television network, which hosts Lo Zecchino d’Oro on live television during the festival week. Each year, songs are welcomed from composers within Italy and as well as from other countries, and 12 songs are chosen by music professionals as the top submissions. The songs must have Italian text. A panel of 10 children ranging in age from 5-12 years old decide upon the single winner from among the 12 songs. Additionally, there are three well-known adult guest panelists that take part in commentary for the primary purpose of monitoring subjectivity in judging (Interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Rossi, 2007). Typically, the top one to three songs that win within their competition year become popular in their generation, with a number of the songs becoming a part of the Italian folksong culture in future generations (Rossi, 2007); however, 21 these songs are largely unknown outside of Italy, despite their unique musical attributes and cultural importance. This festival serves as a great resource in understanding the repertoire that Italian children learn while growing up. Yet, no research is available on this festival for English- speaking scholars, and little exists in Italian. In the Michigan State University library and through a database search, the only resource related to the festival was an old Disney comic book in Italian, found in the reserve section of the library, with Zecchino d’Oro songs serving as the plot lines (Gentilini, 1969). In terms of research, the only English resource that has made reference to the festival is a research report titled, “Musical identification skills of children with specific language impairment” (Mari et. al, 2015) in the International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders. In this article, the authors investigate the relationship of musical skills and language impairment with a group of Italian students. They used three popular songs from the festival in their research, because the children were familiar with them. The authors were professors at Cattolica University of the Sacred Hart in Rome, Italy, so it is probable that this study was conducted in Italy. However, when the research was translated into English for the journal, the titles were not spelled correctly in their English translation nor in the original Italian. Thus, they did not appear in database searches7. More important, while music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro exists and is an important part of Italian children’s lives, there has been no transmission of these songs to American classrooms. They do not appear in common classroom resources and are unfamiliar outside of Italy. With a lack of Italian repertoire for children available for teachers, it is difficult to employ a multimusicality framework in lesson planning. Thus, ethnomusicological study is 7 In fact, this article was only brought to my attention because a graduate colleague read it because of her interest in language development. 22 warranted to explore Italian music for children from Lo Zecchino d’Oro. O’Flynn (2005) supports the ethnomusicological method stating that this study allows the researcher “to learn the music of the ‘other’ culture in order to interpret adequately its sociomusical aspects” (p. 200). Conducting ethnomusicological fieldwork is an experience that allows the researcher to understand different ways in which music occurs in societies (Barz, 2008). This is partly due to the importance of fieldnotes as a technique of ethnomusicological research. Fieldnotes allow the ethnographer to write down a witnessed (or performed) experience, reflect on the experience, and then interpret the experience. Fieldnotes are a “significant opportunity to pivot between experience and understanding, explanation and knowing” Barz, 2008; p. 2). Due to the complexity of the Zecchino d’Oro festival, it is impossible to fully understand the nuances of how both the festival and songs of the festival exist in Italian society without ethnomusicological study. Tak (2000) research Italian festivals in Southern Italy and asserted that Italian festivals are intricate and complex; one cannot fully capture the nuances of a festival unless they participate for themselves. This suggests that I must be in Italy to collect festival music and dissect the role of Lo Zecchino d’Oro in Italian children’s music culture. Summary Fostering multimusicality in the classroom is difficult when there is a lack of resources for teachers to refer to when looking from repertoire from a variety of music cultures. While it is nearly impossible to have every country represented across each grade level and in each textbook, the lack of Italian music is unexpected, considering how many regions across the United States have cultural ties to Italy. Thus, there is a need for ethnographic research collecting Italian music for children. While conducting ethnomusicological study of Lo Zecchino d’Oro 23 will provide insight into the cultural phenomenon of the festival and how Italian children engage with its music, I must also consider situating those songs meaningfully within Italian culture to enable music teachers to provide a multimusical experience for the children Teachers must be able to relate to their students on a cultural level, but for some cultures that are not well- represented in educational materials, including Italian culture, teachers do not have access to music repertoire and resources that provide cultural context for that repertoire so that they can relate meaningfully to students through music instruction (Abril, 2006; Kelly-McHale, 2013). It is not enough simply to collect Italian songs for children and assume that teachers will have the means to include them in their classroom lessons in culturally sensitive ways. Teachers also must have information on the social and historical contexts in which the songs are engaged by children in Italy, in addition to culturally sensitive ways of lining the songs up with common music curricula. It is my hope that this ethnographic study of Lo Zecchino d’Oro will support culturally responsive pedagogy for teachers who work with students of Italian heritage and help American music students understand the world of their peers more fully through the lens of multimusicality. Purpose and Problems The purpose of this qualitative study is to collect songs from the annual Italian music composition festival for children, Lo Zecchino d’Oro, and investigate their significance in Italian society so that they can be contextualized for use in American elementary music classrooms. Problems of this study include the following: (a) To present a collection of children’s songs from Italy, (b) To provide contextual cultural information about each song and, 24 (c) To develop age-appropriate suggestions for American music teachers who wish to incorporate these songs into their elementary music classroom settings. 25 CHAPTER II RELATED RESEARCH Ethnographers Experiences in Collecting Children’s Songs Blacking: Venda Children’s Song Blacking (1967) was a respected ethnomusicologist and social anthropologist known for his work in collecting Venda children’s songs. When he first traveled to the Republic of South Africa, his goal was to understand the relationship between Venda children’s music and Venda adult music. Blacking understood that, in order to fully understand the complexity of a musical culture, one first must look at children’s music. What Blacking found was unexpected, however, in that he discovered that children’s music of the Venda people was more difficult than their adult music. He recognized that this was atypical, as usually children’s music provides a foundation for the musical development that leads to the ability to participate in more complex adult music. Blacking’s research is unique for its time in that he strove to connect the anthropological existence of music and the musical and cultural analyses of Venda children’s song. His publication, Venda’s Children Songs, consists of 56 transcriptions accompanied by song text, appropriate notation, and contextual information regarding practice and performance. The collection is organized according to Venda classifications that he identified through his research. For this study, Blacking spent 22 months collecting data through observation, recordings, and interviews with both children and adults. Each song was performed several times by multiple people (both children and adults), and Blacking recorded each performance. He conducted musical analyses to determine rhythmic and melodic qualities of each song and used his 26 judgment in deciding how to represent the performances in music notation. Blacking transcribed the songs using informal notation, because he felt that the integrity of the music resided primarily in the cultural context of its performance rather than in Westernized notation of the song. Furthermore, he stressed that one cannot fully understand the essential meaning behind a song without explaining the structure of the song’s context. In search for the cultural context of each song, Blacking conducted many interviews with both adults and children. In these interviews, he explored the popularity of different songs, text meanings, and the decisions singers made concerning certain rhythmic complexities. He also investigated Venda children’s perceptions of the metric organization of each song. The information gained from these interviews illuminated the connection between musical structural development and cultural traditions. Ultimately, songs were created structurally in relation to social patterns occurring among the children. According to Blacking, for the Venda people, musical content was subordinate to cultural context. The events and traditions forming and shaping the music were more important than the tonal and rhythmic content of that music. However, Blacking argued that the metric organization of the songs was contextually important because they were shaped on social patterns among the children. Thus, the idea of understanding the cultural context of Venda music was essential to understanding the function of music in their society. Blacking opened the door for the ethnomusicological study of children’s folksong by conducting this study in the early 1960’s. In seeking to understand the difference between music for children and adults of the Venda people, Blacking’s study was thorough and extensive. His work provides contextual information for each of the 56 songs collected, along with the transcriptions, making children’s music of the Venda people more accessible to 27 ethnomusicologists and educators alike. While the aim of my study is to provide music and contextual information on songs from Italy, my study differs from Blacking’s in the scope of songs studied. I collected a smaller assortment of songs, given that the length of my fieldwork took place over the course of 6 weeks, as opposed to 22 months. Furthermore, my project is also different in that I also include a section discussing different ways in which each song could be integrated into music classrooms in the U.S. while still maintaining the integrity of the song. Additionally, much of my contextual information is based on observations, interviews, and resources provided by the Antoniano Institute (hosts of Lo Zecchino d’Oro festival). It is my hope that this step will make the music more accessible to U.S. music teachers and will promote culturally responsive teaching in the music classroom because of the extent of information presented with each song. Koops: Children’s Music in The Gambia Koops (2002) traveled to The Gambia in West Africa with the purpose of collecting children’s songs and games to transcribe for use in an American music classroom. Koops was a music educator in the United States whose fulltime job at the time of the study was teaching kindergarten through fifth grade general music. She had the opportunity to travel to The Gambia through family relations, which served as the impetus for this study. During her initial visit, Koops engaged with children of The Gambia and became interested in the songs and games they shared with her. Upon her return to The States, she designed a study for her thesis in which she would collect Gambian songs and games, provide context for their performance, and outline a lesson plan for classroom teachers to follow when integrating the songs and games into their curriculum. 28 Koops strongly believed that games are an important foundation in a music education curriculum and recognized through her personal journey to The Gambia that they also had cultural purpose for Gambian children. For the purpose of this study, she sought to collect 10-15 songs during her month-long trip to The Gambia. She originally was concerned with finding songs that were suitable in terms of story content for American primary classrooms, since her original visit exposed her mainly to songs that centered around classroom content that would be inappropriate in music classrooms in the United States, although that content was important to and appropriate in the cultural systems of Gambian peoples. However, upon her return she found many songs that were suitable in terms of content and functionality for use in the music classroom. For instance, she was able to collect many dance and clapping songs that would work well in the context of a primary music classroom in the United States. Koops, however, learned that many of the songs she saw the children singing were not as game-oriented as she had originally thought. Thus, she expanded her definition of “games” for the context of this study to include clapping and chanting. She recognized that, for Gambian children, the songs were not so much focused on competition but rather on cooperation. That being said, she did point out that there was an obvious difference in participation among boys and girls, with girls participating in the majority of songs. The boys showed more interest in playing soccer, though they were familiar with most of the songs. Koops noticed a clear difference in gender roles in the musical culture of The Gambia among children. A stated goal of Koops’s research was to provide repertoire that would represent a variety of musical components that would be useful and appropriate in her own U.S. classroom. Her collection represents a variety of meters and rhythms but is less varied in tonality. Koops points out that this is due to Gambian music generally placing more emphasis on rhythmic qualities 29 than tonal qualities. Koops chose to present the collection in Western notation to make the music more accessible to U.S. classroom music teachers, whose philosophies and methodologies tend to lean more towards standard Western notation and Eurocentric thought. Although her original intent was to outline lesson plans explicitly for teachers to follow when teaching each song, she opted instead for providing a brief descriptor of context and ideas for how to incorporate each song. Koops realized that, by creating structured lesson plans, she might limit the accessibility of her lesson plans, thus restricting the usefulness of her findings for teachers who differ in philosophy and methodology and would benefit more from ideas that help them make their own decisions about how to include Gambian music into their classroom. The contextual information serves as a guide to help teachers develop lesson plans that help maintain the integrity of the music. Koops’ study took place over the course of around 3 ½ weeks during the summer months. She acknowledged her insider participant view, as her in-laws had done extensive work in The Gambia and were able to provide her with housing and linguistic support. She also had spent time there before, so she had some understanding about the context in which she would be working and had studied Mandinka for more than a year prior to beginning the study. Koops was able to collect material for her study in a short period of time, because she was fully immersed in the study while visiting The Gambia. She organized her study into two phases, the first being the time spent in The Gambia recording music and conducting interviews with the children. The second phase consisted of transcribing chosen songs from the recorded data. Koops acknowledges that she felt successful overall, despite some unexpected interruptions in her project. However, those interruptions functioned as learning processes that guided her research in directions that were purposeful to the study. For instance, she quickly learned that, because the 30 songs are generally passed down over many generations, she and the children were not able to identify who originally created most of the songs. As mentioned earlier, she also reexamined the definition of children games in the context of Gambian musical culture. For future study, Koops suggested that researchers continue to examine other cultural settings around the world to collect children songs and games for use in American classrooms. She believes that her work and that of future researchers can continue to support the ideal of multimusicality and enable teachers to introduce students to a variety of musical practices. Koops’s research was integral in helping me design my study, for we both had the same structural goal in mind when collecting children’s music. While Koops’s purpose was more focused on the importance of children’s game in the music classroom, the conclusions mentioned above are relative to my central goal of engaging teachers in multicultural and culturally responsive teaching through making music from Italy more accessible. Similar to Koops, I had access to gatekeepers due to the professional relationship I had built with the former director of the Antoniano Institute, the hosts of the festival. I met the director during my initial studies in Italy in the Fall of 2013, since maintained a relationship with them, and collaborated with them on a Fulbright scholarship grant in Fall of 2015 to continue research on Lo Zecchino d’Oro. Though I only placed as a semi-finalist for the scholarship program, the director and I remained in touch during my first year of teaching when we hosted a virtual skype session between my school choir and the festival’s resident choir, Il piccolo coro. Though Koops and I had established gatekeepers prior to our visits, our studies vary in that the time spent in song collection for my study took place over the course of 6 weeks. Additionally, I had the advantage of being able to communicate relatively fluently in the participants’ native tongue, rather than 31 having to rely on a translator. These advantages helped facilitate the research process soon after I arrived in the country. Koops identifies several points that were crucial for my understanding in how to navigate ethnographic fieldwork of children’s music. For example, I did not think of the implications of gender roles in children music. Yet, as Koops pointed out, the boys wanted to sing less and play more soccer. Also, in regard to contextualizing the songs, Koops’ research encouraged me to make sure my suggestions for use in American classrooms do not restrict the usefulness of my implications to a prescribed methodology, theory, or approach. Children’s Music in the Mediterranean Pieridou-Skoutella: Children’s Music of Cyprus While Cyprus and Italy do not have a distinctive historical connection, Pieridou- Skoutella’s (2007) study illuminates how to conduct ethnomusicological research with children in a Western-influenced country. In this study, Pieridou-Skoutella examined the development and stratification of Cypriot nationalistic musical identities among children as a result of Westernization and globalization in addition to differences in regional locations. Her purpose was to identify ways in which the music education system in Cyprus could aid in helping students retain their national identity, for she believed that traditional songs were dissipating as a result of Eurocentric schooling. Pieriodou-Skoutella argued that folk music had always been associated with the national identities of Cypriots, for children oftentimes would form their identities through their musical preferences. She felt that, as Cyprus was becoming more Westernized, however, popular songs from other foreign countries (Greece, in particular) were beginning to replace Cypriot traditional music. This shift caused children of urban settings to be 32 less involved in musical traditions of the past, whereas children in rural areas still engaged in such traditions. This divide also was related to social class, as people living in urban settings in Cyprus generally were more affluent, and Pieridou-Skoutella believed that this caused a divide between the traditional musical cultures of the two areas. More affluent and elite areas tended to prefer Western music, while the poorer, working class areas were more attuned to older Cypriot music. To understand how children were identifying with Cypriot music in both regions more fully, Pieridou-Skoutella conducted an ethnographic study in which she observed and collected data in two locations: the urban city of Nicosia and rural area of the red villages. She conducted both semi-structured and un-structured interviews with children involved in the study. A total of 26 children from Nicosia, and 29 children from the red villages participated, ranging in age from 9 to 12. In observations, Pieridou-Skoutella noticed that songs in rural settings often were associated with social contexts and rituals such as weddings and religious celebrations. Additionally, she noted that rural areas of Cyprus are visited heavily by tourists and that the sustaining of musical traditions in those areas often was a result of tourism demands, as children in rural areas frequently engaged in musical performances for tourists. These same performances were not attended or presented by children of the cities, and, in Pieridou-Skoutella’s interviews, the children from Nicosia did not have much to say about Cypriot traditions because of their lack of familiarity with them. This difference in musical practice is what Pieridou-Skoutella describes as “rural enculturation processes” (p. 255), with rural children actively engaging in musical traditions and urban children lacking that opportunity. Pieridou-Skoutella believed that a clear divide existed between urban and rural musical traditions, placing urban children in a position that was resulting in their losing their cultural 33 heritage. While urban children recognized the need for Cypriot music, they also associated that same music with feelings of embarrassment. Pieridou-Skoutella observed urban students displaying insecurities when singing the songs from rural areas, if they knew them, because they were considered “peasant songs.” Pieridou-Skoutella categorized the children into three main national music identities: (1) Students identifying as social high class, favoring popular or foreign music (usually living in urban dwellings); (2) The largest group – students who put up a front of a Westernized self but genuinely yearned to participate in musical traditions for certain social contexts. These same children shared fears that their Cypriot dialect separated them from the Greeks, who they thought of as superior as a result of Westernization and the countries’ historical past; (3) The smallest group, which was the most stable in how they identify, were children strongly associating in Cypriot musical traditions (most typically living in rural areas). This spectrum shows how even a small country like Cyprus can have a variety of musical cultural identities. In conclusion, Pieridou-Skoutella argued that music textbooks in Cypriot urban schools were lacking in folk repertoire and that schools should help sustain Cypriot culture for children in urban settings by teaching them traditional Cypriot songs. She also asserted that “Cypriot formal music education avoids cultural diversity and differentiation, implicitly sending the message that Hellenism8 is a unified cultural and national entity” (p. 263). Pieridou-Skoutella advocated that engaging in music related to the identities of students is imperative to their learning; hence, her work supports the ideals of culturally sustaining teaching. Pieridou- Skoutella’s study is informative of how even a small country can have a variety of musical traditions. Her research is helpful in understanding how other countries can have an influence on 8 Hellenism is defined as devotion or imitation of ancient Greek thought (Bentwich, 1919) 34 cultural development and that national identities can change over time due to that influence. This is something I considered while conducting my study, as Western pop influence is pervasive in Italy. Delorenzi-Schenkel: Children’s Music of Greece Delorenzi-Schenkel (1987) conducted ethnographic work specific to Greek folk music for children. In her study, she observed and interviewed both urban and rural Greek children in their natural settings. Her work took place over the course of seven months in 1977 and 1978. Her ultimate goal was to present Greek repertoire for children and the socio-cultural context of that repertoire in terms of its regional values. Her research resulted in her collecting three songs that she learned during her fieldwork, which she then shared for the purpose of understanding their role in regional values, rather than for use in teaching. Delorenzi-Schenkel learned that there was an apparent regional difference in the manner in which songs and dances were learned by children, in addition to the overall structure of the repertoire. The primary reason for such stark regional differences in repertoire, Delorenzi-Schenkel argued, was because of the varying relationships between intermediaries and the children as recipients. In other words, children in urban areas were taught Greek folk music differently than children in rural areas. Furthermore, she noticed that the closer a village was to an expanding urban area, the more likely it was that Greek music was not transmitted to the children. In her study, children living in rural areas of Greece are characterized as knowing traditional children’s songs and music as well as songs tied to specific traditional customs. Conversely, as with those in Pieridou-Skoutella’s study, children living in urban areas associated more with foreign pop songs. Delorenzi-Schenkel recognized in her study that mass media and the music industry were 35 influencing the musical tastes of urban Greek children heavily. She asserted that this paradigm shift is a result of Western influence over the country, with foreign “disco” music playing on radios rather than Greek music. Urban children mostly perform foreign pop songs because of their exposure to them and rarely perform traditional Greek folk music, with the exception of when they are taught in school settings. Only children who moved to urban areas recently from a rural region knew traditional Greek songs. Thus, the repertoire of children’s music interests extends from folkloristic music to the latest disco hits, according to Delorenzi-Schenkel’s study. She notes that, while recordings of Greek children’s songs are available, they often are changed with the inclusion of Western harmonies and vocals by trained professional children rather than amateur performers. In Delorenzi-Schenkel’s study, Greek vocal music consists entirely of songs. She categorizes Greek folksongs for children into three main categories: (1) authentic children’s songs that originate from children themselves or are taken over from adult folk repertoire and sustained within children’s repertoire long after adults have forgotten them, (2) songs written for children by adults, and (3) songs from current adult repertoire that is sung by both adults and children (Delorenzi-Schenkel, 1987). Delorenzi-Schenkel provides more in-depth descriptions for each category, labeling the first as predominantly being sung by girls, the second as being part of school repertoire, and the third as being known by both genders, though boys noticeably learn the songs at an earlier age than girls. She notes that children who usurp adult music for their own appropriately adapt the music to their own musical capacities (i.e. excluding melismas or singing in child voice). Delorenzi-Schenkel also noticed that, in Greek society, boys and girls play and sing with each other until they reach school age (seven years-old), with the exception of certain traditional customs in which boy and girls are not allowed to participate together. 36 Afterwards, they tend to sing and play with their own sex. This division of the sexes has led to repertoire that is specific to boys or girls. While Delorenzi-Schenkel’s study provides a wealth of information on instrumental and vocal music for children, the most glaring implication is the difference between rural and urban musical identities in Greek children. She declares that the difference is most evident when it comes to traditional Greek dance, with urban children being significantly less familiar with them. As a result, the schools make efforts to incorporate them in to the curriculum in physical education classes. However, urban children often do not express an interest in learning the songs and are sometimes embarrassed when learning them. At the same time, Delorenzi-Schenkel noted that the children were not comfortable with the foreign songs that were taught in the music classroom either, for the transition to Westernized schooling brings patterns and melodies to the classroom that are unfamiliar and ultimately foreign to the students. Delorenzi-Schenkel’s work is important to consider in the context of my own research because of the political and historical past Greece and Italy share with each other. Both countries are regarded for their ancient historical influences in religion and politics. Furthermore, Greece and Italy have had close diplomatic ties since the early 1800s. There are several parts of Italy that are home to Greek-Italians, as there are several regions in Greece that are home to Italian- Greeks9. Thus, understanding music for children in Greece may help in understanding music for children in Italy. Delorenzi-Schenkel also emphasizes the distinction in musical identity between rural and urban areas as a main conclusion of her research. Additionally, one of Delorenzi- Schenkel’s concerns in her conclusions was the influence of pop music in urban settings. She believed that their presence was diminishing the role of Greek folksong in the children’s lives. 9 Information about Greece and Italy’s ties retrieved from: http://www.mfa.gr/en/blog/greece-bilateral- relations/italy/ 37 Due to the nature of Lo Zecchino d’Oro as a mass-mediated event, the influence of pop music in Italy could be important to consider. Delorenzi-Schenkel also notes the varying gender and age roles of children and their relationship to children’s interest in the festival. One goal of my research is to understand the target population of children who listen to music of the festival both in regard to gender and age. The Prominence of Italian Festivals Crociani-Windland: Central Italian Festivals There is no published research in English detailing the significance of Lo Zecchino d’Oro in Bologna. However, there are some written ethnographic reports that describes the role of festivals in various regions throughout Italy. One of the most significant festivals that takes place annually in Italy is Sienna’s Palio, the famous running of the horses in July and August. Crociani-Windland (2011) began her case study of four different Central Italian festivals in Tuscany with il Palio in August of 2000. Her research goals were to develop a greater understanding of the different relationship dynamics between community, identity, and tradition and how each of them are explored and expressed through ritual and performance within the festival. Crociani-Windland also hoped to explore the role of festivals and rituals in the process of maintaining continuity through changing times. The four case studies included il Palio of Sienna, Bruscello poliziano and Bravio delle botti of Motelpulciano, and teatro povero of Monticchiello. Crociani-Windland’s fieldwork began in August of 2000 at il Palio. Her research affirmed the notion that the festival is strongly intertwined strongly with social and political contexts. She noted that il Palio was able to keep its dynamic identity through small changes that 38 have occurred with each year; yet, it remains one of the most stable festivals throughout Italy because of its strong social and political ties. In Montepulciano, Crociani-Windland explored two festivals: Bruscello Poliziano and Bravio delle Botti. Both are recently revived medieval festivals. Crociani-Windland’s research on the Bruscello theatre festival was in 2001. Her case study examined the performance of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Giulietta, a play with strong cultural ties to Italy as its setting is in Verona. The play also embodied one of Crociani- Windland’s major research themes: the interrelatedness of land, body, language, and identity. She concluded that the Bruscello Theatre’s performances represented individualism, a quality that citizens of Montepulciano strongly longed for due to the pace of industrialization that they were experiencing in their community. Likewise, this theme was a reason for the Bravio delle botti festival. Also in Montepulciano, this barrel-race festival is a participatory festival that strengthens the connection of the people to their land. Both festivals were revived in response to industrialization and have adapted to modern day elements that did not exist when they first were celebrated. The fourth festival Crociani-Windland visited was the 2002 performance of TEPOPOTRATOS at the Monticchiello theatre. Though this festival took the form of a singular play, it functioned like a festival, bringing communities together to partake in learning about their country’s history and continues to take place each year. Crociani-Windland was fascinated by the themes represented in the story and advocated for researchers to consider this festival as being tied more prominently to Italian cultural identity. The play’s theme is centered around ‘fossilization,’ ‘museumification,’ and the conflicts surrounding the villages’ struggle for survival as it faces the loss of the sharecropping industry. The play features peasant-families, which Crociani-Windland argues is the reason citizens of Monticchiello identify so strongly with 39 the play. She explains that this play functions as a bridge between the past and modern time through its medieval quality that is adapted to modern speech and rhyme. Crociani-Windland’s conclusions on all four case studies lead to one central theme: tension between the old and new, resulting in a fight for continuity in changing, complex, transforming festivals. She states that each festival’s change (in the case of il Palio’s slight adaptions as time passes) or revival (in the cases in Montepulciano and Monticchiello) were a signal of a “problem/idea.” In other words, communities were undergoing challenges that were testing their cultural identities, and they fought against the challenges by finding new ways to express themselves through the festivals. Crociani-Windland also suggested that traditions are always changing due to external and internal factors. She also argues that the lack of research on Italian festivals is perhaps due to the fact that they must be experienced to fully understand. The amount of time that Crociani-Windland spent at each place is not stated in her resulting novel describing her research. However, she did make it clear that she was able to navigate the festivals and knew the intricacies of their ways from her previous visit to Tuscany three years before this ethnographic study. In addition to wanting to learn more about these four case studies and their relationships to cultural identity, Crociani-Windland, who had Italian roots, strove to develop a better understanding of her own ties to the country. She wrote that her experience was informative on multiple levels, both academically and individually, for “it is only through this intensive study and its emphasis on reflexivity that I have been able to truly appreciate how places make people, who in turn make places” (p. 180). This relationship is relevant to my work, in that the research conducted for this study was in response to previous visits to the country wherein I discovered music from the festival. Crociani-Windland’s research is revealing in that, aside from il Palio, not many 40 researchers have published ethnographic accounts of Italian festivals. However, her study differs from mine in that she was not studying music, nor children’s music specifically. Moreover, her focus was to understand the changes that occurred with each festival as a result of tension in maintaining cultural identity. Although I did not originally suspect that Zecchino d’Oro would have faced much contention over the past 60 years, one of the resources the Antoniano Institute gave me outlined economic, social, and political hardships Italy faced during each festival year and how those hardships impacted the festival, relating to Crociani-Windland's arguments. More important, Crociani-Windland’s argument that the lack of research on Italian festivals is in part due to the fact that one must experience them is something I considered deeply. While I was able to work closely with the Antoniano Institute, I did not conduct my research during the prime festival week. When the festival week occurred October of 2017 three months following the end of my research, I did wish to be back in Bologna for a more intimate and informative experience. Crociani-Windland conducted most of her research on her four case studies during limited times that were specific to the festival events and was able to learn a formidable amount about them. I did have the opportunity to participate as a VIP onlooker in the Fall of 2013 when I first visited Italy, so I do have some sense of the intricacies of the festival during the live premiere week. Tak: Southern Italian Festivals Herman Tak (2000) offers his perspective on the multiple festivals that take place in Calvello, a town in the Bascilicata region of Italy. In his research, Tak sought to explain the relationship between continuity and change in Southern Italian rituals, as influenced by political, social, and economic change. His argument was that, to consider parts of a ritual as ‘changed,’ one must be a participant in the ritual and make clear in their research that they offer only one 41 perspective. For the purpose of his ethnographic research, Tak was a participant observer. He conducted his field research over the course of three periods and made preliminary trips to Italy in May and September of 1989 to establish connections and gain insight on how to plan his trip. Fieldwork specifically took place from January of 1990 until March of 1991. While fieldnotes and observations were the most predominant data of Tak’s research, he also used oral history, iconography, topography, and local archives to aid in his research. During his time in Calvello, Tak witnessed the celebration of over thirty holidays. He also happened to be studying the rituals in Calvello during a critical period in their history, for there was much transition of power, economic, and social change occurring in the early 1990s in Calvello. Many of the festivals in Calvello were considered to be agrarian festivals that some scientists predicted would be eradicated due to fast modernization of rituals and regions across Italy. Yet, Tak found that the agrarian festivals were ever more prominent during this time period; they provided a way for the local communities to have some sense of power and control over maintaining their cultural identities. Tak describes many of the festivals he observed as cultural expressions of unity and local independence. Tak’s research effort was not to explain and detail the specific components of each festival in Calvello. Rather, he sought to understand and explain why the festivals continually are changing through time and the importance behind the concept of change in these specific festivals. He analyzed the dialectic between local reworking of rituals and the internal and external power forces behind the change. Ultimately, Tak concluded that, while there was a shift in the importance of certain rituals from the 1950s onwards, many traditions were revitalized and created during his time in Calvello in the 1990s. The communities came together during this time because of the external forces that were causing them to want to fight to maintain their cultural 42 identities, and, according to Calvello, this was combated through the creation and celebration of rituals and festivals. Tak argues, however, one cannot draw conclusions without participating in the festivals themselves with an insider perspective to witness how the changes came about. He suggests from this conclusion that researchers might gain more analytical insight by experiencing rituals in real time. Although Tak makes no detailed mention of the role of music in the rituals and festivals of Calvello, his work is informative for my study because he stresses the importance of festivals in Italian culture. For one, Tak described how festivals often are created as a way to bring communities together and to help them maintain their cultural identities. Perhaps the birth of Lo Zecchino d’Oro in 1959 was as a result of the need for Italian children to have Italian music as a way to help them develop a stronger musical identity through Italian culture. In my study, I strove to answer this question and expound upon the impetus of its creation. What also is illuminating about Tak’s research is how many rituals and festivals were redefined over time. An anthology written about of Lo Zecchino d’Oro from its inception to 2007 is the only primary resource that shares the progression of Lo Zecchino d’Oro’s development throughout Italian history, and it is written entirely in Italian, which complicates my ability to understand the changes in Lo Zecchino d’Oro over time. Tak’s findings are informative, because he mentions that not only did he refer to ethnographic fieldnotes and observations to draw his conclusions, but that iconography and archival information also were pertinent to his research. Archival evidence also is crucial to my study because the most information that exists about songs of Lo Zecchino d’Oro is the archived videos from its first festival through the 2016 festival, with songs that are more popular logged as having more views. Tak asserts his belief that a researcher will not understand the intricacies of the festival fully unless they experience 43 the festival for themselves. This suggests that I must be in Italy and attend the festival to collect festival music and dissect the role of Lo Zecchino d’Oro in Italian children’s musical culture to have the most insightful understanding of its role. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to experience the festival live during my first visit to Italy in the Fall of 2013, which gave me a fuller perspective of how the festival culminates in the single week of televised premieres. Ethnography and Music Education Peters: Students Conducting Ethnographic Research on Italian Music This qualitative research study explores process of implementing ethnography as a framework into the music classroom. During her time as a secondary music educator in Canada, Peters (2009) realized that many of her students identified as having Italian heritage and that the community surrounding the school at which she worked also had a large Italian-Canadian population. Peters wanted to develop a greater understanding of her students’ sociomusical contexts and bridge the gap between community and school musicking. She designed a project for students to employ ethnographic research techniques to learn more about themselves and the surrounding community. It was her hope that, by guiding students as amateur anthropologists, she would foster a learning environment in which students could develop a great understanding of their peers and personal identities. All students participated in leading ethnographic fieldwork, but Peters only analyzed data from 13 students for this study. Nearly half of the participants were of Italian heritage, while xother students represented different cultural backgrounds. When conducting research, students were asked to observe festivals, celebrations and interactions within the community. Additionally, they conducted face-to-face interviews with people in the community to learn more 44 about music in Italian-Canadian society. Outings were documented in the form of fieldnotes, and both fieldnotes and interviews served as data. Peters also wrote her own fieldnotes detailing how students went about the process. Two main research questions guided Peters’s study: (1) What is the nature of teaching and learning in a secondary music classroom focusing on a local music culture? (2) How does a selected group of secondary students represent their understandings of local music culture, including concepts, beliefs, and values embedded in cultural practices (Peters, 2009, p. 203). After analyzing all data, Peters identified three themes that emerged in students’ writing: (1) preservation, (2) the function of music and, (3) identity. Overall, students learned that music functioned as a way to maintain cultural identity between Italian-Canadians and homeland Italy. While this point was important for Peters to consider when choosing to bring Italian music in to her future lessons, Peters learned more about the experience students had as ethnographers from this process. She states that students began to reflect on their own musical identities and how that related to their cultural heritage. For Italian students, some of them learned more about what they already believed or realized not to take certain aspects of their culture for granted. For students who were not of Italian heritage, they developed a new-found respect for how Italians engage with music in their culture. Peters fostered a classroom environment where students had agency in learning about music of their peers and families by conducting ethnographic fieldwork. This student-centered approach allowed students to function as cultural-bearers and supported both culturally-responsive teaching and multimusicality in the classroom, for students were actively engaging in learning about their own or a different music culture in the community. Peters emphasized that all teachers should consider how their student can function as cultural-bearers in the classroom, allowing for more meaningful engagement of songs from 45 multiple music cultures. Though my study does not include students functioning as ethnographers, I can consider this approach to the classroom when suggesting ways in which teachers can be more culturally-responsive of their students. My research represents the voices of the children who specifically participated in my study and currently live in Italy. An Italian student in the U.S. may have different preferences or experiences with music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro. Thus, encouraging teachers to either conduct their own ethnographic research at the micro-level of their classroom or guide children in conducting ethnographic research about their own music identities is important as no music culture is homogenous in nature and every person has a unique music personality. Having students take on the role of ethnographers allows music of different cultures to enter the classroom in a way that is child-lead, and may avoid othering. Peters stressed the importance of engaging in ethnomusicological research to better understand music in a community, providing support for my using ethnomusicological techniques when studying Lo Zecchino d’Oro in Italy. Summary Finding related research directly relevant to Lo Zecchino d’Oro was difficult, for only a small handful of people have conducted research about the festival, and all existent research is in Italian. Most of these studies were in the form of theses and only accessible with permission at the Antoniano Institute archival and reserves library. I was able to get access and spend some time with the studies, but most of them focused on Mariele Ventre, the first conductor of Il piccolo coro, and the choir itself. Furthermore, I spent time at both the local city library in Bologna and the University of Bologna library, and neither returned results related to the festival aside from an outdated version of Rossi’s (2007) anthology. Most information about the festival 46 is known by families and members of the Antoniano festival passing down the information to the next generation. Friar Caspoli, the former director of the Antoniano Institute, was most helpful in this regard and helped me to contextualize information about the festival in subsequent chapters. Despite the lack of research directly related to the festival, the above studies provided insight into the importance of Italian festivals and how I should approach conducting ethnographic research on children’s music out in the field. In reading about various festivals across Italy in Tak (2000) and Crociani-Windland’s (2011) work, I was reminded to consider the historical significance of Lo Zecchino d’Oro and how that may relate to its continued success. Furthermore, both researchers articulated the importance of festivals in general as a cultural entity, encouraging me to look beyond the influence of Zecchino d’Oro’s impact on children to how the festival has influenced Italian music culture as a whole. In regard to conducting ethnographic research on children’s music, Pieridou-Skoutella (2007) and Delorenzi-Schenkel (1987) identified disparities that existed between rural and urban communities of children related to musical taste and access to music in Cyprus and Greece. Though Italy is a smaller nation in size, there are vast regional differences as one travels North to South. The country has several urban epicenters but is predominantly rural outside of major metropolises. It is important for me to consider the dichotomy between rural and urban communities across Italy and how differences may impact the music culture surrounding Lo Zecchino d’Oro. More specifically, I was interested in how the music is transmitted to children across the nation, as children in rural areas may have less access to media than those in urban communities and media is the main way in which Lo Zecchino d’Oro shares music of the festival each year. Both authors also suggest that Western pop music may influence children’s musical tastes, steering them away from more traditional music. While I understand their arguments in 47 regard to children’s music of Greece and Cyprus, I was curious if this would manifest more as a positive outcome in my study, for music from Lo Zecchino d’Oro embodies many elements of pop music. In addition to disparities amongst children in urban and rural areas, Delorenzi-Schenkel (1987) also identified differences in musical taste and engagement for Greek boys and girls. Koops (2002) also noticed a difference of engagement in her study on children’s music in the Gambia, with boys showing more interest in playing sports and girls typically being the main group of children who sang and played musical games. I did not think to consider that gender dynamics would play a role in popularity of song and needed to consider this when conducting research and analyzing data. Perhaps the most important insight in how to conduct ethnographic research on children’s music came from Blacking (1967) and Koops (2002). Both argued that there is no proper way to capture all of nuances of a musical experience. Blacking struggled in how to notate his collected songs, for the Western standard notation did not capture the full intricacies of how the music was shared. Koops struggled to write detailed lesson plans for elementary general music teachers to follow that were non-restrictive, and later opted to provide suggestions for how to engage with the music, allowing teachers the space to decide the best ways to incorporate each song in their classroom based on the contextual information she provided. Both of these concerns were crucial for me to consider when determining how to structure my analysis of the data and present songs from Lo Zecchino d’Oro for teachers in a way that is accessible, represents the festival with integrity, and provides enough information for teachers to understand the full context of their importance to Italian children. 48 Last, Peters’s (2009) study involving secondary students conducting their own ethnographic fieldwork on Italian songs in their community of a Canadian city is representative of an educator pairing ethnography with music education. Though my study does not involve students conducting fieldwork, her research revealed that students can learn more about their own musical cultures and that of their peers by engaging with music through an ethnomusicological framework. When considering the ideals that I wish to promote in the classroom applications section of the collection of songs from Lo Zecchino d’Oro, I must think about how I wish for students to engage with music from the festival to bridge the gap between community musicking and school musicking. 49 CHAPTER III DESIGN, PROCEDURES, METHODOLOGY, & ANALYSIS Researcher Background and Perspective During one of the final semesters of my undergraduate degree at Ithaca College, I traveled abroad to Milan, Italy for five months. I yearned to discover more about the country, culture, and language, as my paternal grandparents immigrated from the South of Italy in the early 1900s. I arrived in Italy knowing only rudimentary Italian, but left comfortably conversational. A side trip to Bologna was the impetus of an independent study during spring of my senior year that focused on the Zecchino d’Oro festival. As part of this independent study, I explored and collected 10 songs from the festival. While I was able to find archived recordings of some of the more popular songs, the recordings did not provide me with contextual information about the festival nor information about why certain songs are more popular among Italian children and families. Thus, I needed to return to understand more fully the context in which the songs that I had collected became or are popular. I also was curious about whether new songs had emerged as popular. After graduating from college, I was hired as a kindergarten through 5th grade general music and elementary chorus teacher in a suburb outside of New York City. I entered the profession with a wealth of knowledge on how to teach songs but, in looking for songs that represented the students in my classroom, I became aware of the scarcity of songs representing a variety of cultures that are available in standard music education text and song books. In my first few years of teaching, I felt ill-equipped to represent my students’ cultural identities in the classroom because of the Eurocentric focus of many music curricula and textbooks. After 50 struggling to find music representing my students’ cultural identities in typical music classroom resources, I decided to bring in some of the Italian songs that I had collected previously to teach both my general music and elementary choral students. The students’ responses to my introducing music from a country that is less represented in our typical curriculum was overwhelming. I had students coming in to class the day after introducing the song “Popoff,” sharing that they went home and found the song on YouTube, watched the video, and shared it with their friends and family. Moreover, I had parents of Italian heritage approaching me at school events, excited about my inclusion of Italian music in our choral repertoire, stating that they were going out of their way to bring their parents (the student’s grandparents) to the upcoming concert because they spoke Italian and would love to see the performance. All of these instances made me realize how important it is as a music educator to reach out to my students’ community and share music of their culture and heritage in my classroom. Design and Procedures In this study, I identified, collected, transcribed, arranged, and contextualized 10 songs from the Italian children’s music composition festival, Lo Zecchino d’Oro and provided information for the implementation of each in an elementary general music classroom. Selection of songs was based on their popularity among children and generations of families in Italy. They are musically rich in content and represent a facet of Italian music culture that is well-recognized across Italy. This project is a qualitative study that demands an interdisciplinary approach, due to the attention that must be given to both collecting songs and understanding their context in a festival setting. Accordingly, the resulting product is a music education resource that is practical for classroom teachers, but is explored through ethnomusicological techniques. The lens of 51 ethnomusicology helped in collecting songs from Lo Zecchino d’Oro and understanding their context in a festival setting. My music educators lens came into play as I was preparing ideas centered around the songs that I collected that are practical for classroom teachers. When doing so, I explored them through both a culturally responsive pedagogical and ethnomusicological framework. I collected data through non-obtrusive participant observation and structured and non- structured interviews (Creswell, 2007 Merriam, 1998; Patten, 2012). Observations took place primarily at the Antoniano Institute in Bologna, which is home to Il piccolo coro as well as the festival and its related events. The Antoniano Institute is a community institute funded through the Antoniano church of Bologna, and has worked closely with Lo Zecchino d’Oro since the festival moved to Bologna in 1971. Data from observations and interviews provided me with cultural and educational contexts for each song in the collection. The final result is a collection of ten songs that are appropriate for use in an American music classroom complete with full melodic (notated) lines, lyrics, translations, historical and cultural context, as well as suggestions for implementing the songs in a music curriculum. Preliminary preparations included approval of research through the Michigan State Institutional Review Board (IRB); the project was designated exempt. The Michigan State University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS) approved all consent forms and interview questions, and forms were printed in both English and Italian prior to my departure. I represent all participants in this study through pseudonyms, with the exception of Friar Caspoli, former director of the Antoniano Institute as he preferred to not to have a pseudonym. 52 The first phase of research involved data collection, which began shortly after my arrival in the country on May 17th. I collected most data in Bologna, the host city of the festival. However, I also made a point to ask people in other regions about the festival when traveling. This information took the form of ethnographic fieldnotes. I attended two major events related to the festival: a fundraiser dinner in celebration of the 60th anniversary of Lo Zecchino d’Oro and a summer concert for Il piccolo coro and the music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro. I also took fieldnotes regularly at important city events and outings with members of the community. The majority of community members represented in my fieldnotes included university-aged students, who provided a wealth of information about their interest in Lo Zecchino d’Oro when growing up. I conducted informal interviews with all of the consenting participants (N=5). I recorded the data (interviews and fieldnotes related to concerts, songs, events) on both an iPhone and laptop recording app, as well as a Nikon d5100 DSLR professional camera. I received photocopies of the more popular songs from the festival and own piano-vocal scores of the most recent festivals. All songs currently are owned under international copyright through Universal Music Group. Before leaving the country, I transcribed nearly all of the data. The professional connections I made in Italy during my first visit allowed me to start working with the festival coordinators as soon as I arrived in Bologna. I first reached out to the secretary of Il piccolo coro, as I had communicated with her recently when my 4th and 5th grade choir participated in a cultural exchange through Skype with the Antoniano Institute. During contact with her, she expressed eagerness for me to come and visit. Additionally, once I arrived in Bologna I contacted Friar Caspoli, the newly retired director of the Antoniano Institute, with whom I had established a professional relationship during my first visit to Bologna and thereafter when applying for a Fulbright Scholarship. Already having established connections with the 53 Institute facilitated the research process by making me aware of all events surrounding the festival as well as providing me access to important archival information and current choir participants. Phase two encompassed transcription of data (which occurred predominately in Italy) and coding. Data and coding helped me to identify nine songs from the festival that were the most popular. I chose to include an additional song that is a personal favorite and works well in elementary general music and choral classrooms. Thus, the final collection includes 10 songs from the festival. Songs are sorted into two main groupings: songs about food and songs about animals; they are additionally organized by purpose and age level within each grouping. I transcribed a melodic vocal line for each song along with full lyrics and English translations, and, after completing three rounds of coding, I decided upon themes and categories that provide pertinent cultural and/or historical contextualizing factors about each song. I also provide this information for each song. Finally, I developed practical suggestions that include ideas of concept foci and activities that work for each song, are age appropriate for classroom application, and are respectful of Italian culture. Trustworthiness My experience and background in teaching elementary music provided me with the understanding and knowledge needed to collect Italian music that is appropriate and accessible for classroom teachers. Furthermore, my previous efforts collecting folksongs for children from Poland, Ukraine, and, most importantly, Italy, also aided in my making decisions while out in the field. In the Fall of 2016, I conducted research at a nearby Polish-American school where I completed field observations and interviews. This study served as a smaller-scale pilot study 54 from which I could explore experiences and questions that would benefit my study in Bologna. This study also made me more aware of logistical outcomes for which I needed to prepare, such as technology for recording interviews, arranging translators, or choosing proper places for hosting interviews. This study was conducted in partial fulfillment for a graduate course in ethnomusicology entitled, “Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology” at Michigan State University. The main goal of this course is to provide students with information and experiences that prepare them to conduct ethnographic research. From my previous undergraduate research, I already had a cursory idea of some of the songs that were most popular from the festival. Additionally, in that initial research, I transcribed some of the more popular songs. This helped me to develop a more intimate relationship with the songs, making me more fully aware of the age appropriateness of each and giving me ideas for how one might use them in a classroom context. Having this knowledge made me aware of the songs upon which to focus, and I was careful to corroborate these findings during the second visit as well as consider any new songs that I should consider for addition to the collection. In addition to my intimate relationship with the festival in knowing the former director, having connections to people at the Antoniano Institute, and having lived in Italy for half of a year, I aimed to establish trustworthiness in my research through multiple measures (Lincoln & Gruba, 1985). I conducted member checks, research triangulation, data triangulation, and peer review of data, design, and procedures (Creswell, 2007 Merriam, 1998; Patten, 2012). I completed member checks with each participant prior to leaving the country. Parents signed off on the interview transcripts on behalf of Natalia (pseudonym), Alessia (pseudonym), and Felicia (pseudonym). Neither Friar Caspoli nor the parents of the child participants suggested any changes to the interview transcripts. Triangulation of data took place in two forms: (1) analysis 55 triangulation and (2) data triangulation. During first round coding, a professor on the thesis committee looked at the data and independently confirmed that my coding seemed appropriate. Additionally, a second round of analysis triangulation took place with peers with expertise in qualitative research. Both instances suggested similar coding and categorization of themes among reviewers. Data triangulation is present through my interviewing multiple participants who are positioned differently in relation to the festival. I opted to interview people who are involved with the festival through a variety of contexts to help corroborate data across transcripts. I also took fieldnotes as another form of data to triangulate with the interviews. While each interview corroborated themes that were present in other data to some extent, the two transcripts that had the most overlap were the former Antoniano Institute director’s interview and the interview with the child involved with Il piccolo coro. Participants Prior to my arrival in Italy, the goal was to have several children who were members of the choir, one or two parents, the choir director, and program director as participants in the study, as well as a student who currently moved from Parma, Italy to New York. However, despite my being in Bologna for several weeks, it was difficult finding time to arrange interviews with members of the choir. Furthermore, the new program director was still unfamiliar with much of the program, and the choir director was not as willing to participate as originally anticipated. During my first year of teaching, I collaborated with the choir director to schedule a virtual performance experience with my students and Il piccolo coro. We maintained contact since that encounter, and it was the assumption that I would work closely with the director upon my arrival to Bologna. However, the timeline of my study coincided with a busy part of their festival 56 preparations, making it difficult for us to connect. Furthermore, due to legal concerns, I was not allowed to sit in on rehearsals, because I was not an official employee of the institute. I did manage to get in touch with the former director of the Institute, who served as a reliable gatekeeper and helped facilitate and organize interviews with members of the choir program. Final participants include a current member of the choir (Natalia, age 7); their younger sibling (Alessia, age 5); their mother (Ophelia); a member of a satellite choir affiliated with the Antoniano, but not directly part of the festival (Felicia, age 12); and former (and recently retired) director of the Antoniano Institute, Friar Caspoli. Though I was disappointed to not have the current director and choir director as interview participants, Friar Caspoli was the most crucial gatekeeper, and many salient themes surfaced throughout his interview. Friar Caspoli had a wealth of knowledge and, perhaps, had more to contribute because of how many years of experience he had served the institute. Additionally, fieldnotes from less structured field experiences with university-aged students also served as data and were important for providing contextual cultural information from students who just recently had participated in the youth music scene. I was introduced to these students through a mutual friend who was living in Italy during the time of my studies and made a trip to Bologna to visit me. Maria and I met in 2013 during the Milan study abroad program in which I participated, and she continued in Italy past the fall semester to study abroad in Bologna. As a result, Maria had several relations and friends with whom she was able to put me in contact. She introduced me to a senior political science major, Issa (pseudonym), who was graciously welcoming and invited me to spend time with her and her friend whenever they gathered. Most of these experiences included social gatherings at parks, local restaurants, and bars. Through Issa, I was able to meet ten other university-aged students, all of whom shared 57 their excitement over my research on the festival. Though I did not organize the gatherings to discuss the festival with these peers, our conversations ultimately centered around my purpose in the country and interest in collecting music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro, because the students were fascinated by the endeavor. While I had established connections with local university students in the area during my Data studies, I opted not to interview them and, instead, took fieldnotes whenever we went out and discussed the festival. In total, data comprises four sets of fieldnotes detailing conversations I had about the festival with university-aged students. Additional fieldnotes that did not relate directly to Zecchino d’Oro events but provided useful information include: (1) fieldnotes outlining the experience of talking about the festival with Maria, someone who has lived in various parts of Italy as an academic scholar, (2) fieldnotes outlining the experience of discussing the festival with a waitress while traveling for leisure to Ravenna, Italy, (3) fieldnotes detailing instances in which children’s music was playing at a park ride in the local city park, (4) fieldnotes describing the experience of a random visit I made to the Antoniano Institute to observe an audition process and, (5) fieldnotes describing general information about Bologna in the summer, which includes the various festivals that took place during my time spent in the area. I also attended and observed a Zecchino d’Oro fundraiser dinner early on in my research, in addition to a summer concert of festival music at the Antoniano Institute. I completed fieldnotes for each of those two experiences, and they are the two of the most crucial sources data. I conducted three interviews during my time in Italy. One was with the former director of the Antoniano Institute and was an hour and a half in length. The second was with Felicia, a 58 (newly) middle school-aged student who participates in one of the satellite choirs of the Antoniano Institute in Brescia. Felicia was not involved with the Zecchino d’Oro festival, but was an active music student and familiar with the festival. The last interview was a Group interview with two siblings, Natalia and Alessia and their mother, Ophelia. Natalia and Ophelia spoke for most of the interview. Each person in this study was interviewed only one time. As mentioned earlier, they also had the opportunity to member check the transcripts. No changes to the transcripts were requested from any of the participants. The three interview transcripts served as a main source of data. Last, in addition to gathering information about the festival through observation and interviews, I translated pertinent information from the Rossi (2007) anthology “Lo Zecchino d’Oro”, which outlines details about the festival from its inception to 2007 in Italian. There are two volumes in this edition, and each chapter corresponds to a year of the festival. I specifically looked at the chapters containing the songs collected for this thesis. However, if information about the festival itself was discussed in other years (chapters), I translated that information as well. The data that I collected from this resource mostly provides information on the historical and functional aspects surrounding Lo Zecchino d’Oro. Analysis The primary method of analysis involved qualitative coding of all interview transcripts and fieldnotes. I approached this process heuristically, trying to identify salient themes across data. I employed several coding methods ranging from descriptive coding, simultaneous coding, in vivo coding, to values coding (Saldaña, 2009). I employed several coding methods ranging from descriptive coding, simultaneous coding, in vivo coding, to values coding. Descriptive 59 coding and values coding were the most predominant forms of coding. Values coding served as the most informative type of coding, for it allowed me to choose words or phrases that reflected participants’ attitudes and beliefs of cultural values, identity, history, and ethnographic phenomena. Three rounds of coding illuminated seven overarching themes, with a handful of categories and several codes within each theme. Themes surrounding the festival experience include: community, known identity, cultural importance, child-centered, and media influence. Two specific themes connected to the songs: (1) [they are] fun; and (2) [they have] important messages. The themes of media influence and child-centered also showed up in the context of children or adults speaking about the songs. In the following chapters, I discuss the themes in detail. 60 CHAPTER IV FESTIVAL BACKGROUND Lo Zecchino d’Oro: The Roots In 1959, the canon of Italian children’s repertoire would forever change, with the official premiere of Lo Zecchino d’Oro airing on the Rai Uno television network live from Milan. The man behind the festival’s birth was Cino Tortorella, an avid student, actor, and supporter of theatre. Tortorella’s career began when he stumbled upon a magician outfit backstage during a theatre performance. After the performance, he took the outfit and eagerly personified the festive role of a magician character as his staple caricature. Shortly after, Tortorella became known in Milan for his work in theatre relative to children. During the span of his career, Tortorella noticed an artistic void; there was an ample amount of repertoire for children involving the theatre, but not much music repertoire especially for children. From this realization, Tortorella decided to create a unique, child-centered music composition festival. Tortorella coined the name “Lo Zecchino d’Oro” for the festival as a result of a friend’s suggestion. The title, which translates as “The Pure Gold Coin,” is inspired by the story of Pinocchio, a tale that is an essential part of Italian’s cultural identity. Italians take pride in the creation of Pinocchio, as the story went on to become a successful and well-known fairy tale, even outside of Italy. Though the novel Pinocchio was written toward the end of the 19th century, its influence continues to be prevalent for both Italians and tourists in Italy. In the original tale, the Fox and the Cat trick Pinocchio into burying coins that he earned at work in the Field of Miracles. They convince Pinocchio that, after a half hours’ time, a tree of gold coins would grow from the coins. The Fox and the Cat eventually steal the buried coins and run off with 61 Pinocchio’s money, while Pinocchio is tested later by a rescuing fairy who strives to teach him right from wrong though the enchantment of his growing nose, which would grow each time he told a lie. Though many other plots develop within the novel, the story culminates with Pinocchio seeing the fairy in his dreams and waking up as a “real boy” with a pile of pure gold coins, or “Zecchini d’Ori”. Carlo Triberti, a friend of Cino Tortorella, fixated on the idea of a tree of gold coins and envisioned this part of the story as the title of the festival. The winning composition would be the winning coin or, “Lo Zecchino d’Oro.” (Rossi, 2007). Festival Purpose and Logistics From the beginning, the primary mission of Lo Zecchino d’Oro was to promote the production of quality songs for children (Rossi, 2007; p. 5). During its first year, Tortorella established a “Diretti del bambino,” which is a “Declaration of the Rights of Children,” when advocating for the purpose of the festival, explaining that there was a need for children to have their own voice in the field of music, and Lo Zecchino d’Oro, he hoped, would fill that void. Milan hosted Lo Zecchino d’Oro for two years before Tortorella decided to move the festival to Bologna in collaboration with the Antoniano Church. The church was known for its involvement in working with children in the community, and it already had an established choir of children, Il piccolo coro. Once Lo Zecchino d’Oro began to collaborate with the Antoniano, Il piccolo coro became the official choir of the festival, with Mariele Ventre as the director (Rossi, 2007). Over 60 years later, the collaboration between l piccolo coro, the Antoniano Institute, and Lo Zecchino d’Oro is thriving. For the past six decades, the festival has continued to grow and prosper, and, with it, so have the logistics of how the festival functions. However, the main premise of the festival has 62 not changed. Each year, a call for compositions is released, and Antoniano officials are responsible for narrowing down the submissions to only 12 songs. This is a difficult task, as they sometimes have to look at as many as 200 songs on a given year. In the first few years of the festival, several of the songs chosen for the final premiere were sometimes written by the same composers. Mario Pagano, is an example of one of those composers and four of his compositions follow in this document: Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè, Il pulcino ballerino, La banda dello zoo, and Popoff. While those four songs are from the earlier decades of the festival, it suggests that there is a perceived aesthetic that composers should consider when writing Italian music for children. Zecchino d’Oro does not limit the festival entries solely to Italian composers, though they more commonly make the finals and win the overall competition (Rossi, 2007). The perceived aesthetic is also important to consider when Rossi (2007) and Fiar Caspoli point out that sometimes, songs can enter into the competition for several years in a row until the committee selects them for the finals. Thus, songs can go through several revisions before taking their final form to match the qualities children venerate (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Once the panel agrees upon the final 12 songs, they begin to search for a singer(s) for each song, instrumental accompaniments, and production and design elements. After months of preparation, the festival comes together for a week of live performances of the songs. The last three days of the live production are the most crucial, as the 12 songs are divided equally among the performances of the first of those two days, and the ones that are the most popular from each group then proceed to be performed on the final day of the festival. During the final three days, a panel of children serve as judges and rate the songs on a scale of six and 10, with 10 representing the highest mark that a song can receive. The panel of children can range in age from anywhere 63 between four and twelve years old, and its composition fluctuates each year. These ratings, in tandem with votes from a country-wide referendum, combine on the last day to crown Lo Zecchino d’Oro. For the remainder of the festival year, the winning song is showcased at many national events, making it famous throughout the country (Rossi, 2007). The referendum and the panel of children on the jury are the two main ways in which Lo Zecchino d’Oro emphasizes the priority of children deciding which music enters their music culture. These models give agency to children both around the country and on the panel in determining what music will be a success and are a unique aspect of the festival. The referendum that allowed children viewing the festival across the country to submit their own votes for their favorite song began a decade into the life of the festival (Rossi, 2007). It was created to prevent potential bias, as some of the children on the jury began to pick their favorite songs based upon their favorite performers as a result of age and “cuteness” rather than on the song’s quality (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Although both Koops (2002) and Delorenzi-Schenkel (1987) alluded in their studies of children’s music of the Gambia and Greece that gender played a role in children’s choices of musical repertoire and activity, this did not seem true of Italian children. In Italy, children’s song choices were affected more by the age of the child performers rather than their gender according to the Rossi (2007) anthology. Often, children who were younger would become favorites, as their youth in combination with the difficulty of songs was attractive to audience members and the children’s jury. After the referendum was instated, this bias was reduced, for unlike the members of the jury who worked closely with the children performers through their involvement in the festival, children across the country did not know the performers personally. 64 Lo Zecchino d’Oro as a Cultural Phenomenon While the festival is elaborate in design, the songs themselves are what Italians most remember. Often, adults think back to songs that won during their childhood with nostalgia (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; fieldnotes, May 30th, 2017). Friar Caspoli shared that, when he retired from the Antoniano Institute, the choir sang his favorite Zecchino d’Oro song from his childhood as a sendoff, which left him overwhelmed with emotions, as it brought his childhood world together with his professional world (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). There are also “classics” that have remained popular, despite the time period in which they won. There are several songs that have become standard Zecchino d’Oro repertoire, which I will discuss in Chapter 5. Rossi (2007) himself notes five in particular that he considers, “classics”, four of which are included in this document: Popoff, Quarantaquattro gatti, Il pulcino ballerino, and Il coccodrillo come fa? and Sveglia birichina. Regardless of which songs gain popularity, all contribute to a cultural tradition. Rossi (2007) illuminates that Italians are used to connecting songs of the festival with their childhood. Above all, both Rossi (2007) and Friar Caspoli argue that the success of the festival lies within its purpose: creating a voice for children in the field of music. Friar Caspoli articulated that the festival, “never changed the attention they had about children. And I think, this is something that is the difference between the festival of Lo Zecchino d’Oro and other festivals” (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Tortorella, the festival creator, recognized the importance of letting children decide which music should enter their world, and implanted the children’s jury as an important component of the festival. Decades later, officials still acknowledge that the decisions ultimately come down to the children. Adults involved with the festival can narrow songs down to a final 12 and try to predict which ones they think will win, 65 but often the children surprise them. Festival officials agree that adults do not always understand what appeals to children (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Rossi, 2007). The child- centered aim of the festival is one of its most unique qualities. Media as a Medium of Transmission Both the anthology (Rossi, 2007) and Friar Caspoli (interview, June 22nd, 2017) emphasized the importance of media in the functioning of the festival. The Rai Uno television station broadcasts the festival music during the festival week, and watching the festival on television has become a national tradition. Rossi (2007) claims that (at least at the time of the festival’s creation) television was central to the prosperity of the festival, because it was the most universal and advanced media platform. While other technologies may have advanced past television since the festival’s birth in 1959, television still continues to be the primary access to the festival music for most of Italy. Friar Caspoli notes that, in the beginning, it was important that the festival was broadcast on the Rai Uno network, as it was one of the few national networks to at that time (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Aside from the festival in Sanremo, a similarly structured festival for adult repertoire that focuses more on the talent of singers than on compositions, Lo Zecchino d’Oro is one of the longest running programs on National television (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Friar Caspoli states, “All the other [are] dead, or never last…. Oh, I think they [broadcasts of Lo Zecchino d’Oro] are a part of the Italian tradition: the tradition of Italian television” (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). He proceeded to declare that the festival will continue into the foreseeable future. He believes that, because media is so influential in Italian culture, even if individuals are past the age of those who 66 typically listen to the festival, they are still part of the tradition in that they pass down the music and the culture of watching the festival to the younger generations. The festival brings together an entire nation through national live television for one full week in October. Moreover, one could argue that the festival brings together regions that are distinctive from one another in an enriching musical platform. In her study, Delorenzi-Schenkel (1987) suggested that children living in rural areas of Greece may experience music differently than those living in more urban areas. However, this dichotomy does not seem to exist in regard to children learning of music from Lo Zecchino d’Oro, nor does it impact the festival’s success. Participants in my study represented cities, rural mainland towns, as well as some of the Islands. While most were students who were receiving higher education degrees, all admitted that they were familiar with the music from the festival from a young age, and some shared that their parents sang the music to them or played Zecchino d’Oro CDs. The influence of media extends beyond that of Lo Zecchino d’Oro’s recognition as a televised Italian tradition. Pieridou-Skoutella (2007) mentioned the influence of Western pop music on children’s music culture and tastes in Cyprus. Delorenzi-Schenkel (1987) also identified pop music as a major influence in Greece children’s music culture, but argued that Western pop songs began to replace traditional music tastes of Greek children. This is where my study differs drastically from Delorenzi-Schenkel, in that the pop musical influence is helping Lo Zecchino d’Oro grow as a genre in the music industry in Italy. Many American pop songs are featured in the mainstream Italian media; however, Italy has embraced this Western pop influence in a way that is fortifying the excitement behind Lo Zecchino d’Oro. Currently, many of the songs during the live shows are supported with back-up singers, varying instruments, and technological sounds characteristic of pop music. These sounds are prevalent especially in the 67 music videos that are created after each festival year. When comparing archived videos of the first few decades to more recent videos, today the songs are accompanied with Western harmonies, back-up performers, and instruments from multiple music cultures. Delorenzi-Schenkel (1987) also argued against the incorporation of recorded folksongs when used in Greek urban school contexts, because she felt that the songs were ‘inauthentic’ with vocals sung by trained professional children rather than raw performers. Part of Lo Zecchino d’Oro is the quest to find young Italian children singers across the country. Although the festival’s live show takes place in October, as early as February, organizers involved with the festival begin to travel to each of the twenty regions to audition performers, and calls for performers are posted on their website and through social media (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). While talent is necessary to make sure the music is properly sung during the show, the program’s priority is to represent children from all across the country. To accomplish this, they host auditions in various regions across the country, beginning as soon as the previous festival year ends. Furthermore, as mentioned, singers in Il piccolo coro provide choral back-up when the song calls for their vocals. Hence, recorded versions of music from Lo Zecchino d’Oro is part of the festival’s goal, and those recordings are an authentic outgrowth of the festival. In fact, at both a fundraiser dinner in honor of the upcoming 60th anniversary of the festival and at one of their concerts, Il piccolo coro sang to recorded music (fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017). Festival Themes Following my return from Italy, I analyzed the data to determine whether there were themes that emerged that would help me understand the festival more deeply. The remainder of 68 this chapter is a discussion of some of these themes that emerged specifically in regard to the festival of Lo Zecchino d’Oro. Themes that emerged from the data specifically in relation to the songs is included in the following chapter, where I present the collection of songs. Media As discussed previously, media serves as an influential platform in sharing the music of the festival. As a result, it emerged as a theme. One of the primary goals of this research was to determine some of the ways in which Italian students engage with music from Lo Zecchino d’Oro. Furthermore, I also was interested in discovering how the songs are passed on from generation to generation. The influence of media fulfilling both these questions was supported both in interviews and fieldnotes. First and foremost, the festival functions on the basis of live national television, which has turned into a television tradition (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Rai Uno is the network that hosts the festival and advertises for the event throughout the year. Songs are also heard on the radio, and CDs are still the primary way in which Italians listen to or purchase the songs (Rossi, 2007). However, YouTube also is an outlet through which children can access the songs. The Antoniano Institute has taken advantage of this by creating “Antoniano Official” videos of the more popular Zecchino d’Oro songs. The influence of media extends beyond that of how music is circulated, however. Media also is pervasive at festival events in terms of how they are structured. As mentioned previously, the festival coordinators go to great lengths to decorate the songs with instrumentalists, theatre and stage elements, and commercially-produced sounds. Additionally, animated cartoon character figures from some of the YouTube music videos served as decorations both at the Antoniano Concert and Fundraiser Dinner (fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017; 69 fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017). Lastly, the dynamic of how both of the preceding events were hosted was interesting. At each event, although they were not filming, the hosts engaged with the audience in a way that mimicked that of hosts on a television show. Much talking took place between “acts” as transitions, with prescribed topics to discuss, banter, and jokes to engage the audience. Thus, it is difficult to separate Lo Zecchino d’Oro from media as it has a large role in the atmosphere of their events and how the music is circulated. Community Community emerged as one of the most salient themes in my data. Community encompasses both the idea of Lo Zecchino d’Oro events occurring in the physical community, as well as the idea of people coming together to form a community and engage with each other as a community as a result of the festival. Many participants talked about community events that took place throughout the year (interview, Felicia, June 7th, 2017; group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017), and I was able to experience two firsthand: the concert I attended at the Antoniano Institute and the Fundraiser Dinner for the festival (fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017; fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017). Another example of the festival affecting communities includes the existence of “galaxy choirs” across the country that are affiliated with the Antoniano Institute. The festival also resulted in formation of communities surrounding the festival. Participants expressed that both the festival itself as well as its public appearances throughout the year allow the opportunity for people to engage with each other (interview, Felicia, June 7th, 2017; interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Furthermore, their concerts encourage audience members to interact. The Antoniano Institute also builds community proactively through their Antoniano Insieme program, in which Il piccolo coro combines with a 70 program for children who have special needs [in the U.S. it would be more reflective of a music therapy program] at the Institute to foster community through the singing of songs from the festival (group interview, Natalia & Ophelia, June 28th, 2017). The theme of community ties into the subtheme of tradition. Tradition includes the notion of the festival functioning as an annual event, both in the Bologna community and on television, since the early 1950s. Friar Caspoli expressed that the festival is so imbued in Italy’s cultural identity—the thought of the network cancelling it is unfathomable (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). The traditions associated with the festival are so inscribed, it is almost as if they are taken for granted. It is just assumed that it will continue to exist, that parents and grandparents will continue to pass down songs to future generations, and that each child will associate Lo Zecchino d’Oro with their childhood. “Everyone Knows It” “Everyone Knows it” as a theme mostly refers to the reputation Zecchino d’Oro has gained in Italian society. More explicitly, certain aspects of the festival are so well-known that they have become famous. For example, Il piccolo coro is extremely well recognized throughout the country, especially in combination with the festival. This also is true of the former director of the choir, Mariele Ventre, and her predecessor, Sabrina Simoni. It was evident in conversation with many residents of Bologna that Italians idolize both women (fieldnotes, June 5th, 2017). To equate the aura surrounding Lo Zecchino d’Oro with a like cultural entity in the United States, I would suggest the known identity of this festival is comparable to that of American Idol. One does not have to watch American Idol avidly to understand its pervasiveness in American society. 71 Other instances in which the known identity of the festival became apparent included how the audience interacted at both the Zecchino d’Oro concert and fundraiser dinner. At each, audience members displayed their knowledge of song lyrics when joining in to sing and clapping along to songs within a medley that was song both at the Antoniano concert and fundraiser dinner (fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017; fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017). The medley was a performance of Zecchino d’Oro songs that are considered some of the most popular and includes seven of the songs chosen for this document. My first experience witnessing audience members engaging with the medley was at the fundraiser dinner, and I was shocked by how many adults of all ages could recite lyrics of several choruses. What made this experience seem more like a result of the known identity of the festival and its songs versus subjective veneration of the festival was how audience members would sometimes slip up on words, mumble along, and motion in circles with their hands while trying to remember the lyrics (fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017). My interpretation of these instances was that those adults likely do not listen to the songs regularly, but were attempting to recall the lyrics from having heard the songs several times in their past. This familiarity became a subtheme within the larger theme of known identity. One did not need to participate in the festival regularly to be familiar with the songs because of how known the festival and its songs are in Italian society. “Everyone knows it” is derived directly from several transcripts and fieldnotes (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; interview, Felicia, June 7th, 2017; group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017; fieldnotes, May 30th, 2017; fieldnotes, June 14th, 2017; fieldnotes, June 5th, 2017; fieldnotes, June 10th, 2017). Two of the children I interviewed each stated the phrase, “everyone knows it” in response to the question, “How do you know about the festival?” (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017; interview, Felicia, June 7th, 2017). Friar Caspoli exclaimed 72 the phrase, “Everyone knows it” in response to my questioning the popularity of the festival in Italian society, and other friends and locals threw out the phrase in conversation with me at informal social gatherings (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). From this, I suggest that most of the Italian population is aware of the existence of Zecchino d’Oro. Cultural Importance Italians regard music, in general, as an important cultural entity and are proud of the music that they have produced across genres and generations. This respect for music in general transfers to the respect for Lo Zecchino d’Oro as a musical outlet for Italian children. Friar Caspoli and Ophelia (the mother of Natalia) both made a point to mention this unprompted, in each of their interviews (Interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Group interview, Ophelia, June 28th, 2017). This mindset also transfers to the way in which the festival is represented at events. I label one category within cultural importance as important event, for many of the descriptive codes surrounding Lo Zecchino d’Oro, events included words such as, “exclusive,” “dressy”, “structured,” “opulent,” “well-attended” and “taken seriously” (fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017; fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017). These codes relate to cultural importance and the attention given to the reputation of the events hosted by the festival organizers. Another category I determined within the theme of cultural importance is the code, valued. The idea of Italians valuing the festival was demonstrated through attendees at concerts and articulated in interview transcripts. Some codes surrounding this category include, “pride,” “honor,” and “respected” (interview, Felicia, June 7th, 2017; interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). For both Felicia and Natalia, the opportunity to sing in a Zecchino d’Oro choir was an 73 honor. One code that was particularly prevalent throughout the data was the feeling of “amazement” many participants felt when I described my research purpose in Italy (fieldnotes, May 30th, 2017; fieldnotes, June 14th, 2017; fieldnotes, June 5th, 2017; fieldnotes, June 10th, 2017). To them, Lo Zecchino d’Oro holds a special place in Italian society, and they were thrilled that a foreigner would be interested in studying it. Both through festival procedures and in statements, participants and resources have made clear that sharing songs of the festival with other cultures is encouraged (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; group interview, Ophelia, June 28th, 2017; Rossi, 2007). Also related to the theme of cultural importance is how many of the songs reflect cultural interests. Two codes in particular stand out in relation to this, with Natalia and Friar Caspoli expressing that songs are often well-liked by children when they revolve around animals and food (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). Animals are of particular interest to young children, and while this interest may not be specific to Italian children, it is important to identify. Food, on the other hand, is an important aspect of Italian culture (Field, 1990). Conducting research in Bologna illuminated how important food is in Italian society, as the city also is known as the food epicenter of Italy. I later choose to label these codes as categories surrounding the songs themselves and to group the collection of songs within these categories in Chapter V. Last, during one of my outings at the local city park, I was running past a merry-go-round and heard two separate songs from the festival playing (fieldnotes, June 16th, 2017). This reflects the idea of cultural importance as it demonstrates that songs of the festival are may be chosen to represent children’s music at communal park rides, extending their presence beyond that of the context of the festival. 74 Child-Centered Friar Caspoli emphasized in his interview that one of the greatest attributes of Lo Zecchino d’Oro is the continued valuing of children as the priority in the festival process (Interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017), and child-centered emerged as an important theme in the data. The purpose of the festival centers entirely around children, in that its goal is to involve children in determining what music should become a part of their culture. Further aspects that support this theme include the role of the jury consisting solely of children, song selection functioning on the basis of assumed children’s interests, the acknowledgement that children’s tastes may differ from that of adults, and, in the case of Il piccolo coro, the prioritization of children singing with their fullest energy rather than with their “prettiest” sound (Rossi, 2007). Summary In 1959, Cino Tortorella noticed a dearth in Italian music readily available for children. In response, he developed a music composition festival for children later to be known as Lo Zecchino d’Oro. Since its inception, the festival’s goal has been to foster allowing children agency in determining the music that enters their musical canon. Over sixty years later, the festival is thriving and takes place annually as a national television tradition in the fall. With the help of Rai Uno, the television network that hosts the live production of the festival, Lo Zecchino d’Oro and songs of the festival have manifested as a cultural phenomenon. Media serves as the primary way in which music of the festival is spread to children and adults across the country. The festival was able to gain traction as a result of the media’s influence, but became known to Italian people because of its individual success. Most, if not all 75 Italians were familiar with the festival’s existence. Lo Zecchino d’Oro’s presence is so pervasive in Italian society, it also was clear that the festival fosters a sense of community or makes an effort to be part of the community. By hosting events, concerts, and fundraisers, Lo Zecchino d’Oro and its affiliate, the Antoniano Institute, work together to share music of the festival throughout the year, despite the most important weeks occurring in the fall. Furthermore, a sense of community is established as Italians gather to attend these events, or make arrangements to view and/or participate in the annual festival. Most important, Lo Zecchino d’Oro maintains the goal of being a child-centered festival. This value contributes to its success. Though Cino Tortorella has since passed, I am certain he would be honored to see the continued success of the festival and that above all, children are at the epicenter of the festival’s purpose. 76 CHAPTER V FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS Collection of Songs The allure of the festival is, in part, due to the televised tradition of the competition. While the United States has many televised reality music competitions, they usually center around a winner based on talent. Zecchino d’Oro is unique in that the competition centers on the success of the compositions. With this in mind, there is no equivalent festival or competition in the States; however, there are many attributes of the festival, in addition to songs, that can work well in a general music classroom. Though the data provide a wealth of information in regard to how Italian people interact with, value, and perceive music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro, there was little information as to how school music programs might include music of the festival in the elementary classroom. As confirmed by both Ophelia, the mother of one of the child participants, and Friar Caspoli, school music is not prevalent at the elementary level, and children typically interact with music outside the classroom (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; group interview, Ophelia, June 28th, 2017). Hence, it is difficult to suggest the most appropriate way to incorporate this music into a classroom that is reflective of Italian children school music culture. However, Rossi (2007) does identify that many Zecchino d’Oro songs have a presence in schools. Additionally, Friar Caspoli mentioned that sometimes teachers play Zecchino d’Oro songs for younger children during regular class time, but they do not aim to teach music through these experiences (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Yet, it is clear from both Italians’ appreciation of music in their society, and also of the festival itself, that, if music was a subject in school, teachers would opt to include songs from the festival. 77 Song Themes Child-centered themes are existent in the texts of the music in that many relate to children’s lives. Animals and food are not the only examples of songs reflecting aspects of children’s interests. Rossi (2007) details how Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina gained popularity the year officials selected it for participation in the festival because the story line candidly represented the daily lives of children. I also expand upon this notion when discussing contextual information about the song in Chapter V. Some songs simply appeal to children due to their silly nature, while others attempt to teach an important message through the lyrics. Natalia described liking songs for both reasons, leading to my concluding fun and important message as two themes related to the success of songs from the festival. I group the songs in Chapter V under these overarching themes. Fun In vivo codes related to the songs that fell into the category of fun include “engaging,” “entertaining,” “funny,” “fun”, and “silly.” Both Felicia and Natalia shared their opinions of songs using those exact words (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017; interview, Felicia, June 7th, 2017). I also attached descriptive codes using these words to some explanations. An example of this is in Natalia’s interview, when she identifies that the song Popoff is fun. Below is an excerpt of our exchange, (her mother, Ophelia also contributes to the conversation) beginning with my trying to confirm that I am thinking of the correct song: Interviewer: Popoff is about a Russian soldier, right? Ophelia: Right. Interviewer: Why is it so popular? 78 Natalia: a DOG soldier! Interviewer: Oh, so that’s why! Natalia: Yes! Because it is a dog! Interviewer: …and the story is funny? Natalia: Yes, very funny. (Group interview, June 28th, 2017) For this interaction, I chose to code “funny” in vivo, as well as “silly” as a descriptive code describing the content of the song material. “Dog” also transferred as a code for “animal” as that is a popular interest of children (as mentioned earlier). Humor was a common theme that was present throughout data. “Silly” and “funny” were in vivo codes that Natalia and Felicia used to describe songs (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017; interview, Felicia, June 7th, 2017). Additionally, the Antoniano Concert and fundraiser dinner had elements of humor. Both events had a host who would frequently make jokes with children in Il piccolo coro or people in the audience. During transitions between songs, the host functioned like a comedian in many ways, but trying to keep the audience entertained through laughter (fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017; fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017). Important Message Natalia shared that she believes certain songs gain popularity because of the important messages they have to share. There were a few that fit in to this category in our conversation, and Friar Caspoli corroborated this appeal in his interview as well (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). However, one interaction with Natalia in particular illuminated how a song’s central message could influence their opinion of the song: 79 Interviewer: My favorite is Volevo un gatto nero. Do you know it? Natalia: Yes. I like that one because it teaches you something. Interviewer: Oh, it does? What does it teach us? Natalia: Well first, it teaches you to try to not be so picky. Interviewer: Ah yes, never be so picky. That’s important, for sure. And what else does it teach us? Natalia: And second, you have to be sincere. (group interview, June 28th, 2017) Natalia’s interpretation of Volevo un gatto nero is an example of the importance of songs texts being meaningful in the lives of children. In the case of Natalia, the song’s message of “try to not be so picky” resonated with her as an important message, making her like the song more. Natalia also spoke of the experience of singing the songs allowing her to learn about more things, and it was clear that participating in the festival provided her with an opportunity to learn about others, have different experiences, and learn about diverse content. While these examples relate more to the festival experience, they are reemphasized in the content of the repertoire. Child-Centered Learning The Songs Engaging with the songs in the classroom in a child-centered fashion is the best approach, as the one of the main goals of the festival is to provide children with the agency to determine which songs enter Italian children’s music repertoire. This is reflected in the jury of 12 children determining the winner of Lo Zecchino d’Oro each year. When the opportunity allows, having students determine the ways in which they would like to experience any of the following songs is 80 best. Furthermore, while my study included the voices of people involved in the context in a variety of ways, students of Italian-heritage in the U.S. may have different experiences with Lo Zecchino d’Oro. I tracked the number of times song titles of the festival emerged in data. Nine songs had the most appearances overall; however, a medley of songs that was performed at both the fundraiser dinner and Antoniano concert included seven of the nine, furthering the frequency of their appearance in the data. The subsequent material is organized into two main categories, and additionally according to the themes of important message, and fun. First, I present the songs according to whether they are a song about food or a song about animals. Both Natalia and Friar Caspoli identified that children tend to favor songs about animals and food and that songs on these two subjects play a large role in Italian culture (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). During my undergraduate study abroad experience, a class was specifically dedicated to understanding the importance of food in Italian culture. Within each grouping of food or animals, I then group the songs by the reason for their overall appeal to children. Natalia, Friar Caspoli, and Felicia all suggested that songs are well-liked for two main reasons: (1) they have important messages that children should sing about and/or (2) they are just plain fun to sing or have funny moments. However, these categorizations are presented based on the opinions of a handful of Italian children and adults and may not be the only reasons Italian individuals are attracted to a song. The songs are organized further from least popular to most popular within each of the above stated categories. This determination is based on the data from this study in addition to the general success of the songs through the media. 81 Although incorporating these songs in an American general music classroom is not parallel to how they are experienced by children in Italy, all participants assured me that they appreciated that American educators were considering teaching Italian songs in their classrooms. Of course, I hope to avoid the tokenism that already exists in terms of the Italian music repertoire available for classroom teachers. Thus, each song is followed by contextual information about the song as reflected in the data. I also include a brief background of the song’s history. Last, I provide activities for how each song could be incorporated in a general music or choral classroom in the United States. While I have included suggestions for how these songs could relate to the musical concepts that typically are taught in U.S. music classrooms, I designed them to be flexible in so that teachers could adapt them to reflect the interests of students in any classroom. Teachers should note that the overarching suggestions following all ten songs are the most culturally-responsive ways to engage with music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro in the classroom. However, each song has detailed information under classroom applications for how teachers can bring songs into the classroom specific to individuals songs. There are two main ways in which Italian students learn music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro: (1) Formally as a choir member through the Antoniano Galaxy Choir Program or, (2) informally by experiencing the festival as a member of society. Students in the first learning context may learn the songs through notation. Thus, I have described some musical attributes of the songs teachers can discuss in this regard. However, most children experience the music by hearing the songs through media, their families, or on television during the festival premiere in the fall. Thus, I also have suggested ways teachers can engage the music that does not focus on music literacy components. Following lyrics and translations of each song, I phonetically spell out the diction for challenging words. For general 82 pronunciation guidelines, teachers should refer to the Italian diction guide that I have included in appendix A of this document. 83 i. ii. iii. Songs About Food Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè (Important Message) Il caffé della Peppina (Important Message) Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina (Fun!) 84 Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè ` LA NINNA NANNA DEL CHICCO DI CAFFE words by Franca Evangelisti music by Mario Pagano so lo- con te U na- nin na- nan na- q = 82 gran de- tie ni- mi - per un po' nel tuo let to- œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ nan na- mam ma- Nin na- œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ ˙ œn œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ 44&## Verse &## &## Chorus œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ &## œ œ &## œ œ œ ˙ non ce n'è, set te- nan na- mam ma- ti- mi'ad dor - e se'ti ad dor - mam ma - ti can te- rò- le sco del - le- - men te- - Nin na- na'an - che in sa la- ta- œ Nin - na œ nan - na œ Den - tro œ per te. œ ce n'è u - œ œ œ œ œ œ œ io œ 5 9 13 15 œ - men rò. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ sul la- ta vo- la- del re. œ œ ˙ co - sa c'e solo un chic - co di caf - fè. Figure 1. Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè. 85 Lyrics Verse 1: Ninna nanna mamma tienimi con te Nel tuo letto grande solo per un po’ Una ninna nanna io ti canterò E se ti addormenti, Mi addormenterò. Chorus 1: Ninna nanna mamma Insalata non ce n’è; Sette le scodelle sulla tavola del re. Ninna nanna mamma Ce n’è una anche per te Dentro cosa c’è… Solo un chicco di caffè. Verse 2: Dormono le case Dorme la città Solo un orologio suona e fa tic tac. Anche la formica si riposa ormai, Ma tu sei la mamma E non dormi mai. Chorus 1 Verse 3: Quando sarò grande comprerò per te Tante cose belle come fai per me, Chiudi gli occhi e sogna Quello che non hai I tuoi sogni poi mi racconterai. Chorus 2: Ninna nanna mamma Insalata non ce n’è Sette i piatti d’oro sulla tavola del re. Ninna nanna mamma Ce n’è uno anche per te: Ci mettiamo su tutto quello che vuoi tu, Ci mettiamo su tutto quello che vuoi tu. Translation Verse 1: Lullaby, mom keep me with you In your big bed only for a while I will sing you a lullaby And if you fall asleep, I will fall asleep too. Chorus 1: Lullaby mom There is no salad; Seven bowls on the table of the king. Lullaby mom There is one for you too What's inside… Only a coffee bean Verse 2: Sleeping houses The sleeping city Just a clock ticking and tocking. Even the ants are resting by now, But you are mom and You never sleep. Chorus 1 Verse 3: When I grow up I’ll buy for you Many beautiful things you do for me, Close your eyes and dream Of what you don’t have Then tell me about your dreams. Chorus 2: Lullaby mom There is no salad Seven golden plates on the table of the king. Lullaby mom There is one for you: We will put in everything that you want, We will put in everything that you want 86 Diction for Difficult Words Addormenterò – Ahd-dOr-mEn-te-ro N’è – ne C’è – chey Chicco – keek-ko Città – cheet-tAh Orologio – Or-o-lo-jo Ormai – Or-mAee Chiudi – kee-oo-dee Gli – lyee Occhi – ok-kee Sogna – so-nyee-A Vuoi – voo-oy Background Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè (lullaby of the coffee bean) debuted at the 12th Zecchino d’Oro (1970) on March 17th. At this festival, 15 children had solos, 12 children comprised a small choir, and nearly 71 children were in Il piccolo coro, which was impressive considering how young the choir program was at this point (Rossi, 2007). Following the previous festival, during which one of the songs (discussed further on) found success internationally in Japan, Zecchino d’Oro decided to share the songs in an international market. One of the festival children traveled to Japan for an immersion experience, and a video of their experience in Japan aired live between one of the sets of songs during the premiere of the festival (Rossi, 2007). Additionally, this same year, an “American tour” took place where a small group of Italian children who participated in the festival traveled across the Americas to perform some of the Zecchino d’Oro music. This marked one of Zecchino d’Oro’s more extensive attempts to share music of the festival with other countries. Though Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè made an appearance in my data at the fundraiser dinner and was mentioned in both my interview with 87 Friar Caspoli and Natalia, it did not actually win the festival in 1970. Rather, the song came in 5th place out of the 12 songs in its year (Rossi, 2007). Context At the Zecchino d’Oro fundraiser dinner I attended, Il piccolo coro sang Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè as a transition into the “coffee course” during the meal (fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017). It was fitting for them to sing this lullaby at the event, as it was an evening celebration, and the audience (comprised mostly of adults) loved the idea of the children serenading them before ending their portion of the night. This fit the context of the song, as it is a young child singing a silly lullaby to her mother before going to sleep. Ninna nanna often is referred to as “the lullaby,” as it is one of the few songs in the Zecchino d’Oro repertoire that serves that purpose. Ninna Nanna del chicco di caffè also was sung at the Zecchino d’Oro concert, which was just two weeks after the dinner (fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017). When asking some of my participants about this song, they did not seem to be as familiar with it as others, but they definitely knew of it. Natalia (the participant who sings with Il piccolo coro), and some college-aged friends of mine all referred to it as being older (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017; Fieldnotes, June 17th, 2017, 2017). It is possible that the Antoniano Institute made a decision to bring back the song for just this year to commemorate an older song in honor of the 60th anniversary of the festival. However, I do think that this song is more important than some of the participants believed, for during my earlier visit to Italy when I collected songs, Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè was one of the more popular songs on their YouTube channel. This could be because parents play it for younger children as a lullaby and, as they get older, it becomes less popular. 88 The lyrics of the song are one of the more interesting parts of the song. When I first attempted to translate the text, I doubted that I had translated correctly. The lyrics did not seem to make sense, and I wondered if I was missing some cultural context. When I brought this up to some of my participants, they assured me that my translations were correct and that part of the appeal of the song is the silliness of the lyrics (fieldnotes, June 11th, 2017; interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Both Friar Caspoli and Maria, a friend studying Italian literature in Italy, stated that the idea of “playing with language and words” is important to many Italians (fieldnotes, June 11th, 2017; interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). In the case of Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè, the song was meant to rhyme, which required some silly-nonsense lyrics: “Ninna nanna mamma, insalata no c’è ne; sette i piatti d’oro sulla tavola del re [translated: lullaby mom, there is no salad; seven plates of gold are on the table of the king.]” The song is partly remembered for its silly lyrics, but the point that a young child is singing a lullaby to the mother is the most important factor in this song. Most particularly, those who were alive when it first aired (or have since seen the original footage) make a point to acknowledge how cute it was that a young girl was singing a silly lullaby to her mother. Classroom Applications Due to the nature of the story line, this song is most appropriate for younger ages levels (K-2nd grade). Since there are multiple verses, it may be a challenge for younger students to learn all of the words. However, the chorus is accessible, and only some lyrics are different between chorus one and chorus two. The teacher either can sing the verses in between or play a recording of the song, during which students can sing along with the chorus. 89 The lyrics of the song, when translated, do not make complete sense. They are not meant to tell a logical story. A lot of the words used in the song were chosen to help the song rhyme and reflect a young child’s attempt to sing a lullaby story to her mother before she goes to bed. As a result, the story is imaginative, and the words are silly. When integrating this song into the classroom, teachers could implement a song writing project in which students are encouraged to compose their own lullabies to share with friends and family at home. This could begin as an interdisciplinary activity wherein students choose a topic about which they would like to write or a person for whom they would like to compose a lullaby. Next, either individually or as a class, students could generate a list of ideas of words that rhyme to help tell this story. From here, students could explore singing their stories improvisatorially, or the teacher could implement recording technology as a facilitator in helping the children remember their songs. Children could share the final product in person with a loved one at home or make recordings for a special occasion, should the technology be available. They also could share their performances live at a school event, if appropriate to the context of the event. This activity demands more comfort with writing, reading, and rhyming, and, as such, would be more appropriate for late first grade or second grade-level students or even upper grade levels. Overall, the most important aspect about this piece of music is the fact that it is a lullaby and is recognized as one of the only lullabies from the competition. Thus, teachers should address the purpose of lullabies. To promote culturally responsive teaching, the teacher could prompt students to share lullabies from their own cultures and bring in commonly-known lullabies from the United States as a way to foster the comparison of multiple music languages. 90 Il caffè della Peppina IL CAFFE DELLA PEPPINA ` words by T. Martucci music by Alberto Anelli q = 124 q = 124 fè- Il caf del la- Pep pi œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œnJ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Œ Œ œ œ œ œ Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ œj œ œ Œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œbJ œ œ œ œ Œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ Œ œ œ œj œ ™ tè, ma per ché, Poco rit.... La Pep pi per ché? per ché, fa'il caf be ve'al - la- mat non si né col ti- - na. Né col lat te- Fine Verse - na- - na- - fè, fa'il caf - - - - fè con la cioc co- la- - ta. Ma ci met te- la mar me- la- - ta. Mez zo- chi lo- di ci œ le, œ œ œ# œ œ œ quat - tro'o cin - que car - a - œ# mel œ le, œn œ set œn œ - te œ D.C. al fine Œ a tempo - œ œ œ œ# œ œn œ œ œ e poi di - ce: "che caf - fè!" 7 15 24&bbb Chorus Œ &bbb &bbb &bbb &bbb œ# œ# œ po - 24 27 a - li di far - fal - le, Figure 2. Il caffè della Peppina. 91 Translation Chorus The coffee of Peppina You don’t drink it in the morning Not with milk, nor with tea. But, why, why, why? Verse 1: Peppina makes the coffee Makes the coffee with chocolate But she put in the marmalade Half a kilo of onions, Four or five candies, Seven butterfly wings, And then she says: “What coffee!” Chorus Verse 2: Peppina makes the coffee Makes the coffee with rosemary Puts in some cheese A turkey leg, A chicken feather, Five sacks of flour, And then she says: “What coffee!” Chorus Verse 3: Peppina makes the coffee Makes the coffee with pepper and salt, Not garlic because it’s bad. Water, yes but with, oil no. Lettuce (without oil) When I try it with dynamite, She jumps into the air with the coffee… Chorus Lyrics Chorus: Il Caffè della Peppina Non si beve alla mattina Né col latte né col tè Ma perché, perché, perché? Verse 1: La Peppina fa il caffè Fa il caffè con la cioccolata Ma ci mette la marmellata Mezzo chilo di cipolle, Quattro o cinque caramelle, Sette ali di farfalle, E poi dice: “Che caffè!” Chorus Verse 2: La Peppina fa il caffè Fa il caffé col rosmarino Mette qualche formaggino Una zampa di tacchino, Una piuma di pulcino, Cinque sacchi di farina E poi dice: “Che caffé!” Chorus Verse 3: La Peppina fa il caffè Fa il caffè con pepe e sale L’aglio no perché fa male L’acqua si ma col petrolio Insalata senza olio Quando provo col tritolo Salta in aria col caffè… Chorus 92 Diction for Difficult Words Cioccolata – chok-koh-lA-tAh Mezzo – met-tso Cipolle – chee-pOhl-lEh Formaggino – fOr-mAj-jee-no Zampa – zAhm-pA Tacchino – tAk-kee-no Petrolio – pE-trOh-lee-o L’aglio – lAh-lyee-oh Sacchi – sAk-kee Background The 13th Zecchino d’Oro took place in 1971, and Il caffè della Peppina placed first after the three-day voting period. This festival year was particularly interesting because it set the foundation to prevent voting bias amongst the child jury. Prior to the festival airing, accusations were made against the festival for creating a divide between the child performers. Additionally, many believed that the voting was beginning to function as more of a popularity contest than a meaningful experience for which the child judges took on the responsibility of representing the voice of children across the country. Songs that were paired with soloists who were socially popular sometimes gained more popularity among the other children participating in the festival as judges, choir members, or solo performers. This trend also was present with the jury of children, as children would sometimes wait for one child to cast their vote and then follow suit. These accusations jeopardized the integrity of the festival’s purpose and caused an uproar. Rai Uno threatened not to air the festival unless certain changes were made. In response, Zecchino d’Oro designated the 13th festival as the ‘gioco-spettacolo corale’ (choral spectacular) (Rossi, 2007). Songs that were selected for the competition were showcased only by groups of singers or with just Il piccolo coro singing. Thus, all of the music was designed for an ensemble 93 performance (Rossi, 2007). This is unusual for Zecchino d’Oro, as most songs previously had included a choir and soloists. Context Il caffè della Peppina is part of a medley that the choir sang of Zecchino d’Oro songs. Additionally, both Friar Caspoli and Natalia mentioned the song as being a more well-known product of Zecchino d’Oro (Interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). In fact, Il caffè della Peppina was the first song that I heard from the festival when studying abroad in Milan during my undergraduate studies. I was taking a course that discussed the importance of food in Italian culture, and one day the instructor ended class by showing us the Zecchino d’Oro official video of the song on YouTube. I approached the instructor after class to ask about the song and how it is known among children. She told me about the festival and assured me that it is an extremely well-known song. This instance was partially responsible for my pursuing this project, but it also is an example of how songs from the festival extend beyond the realm of Zecchino d’Oro and are used in other cultural contexts. This instructor repurposed the song to review food vocabulary in Italian with us in a fun way. In addition to helping American students practice Italian vocabulary, Il caffè della Peppina’s wordiness appeals to children because of the silly-nonsense lyrics. A theme discussed with Ninna nanna as well, the pairing of silliness and intricate language is important to Italians and, as such, children tend to vote in favor of a song that displays this characteristic (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; fieldnotes, June 11th, 2017). 94 Classroom Applications Many people consider Il caffè della Peppina to be a classic Zecchino d’Oro song (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017; interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). As a result, the song is popular with children across all grade levels. While most primary students of all grade levels in Italy are familiar with this song, the wordiness of its lyrics might make it difficult for non-native speaking students in K-2nd grade levels to learn. Thus, this song would be most appropriate for upper elementary-aged students in an American music classroom. Again, this song was first introduced to me in video format and has many viewings on YouTube. Sharing this song with students through media would be a way to introduce the song to students. One concept focus that teachers can discuss easily in relation to this song is its form. When all verses are sung, the form is an example of verse-refrain, though the song begins with the chorus, rather than a verse. The story line of the song is silly, but it also suggests creativity. One can foster student-centered learning and tie in all concept themes (tempo, form, lyrics) by encouraging students to be creative in how they represent each section of the verse. For example, they could choose to manipulate the tempo or have small groups perform. Alternatively, this song could be arranged for an elementary choral classroom, which fits the way in which it was performed at the festival for this particular year. Though sharing Il caffé della Peppina through a recording or YouTube video would be an appropriate way to introduce the song, the students and teacher definitely should learn the lyrics, if possible, because they are the main appeal of the song. Furthermore, even a native speaker can get tongue-tied while singing the song up to speed, which makes learning the lyrics a fun challenge. The sudden change in tempo in the last few lines helps make the lyrics more accessible and also presents the opportunity to discuss tempo changes within a song. Students 95 can play around with different speeds as the song becomes more familiar to them. In an effort to make connections across different music genres, the teacher could encourage students to brainstorm songs they know that have tongue-twisting lyrics. Last, as stated earlier, I was first introduced to this song through a course focused on the importance of food and drinks in Italian culture. The teacher could facilitate a learning experience during which students learn more about the food and drink culture of Italy, referencing ingredients thrown in the coffee such as, garlic, rosemary, cheese. Coffee, in particular, is a staple beverage in Italy and many Italians drink it throughout the day. In fact, when ordering coffee in Italy, generally Italians simply say, un caffè per favore (a coffee, please) regardless of the time of day, and that request references a particular coffee drink that is specific to the time of day. In reference to the song, musical characteristics of the melody reflect the idea of coffee percolating and serving as a pick-me-up allowing for a discussing about text painting. In the opening (and chorus) the quick steady rhythm of the eighth notes in combination with rich text full of double-consonants gives the effect of a coffee percolating on a pot. The poco ritardando could signify the dwindling energy of the day as Peppina (the character making coffee in the song) adds ridiculous ingredients into the coffee recipe, and coming back to a tempo could reflect the coffee ready to percolate for the return of the chorus. Having students further examine the piece could lead to more ideas of this nature and allow for open discussion of text painting analysis. 96 &##### 44 Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina LE TAGLIATELLE DI NONNA PINA q = 132 Œ Soloist: ‰ œj œ œ œ œ words and music by G. M. Gualandi œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ La sve glia - sta suo nan - do- ma fa te- la- ta ce- re- per ché - di'an da- re'a- 4 &##### œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ scuo la- pro prio - vo glia - non ne ho. Al zar - si- co sì - pres to- non è poi sa lu- - 7 &##### 11 &##### 15 &##### 19 &##### 23 &##### 26 &##### œ œ Œ ta re- Œ ‰œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Œ Œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ra - gaz zi- pri ma'o - poi mi'am ma le- - rò. In ve - ce'ol tre- la scuo la- cen tro- œ œ œ œ œ ™ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ œj œn œ œ œ œ œ œ œn co se- de vo- far in gle - - se, pal la- vo- lo- e per fi- no- la tin- dance e'a fi ne- set ti- ma- na- non ne œ œ œ œn œn ‰ œj œ# œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ pos so- pro prio - più mi ser ve'u- na- ri ca- ri- ca- per ti rar - mi - su. Ma un sis te- ma- ra pi- do'in fal - - œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ# œ w œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ li bi - - le'e ge niale - for tu- na- ta- men - te- io ce l'ho. Se me lo chie de- te- per fa- - œ ™ œ œ ™ œ ˙ ¿ ¿ ¿ vo - re ‰ ¿J œ œ œ œ œ œ œ# œ ‰ Choir: œ ¿ ¿J ‰ ¿J il se gre - to- io vi sve le- - rò. Ma sì, ma ¿ ¿ ¿ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj œ œJ dai! E dic ce- - lo'an che'a noi. So no- le ta glia - - tel - le di non na- Pi - Figure 3.1. Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina. 97 Figure 3.2. Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina (pg. 2). 98 Lyrics Verse 1: La sveglia sta suonando Ma fatela tacere Perché di andare a scuola Proprio voglia non ne ho. Alzarsi così presto Non è poi salutare Ragazzi prima o poi mi ammalerò. Prechorus 1: Invece oltre la scuola Cento cose devo far Inglese, pallavolo e perfino Latin-dance E a fine settimana Non ne posso proprio più Mi serve una ricarica per tirarmi su. Ma un sistema rapido, infallibile e geniale Fortunatamente io ce l'ho. Se me lo chiedete per favore Il segreto io vi svelerò Ma sì, ma dai! E diccelo anche a noi Chorus: Sono le tagliatelle di nonna Pina Un pieno di energia, effetto vitamina Mangiate calde col ragù (col ragù!) Ti fanno il pieno per sei giorni ed anche più Wo wo wo wo Perché le tagliatelle di nonna Pina Son molto più efficaci di ogni medicina Sensazionali a pranzo, a cena e credi a me Son buone anche al mattino al posto del caffé! Yeah! Verse 2: La situazione è grave Ed anche i miei amici Son tutti un po' stressati Per il troppo lavorar. Il tempo pieno a scuola Non lo vogliamo fare Vogliamo star con mamma e papa 99 Translation Verse 1: The alarm is ringing But let it be silent Because of going to school I really do not have any desire. Get up so early It is not then healthy Boys, I'll get sick sooner or later. Pre-chorus 1: Instead, beyond the school One hundred things I have to do English, volleyball and even Latin-dance And at the end of the week I cannot own it anymore I need a refill to get me up. But a quick, infallible and brilliant system Fortunately, I have it. If you ask me please The secret I will reveal to you But yes, come on! And tell us too! Chorus: They are the noodles of grandmother Pina A full of energy, vitamin effect Eat hot with meat sauce (with meat sauce!) They fill you up for six days or more Wo wo wo wo Why Grandma Pina's noodles They are much more effective than medicine Sensational at lunch, dinner and believe me They’re also good instead of morning coffee! Yeah! Verse 2: The situation is serious And also my friends They are all a bit stressed For too much work. Full time at school We do not want to do it we want to be with We want to be with mom and dad Pre-chorus 2: But in the meantime, they registered me Also at a kung-fu course Taking advantage of the time in between guitar and cycling, It's really too much I cannot take it anymore I need a refill to get me up But a quick, infallible and brilliant system Fortunately, I have it If you ask me please The secret I will reveal to you But yes, come on! And tell us too Chorus Coda: Long live the noodles of grandmother Pina A full of energy, vitamin effect Sensational at lunch, dinner and believe me They’re also good instead of morning coffee So come on, come on! What a problem there is Grandmother Pina will take care of your stress! Yeah! Pre-chorus 2: Ma intanto mi hanno iscritto Anche a un corso di kung-fu Sfruttando l'ora buca fra chitarra e ciclo-cross È veramente troppo Io non ce la faccio più Mi serve una ricarica per tirarmi su Ma un sistema rapido, infallibile e geniale Fortunatamente io ce l'ho Se me lo chiedete per favore Il segreto io vi svelerò Ma sì, ma dai! E diccelo anche a noi Chorus Coda: Viva le tagliatelle di nonna Pina Un pieno di energia, effetto vitamina Sensazionali a pranzo, a cena e credi a me Son buone anche al mattino al posto del caffé E allora forza, dai! Ma che problema c'è Ci pensa nonna Pina a toglierti lo stress! Yeah! Diction for Difficult Words Sveglia - zveh-lyee-Ah Infallibile – een-fAhl-lee-bee-leh Geniale – jEh-nee-Ah-leh Ciclo – chee-kloh Svelerò – zvEh-leh-roh Mangiate – mAn-jAh-teh Efficaci – Ef-fee-kA-chee Ogni – o-nyee Sensazionali – sEhn-sAt-tzee-Oh-nAh-lee Situazione – seet-tsoo-Aht-zee-oh-neh Vogliamo – vo-lyee-Ah-mOh Sfruttando – sfroot-tAhn-doh Fortunatamente – fOr-too-nAh-tAh-mEhn-te diccelo - deek-kEh-loh toglierti – toh-lyee-Er-tee 100 Background The 46th Zecchino d’Oro in 2003 followed the national tragedy of Nassiriya,10 wherein a suicide bomb attack took the lives of several Italian military service members in Nasiriyah, Iraq. As such, the festival was especially important for bringing parts of the country together in memorial and to express national pride (Rossi, 2007). In addition to the festival’s importance in bringing the nation together, this year also was important in producing one of the most popular Zecchino d’Oro songs to date: Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina. The song’s story is interesting in that it was first submitted into the contest in 1977, but it was not selected for the finals in that year. Every year following, the composer resubmitted the song for Lo Zecchino d’Oro. In 1989, the song came close to making the finals but still did not make the final 12. With each year, Gualandi (the composer) would make some revisions in hope of Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina finally being selected as a finalist. It was not until 2003 that this was the case. In this year, one of the head committee members decided that the song finally reflected the nature of Italian childhood: children were becoming busier and busier and needed a song that reflected the simple burdens that everyday children face (Rossi, 2007). In his interview, Friar Caspoli affirmed that Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina is one of the more popular songs in the history of the festival and also described his experience of being on the committee and seeing the song come through several years in a row (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Rejected for nearly twenty-six years, Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina was finally crowned the official “Zecchino d’Oro” winner in 2003 and went on to become one of the most successful songs in the history the festival (Rossi, 2007). 10 Information on the tragic event was retrieved from: https://www.esteri.it/mae/en/sala_stampa/archivionotizie/approfondimenti/2013/11/20131112_nassiriya.html 101 Context Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina quickly became known across most households, and not just by children (Rossi, 2007). Following the song’s win, Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina was played in clubs across the nation, a part of its text was adopted as a catch phrase for a popular TV show character, and part of its melody even was used as a trendy cellphone ringtone (Rossi, 2007). The festival itself proclaims La tagliatelle di nonna Pina as one of its most successful pieces, along with 44 gatti and Il coccodrillo come fa? (songs discussed later in this chapter). Almost 15 years after the song appeared in the festival, I arrived in the country to find that Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina is still a beloved song. This song ended the Zecchino d’Oro medley that was performed at the fundraiser dinner, and it was clearly a crowd favorite as the audience cheered, clapped, and sang along with the song both at the dinner and at the concert (fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017). At the concert, I noticed a young boy, perhaps around three or four years old, who was eagerly waiting for the song throughout the performance. In between song sets he would cheer out the name and look up to his parents, who assured him it would be performed before the end of the night. When the choir began to sing Le taligatelle di nonna Pina, the boy excitedly jumped up and down on his mother’s lap and began clapping along. The parents acknowledged his excitement and began to move along to the music as well. Though this child was not yet born at the time of the song’s appearance in the festival, all family members were familiar with the song (fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017). The popularity of this song extended beyond that of its festival year or generation. In fact, Natalia spoke of her experience with the song and how it was more than her experiences of singing it with the choir for the medley. She mentioned that, when she prepared to audition for Il piccolo coro, she was deciding between auditioning with this song or Il 102 coccodrillo come fa? She chose Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina in the end (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). When I asked her how she knew the music before participating in the festival, she explained that her father (being from Italy) knew the songs and suggested that she sing one of those songs for her audition. She practiced by singing along to a CD she owned that had the song as one of the tracks. Classroom Applications While Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina is currently, perhaps, one of the most popular songs that has resulted from the festival, it also is one of the more difficult songs to incorporate into an American general music classroom. The lengthiness of the lyrics would require much time to teach; thus, although teaching it might be possible in a long-term setting, it would require a lot of attention. Moreover, the song relies heavily on the harmonic function provided by the piano or other types of instrumental accompaniment. The progression of the song is not intuitive, and without harmonic support, students would need to practice transitions between sections to ensure that they maintain key. Also, the form of the song is complex, with the presence of both a prechorus and chorus that are not similar in melodic or harmonic structure. That being said, it is still a song that is valued by Italian children, and there are ways one can incorporate the song into the classroom without relying on symbolic notation or performance. Despite the complex nature of Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina, one can still incorporate this song into the classroom without focusing on actually teaching students to perform the song. There are several interpretations of the song on YouTube, also justifying the popularity of the song. It would be appropriate to share this song in the classroom through a media outlet. After watching and/or listening to the song, students could reflect on the translation of the lyrics and 103 discuss how they may or may not relate to their lives in America. This activity would open up conversations about hobbies and the business of people’s lives. It also would allow students to learn more about each other and what their lives are like outside of the classroom. Discussion can continue with students sharing what makes them happy after long, busy, and/or stressful days. In Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina, the children sing of Grandma Pina’s noodles, and how they are enough energy to sustain them for days at a time. This idea is both relatable and silly for Italian children, and it allowed them to connect with the music. Though I have included a transcription of Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina, I want to stress that this song would be appropriate to “teach” in the classroom, but teachers should avoid presenting the song with notation. Seeing as the appeal of the song for children centers around the lyrics, using the song as an opportunity for dialogue is appropriate. Il piccolo coro also has sung this song and would work well in a choral music setting because of its dependency on accompaniment. 104 Songs About Animals Il pulcino ballerino (Important Message) Quarantaquattro gatti (Important Message) Volevo un gatto nero (Important Message) La banda dello zoo (Fun!) Il valzer del moscerino (Fun!) Popoff (Fun!) i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. Il coccodrillo come fa? (Fun!) 105 Il pulcino ballerino IL PULCINO BALLERINO music by M. Pagano words by Oscar Avogadro Allegro Moderato q = 96 10 nac bra va- 15 6 &b &b &b &b 21 &b 26 &b 32 &b ™ ™ - - - ci no pul per che Dall' Ó Ó tris te- œ uo vo- que'un Œ œ œ œ Œ œ œ œ Œ ˙ œ œ Œ Ó ˙ œ œ Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Œ Ó œ ™ œJ œ œ œ Œ œ œ œ ™ œJ œ œ œ œ œ# œ ™ œJ œ œ œ Œ œ Œ œ œ œ ™ œJ œ œ dop' un ver di'e tic che l'hul ly- in seg gul ly- nò... po', toc no let gli ti - - - - - - - - ci ció... Tre gal lar lo- gial li- pro fes - œ œ œ œ Ó œ œ Œ Œ Œ - zop pa. gob bo- œ œ Œ œ œ Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ zop pi di'u ca Sem - œ na- gal na- li- œ œ Œ un - - - Per po'. va- Ó Ó ˙ con so- chioc cia. ciò la mam ma- œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ œJ œ œ œ œ œ# œ œ ™ œj œ œ œ ™ œJ œ œ œ œ œ# œ œ ™ œJ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ œJ œ œ ¿ ¿ ¿ i- d'hul ly- toc che, Tic che toc che toc che tic che tic che a bal œ gul ly- bal le- il pul Ó ¿ ¿ re'in no- Œ Œ che, la- co- sor mi 2. 1. ci - - - - - - - - - - - - - il pul û ™ ™ û Œ œ ri - no sa lu- - ta - ra no- co - sì: "chic chi ri- - chì!" 2.Per chì!" Figure 4. Il pulcino ballerino. 106 Lyrics Verse 1: Dall'uovo gobbo Di una gallina zoppa Nacque un pulcino Che zoppicava un po'. Sembrava triste Perciò la mamma chioccia Per consolarlo L'hully gully gli insegnò Chorus: Ticche, tocche, ticche, tocche, Il pulcino dopo un po' Ticche, tocche, ticche, tocche, A ballare incominciò. Tre galletti verdi e gialli, Professori d'hully gully Il pulcino ballerino Salutarono così: Chicchirichì... Chicchirichì... Verse 2: Per l'hully gully Di quel pulcino zoppo Grilli e cicale Facevan cri cri cri. Il babbo gallo Scoppiava dalla gioia E nel pollaio Una festa organizzò. Translation Verse 1: A hunchbacked egg Of a limping hen Was born a chick Limping a little. He looked sad So the mother hen To comfort him She taught him the hully gully Chorus: Ticche, tocche, ticche, tocche, After a while the chick Ticche, tocche, ticche, tocche, Began dancing. Three green and yellow roosters Professors of the hully gully, To the dancing chick Sang this: Cock-a-doodle-doo ... Cock-a-doodle-doo… Verse 2: For the hully gully Of that limping chick Crickets and cicadas Would cry, “cri cri cri.” Father Rooster Was bursting with joy And in the henhouse Organized a party. 107 Diction for Difficult Words Uovo – oo-oh-vo Nacque – nAk-kwe Zoppicava – dzoh-pee-kAh-vAh Perciò – per-cho Chioccia – kee-ot-chAh Gialli – jA-lee Chicchirichì – keet-kee-ree-kee Cicale – chee-kAh-leh Gioia – joy-Ah Pollaio – pol-lAi-yo Background Il pulcino ballerino is an example of one of the earlier favorites of Lo Zecchino d’Oro, having been a part of the sixth festival in 1964. Out of 285 original song submissions, Il pulcino ballerino made the final 10 and won the title of Zecchino d’Oro by coming in first place with 148 points, on the third day of the festival (Rossi, 2007). This year of the festival was important for a variety of reasons. First, the festival was still transitioning from the relocation to Bologna (from Milan). Second, it was the first year they became affiliated with the Festival in Sanremo. More impactful was the unrest the festival faced, as Rai Uno network employees went on strike, complicating the televising of the festival. However, the festival continued and aired at the end of February for two days. This was largely due to the new popularity of the festival and the growing loyalty of its viewers (Rossi, 2007). The fact that the festival occurred, despite the strike at its sponsoring network, affirms its importance in Italian culture. As mentioned, Il pulcino ballerino won the children’s vote that year. Viviana Stucchi, the young child who performed the song as a soloist, was popular and a fan-favorite from the start of the festival year (Rossi, 2007). This may have contributed to the song’s winning. Viviana’s popularity and the success of the song extended beyond Italy and into Germany. Germany 108 invited Viviana to sing with the local Italian opera and sing Il pulcino ballerino at the Volkswagon factory (Rossi, 2007). Only six years after its inception, neighboring countries were starting to recognize the importance of Lo Zecchino d’Oro. Today, Il pulcino ballerino currently holds the record for being the song that is the “most copied” [printed] (Rossi, 2007). Context Fifty-three years later, Il pulcino ballerino is still present in Italian culture. Not only is it remembered for its attachment to the festival, but it is also one of the more popular songs even out of the festival context. For example, during one of my jogs in Giardini Margherita, Bologna’s main park, I heard Il pulcino ballerino playing in the distance, only to discover that it was playing as a soundtrack for the children’s merry-go-round (fieldnotes, June 5th, 2017). I assumed that the song was one track on a CD of Zecchino d’Oro songs, and that the next song also would be a Zecchino d’Oro song. However, when the track finished, other children’s music that was not related to the festival started to play. Though I was disappointed that another Zecchino d’Oro song did not play, this provided evidence that Il pulcino ballerino is a beloved children’s song, even when isolated from the festival. Il pulcino ballerino also serves to bring people together through the Antoniano Iniseme (Antoniano together) program. Antoniano Insieme is a music program that functions as a music therapy class for students who have special needs, such as down syndrome or autism. Natalia, the participant who is a current choir member, and her mother, Ophelia, described how the choir specifically learns this song to sing with the Antoniano Insieme program as a way to promote diversity and inclusivity. Natalia explained that the choir sings this song every year, and through that experience, both groups have the opportunity to come together and sing as one. She 109 continued to explain that the importance of the song is its message: “You shouldn’t judge someone by what they look like” (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). For this song in particular, the message of perseverance and inclusion is what has kept the song a relevant part of Italian musical culture for children. Classroom Applications Il pulcino ballerino can function in the music classroom in a variety of ways. This song allows the opportunity for movement creativity, as students can develop their own “l’hully gully” dance to accompany the song. When I was teaching, I had my students develop their own “b- section,” during which they performed their movements. We also extended this section to include ostinati that we created as a class based off lyrics in the song. One can adapt the above activities for multiple grade levels; however, in Italy, this song is most popular with younger children. In a children’s choir context, this song would be appropriate for a training choir (1st/2nd graders)11. It is possible to teach the lyrics of this song in a general music classroom, for there are only two verses, and the chorus has repetitive lyrics. Furthermore, the vocal range is appropriate, maintaining a tessitura of just over an octave, in the key of F major. More generally, one could introduce the song through media or by rote and discuss the translation of the lyrics. This activity can serve as a springboard to discussing the message of perseverance and inclusivity, or how being different is okay. As an extension for the music program, one could develop a mentorship program between older and younger grades, or between individuals in classes that embodies the principles of the Antoniano Insieme and Il piccolo coro model. This model could extend into the above activities, with students from 11 For a choral arrangement of this song, please contact J. Giustino at jgiustino91@gmail.com 110 different classes collaborating to create a “l’hully gully” dance in the model program. Furthermore, teachers could establish a culture in which this becomes an annual event, or strive to find ways in which students could share this collaboration through a performance. If a self-contained program exists in a teacher’s building, they also could implement this model amongst the self-contained classes and typical12 classrooms to more directly parallel the Antoniano Insieme model. However, I implore teachers to think deeply about the ways in which they can implement this model in a way that fosters inclusivity and eschews “othering” students because of their differences. Furthermore, teachers do not have to limit this ideal to the identity soruce of disability. The best way in which educators can encourage students to collaborate and come together despite their differences is to provide opportunities for students to interact in ways in which students do not even think to consider the differences that may exist. 12 I use the words “typical,” and “self-contained” in following the model of common school program designs and labels. However, teachers should use language that best represents the voice of their students and community when discussing this dialectic. 111 Quarantaquattro gatti QUARANTAQUATTRO GATTI music by G. Casarini 68& Œ ™ - - ti can Verse q = 100 q = 100 Nel la- œ œ œ œ œ œj œ œ œ œj œ œ œ œ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj œ œ œ œ œjœ œ œ# œj œ œ œ œ & Chorus œj œ œ œ œj œ & per pre ci- or ga niz- di'un pal dro ne, riu nio- œ za- ra- no- u na- la sit ua- zo- tut - ti'i sa- re- laz- ne- gat na - ne - - ™ ™ œj œ 5 10 pa - - ti ni sen za- q = 160 q = 160 œj œ œ œ œ œ œj œ ≈ œr ≈ œr œj œ Qua - ne! zio - - œ ran baffi œ 14 & - ta a quat - - li œj œ - - tro ne œj gat a- - - œ per per ti'in ti'in fi fi - - la la œj œ œ œ sei sei œ di di col col res res - - to to œj œ œ œ du du - - e, e, 1. œ œj œ si'un le ≈ œr - ™ ™ du - e. Coi i co - - ro - de'at - no tor 18 & 2. œ œj œ ™ com - ci - - pat glia - - ti'in te'in fi fi - - la la per per sei sei col col res res - - to to di di œ ‰ œ œJ œ œ œ œ œj œ ‰ Œ œj œ œj œ œj œ œ ‰ Œ ™ du e.- sei per set te- qua ran- ta- - due, più due qua ran- ta- - quat - tro! Figure 5. Quarantaquattro gatti. 112 Lyrics Verse 1: Nella cantina di un palazzone Tutti i gattini senza padrone Organizzarono una riunione Per precisare la situazione! Chorus: Quarantaquattro gatti, In fila per sei col resto di due, Si unirono compatti, In fila per sei col resto di due, Coi baffi allineati, In fila per sei col resto di due, Le code attorcigliate, In fila per sei col resto di due Sei per sette: quarantadue, Più due: quarantaquattro Verse 2: Loro chiedevano a tutti i bambini, Che sono amici di tutti i gattini, Un pasto al giorno e all'occasione, Poter dormire sulle poltrone! Chorus Verse 3: Naturalmente tutti i bambini Tutte le code potevan tirare Ogni momento e a loro piacere, Con tutti quanti giocherellare. Chorus Verse 4: Quando alla fine della riunione Fu definita la situazione Andò in giardino tutto il plotone Di quei gattini senza padrone. Chorus 113 Translation Verse 1: In the basement of a tower Stray kittens Organized a meeting To clarify the situation! Chorus: Forty-four cats, In rows of six (with a remainder of two), Joined compactly, In rows of six (with a remainder of two), Aligned by their whiskers, In rows of six (with a remainder of two), Their twisted tails, In rows of six (with a remainder of two), Six times seven: forty-two, Plus two: forty-four! Verse 2: They asked all the children, Who are friends of the kittens, For one meal a day and then sometimes, They are able to sleep on the chairs! Chorus Verse 3: Of course, all children Pulled all of the tails they could At any moment and at their pleasure, They would play with every kitten. Chorus Verse 4: When, at the end of the meeting They solved the situation, The whole squad went into the garden, All of the stray kittens. Chorus Diction for Difficult Words Quarantaquattro – kwA-rAhn-tAh-kwAht-tro Pallazone – pAhl-lAht-tzoh-ne Organizzarano – Or-gA-neet-tzAh-rAh-no Riunione – ree-oo-nyo-ne Unirono – oo-nee-ro-no Allineati – Al-lee-nEh-Ah-tee Attorcigliate – At-tor-chee-lyee-Ah-te Giocherellare – jo-kE-rel-lA-re Quei - kway Background March of 1968 marked the 10-year anniversary of Lo Zecchino d’Oro. This year is not only important as an anniversary, but also in terms of the songs that were featured in the festival that year (Rossi, 2007). Two songs from this particular year were more recognized and considered to be “classics”: Quarantaquattro gatti and Il valzer del moscerino (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Rossi, 2007). Additionally, I included a third song later in the document that is a personal favorite: La banda dello zoo from this same year. At the 10-year mark, those involved with Lo Zecchino d’Oro were shocked by its success (Rossi, 2007). To celebrate, they hosted an invitational for the festival, during which an elementary school outside the region of Trento visited and took part in the festival. The visiting children participated in rehearsals, experienced an insider-perspective on the festival, and, for many, it was their first time outside the Trento region (Rossi, 2007). Also in celebration of 10th years of success, Zecchino d’Oro released two CD versions of the music: live performance recordings and a studio recording of the songs sung by Il piccolo coro (Rossi, 2007). This year also was different, in that the average age of singers was under five-years-old. Not only did this mean that this year had some of the youngest participating members, but it also meant that most of the children were not yet born when the festival first took place. The singer 114 for Quarantaquattro gatti, Barbara Ferìgo, was four-and-a-half-years-old when the festival aired (Rossi, 2007). The song placed in first place on both days it aired, and was the overall winner. The song, which translates as “44 cats,” has stiff competition, with the two runner-ups losing by only one to three points. Moreover, this year’s line-up centered around the theme of animals. As such, all songs for this year were about animals in some way; though, many festival songs throughout the years tend to involve animals in the storyline for they are more popular with the voting children (Rossi, 2007). Context The medley sung at the Zecchino d’Oro Antoniano concert and 60th anniversary fundraiser dinner included Quarantaquattro gatti as one of its main features (fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017; fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017). In fact, not only was it included in the middle of the medley, but it also was performed twice and served as one of the main modulations to a higher key within the medley. Both at the concert and fundraiser dinner, audience members were singing along and knew most of the words, especially for the chorus. Additionally, each time the choir sings this song at an event, audience members started to clap along, regardless of whether the conductor initiated the clapping (fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017; fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017). Quarantaquattro gatti is an upbeat song that naturally elicits clapping along, but it was interesting to see how quickly audience members began to clap at each event. This song was clearly a crowd favorite and also functioned like a “pick-me-up” in case the audience was beginning to lose interest during previous songs. University-aged students also confirmed that Quarantaquattro gatti is one of the more popular songs from the festival. They too were able to 115 recite most of the lyrics, loudly singing as they walked through the streets of Bologna at night. The song appealed to them both because they knew it as young children and because it is “like a tongue twister” (fieldnotes, June 16th, 2017). Singing through the lyrics at the demanding, fast tempo adds an additional challenge that most Italians seem to accept eagerly. In my interview with Natalia and her mother, Natalia shared that Quarantaquattro gatti is scheduled to premiere as a television show within the next two years. Even more important, the show is going to air internationally in English. In Italy, of course, the song will be in Italian; however, the show in both languages is inspired by the Zecchino d’Oro song. Natalia spoke of this with me, stating that is was exciting to sing the song in both Italian and English since those are the two languages she speaks. She did note that the translation in English did not fit as well as the Italian, but it still was funny (group interview, Natalia & Ophelia, June 28th, 2017). I can relate to this experience, for I had a lot of trouble understanding what was going on in the song when I translated the lyrics at first. I later realized that the song is about long division, but the direct translation did not bring me to this conclusion at first. Natalia sang the song for me in English, but, because the show has not officially aired, I am not at liberty to share the direct translation. Natalia pointed out that the “American-English” translation was different from the “British-English” translation (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). Friar Caspoli mentioned the potential T.V. show to me in his interview as well and suggested that a major children’s television network in the States has already picked up the show to air (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). I am not surprised that Quarantaquattro gatti was expanded into a television series. On YouTube, the Zecchino d’Oro official video for Quarantaquattro gatti has over 32 million views. While this is not one of the top three viewing statistics of all time in regard to 116 music from the festival, the song following its place in views only has around 15 million, making Quarantaquattro gatti one of the clear favorites among viewers. Classroom Applications With the subject matter of the song having to do with simple long division, it makes most sense for teachers to incorporate this song into a 4th or 5th grade music curriculum. This will help foster connections between music and math, promoting interdisciplinary in the classroom. While the lyrics are challenging because of their tongue-twisting nature, it would be possible for 4th and 5th graders to learn all of the words. Moreover, this song is a fun challenge for students, due to the quick change in tempo before the chorus comes in. Students can explore how quickly they are able to sing the chorus once they have learned the lyrics. Both young children and college students, in Italy, articulated that the added challenge of singing the lyrics at a fast tempo is one of the main appeals of the song (fieldnotes, June 7th, 2017; fieldnotes, June 23rd, 2017; interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Rossi, 2007). When the English version of the show airs in the United States, it would be meaningful to integrate this song into a music curriculum, as it may be a way to connect learning in the classroom to prevalent media influences from home life. Assuming that the show becomes popular or at least known, bringing the original song and inspiration of the show’s inception in to the classroom would promote culturally responsive teaching further through the lens of popular culture. The class could learn the original Italian lyrics and more about the background of the song to give them context for the song and show. Because the show is about stray cats, it probably will be geared towards younger ages. However, it would still be fun for students throughout elementary school to reflect on the shows that they watched when they were younger 117 as well as what they learned by watching those shows. They also could discuss the lyrics in relation to their math curriculum. 118 Volevo un gatto nero VOLEVO UN GATTO NERO words by F. Maresca music by Framario & A. Soricillo ve vo- œ œ che l'a - œ Chorus Allegro Moderato q = 98 Verse 4 7 44&## &## &## &## &## 11 14 te, ne da to- a lo- ve ro, - to- - re, un ve ro- al li- ga- e l'a vrei - ti'ho det to- 1.Un coc co- - dril ‰ œj œ œ œ# œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œn œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ# œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œn œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œJ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œJ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ œ œ# ‰ œJ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ# ed io non ci sto più. te. Ma'i pat ti- ro- mi'hai da to- e tu do ve vi- dar' un gat to- Vo le- - vo'un il coc co- - dril lo- Vo le- - vo'un un gat to- bian co- ne ro- a me! ne ro, - ne ro- e ra- no- chia ri: - gat to- - œ œ œ œ gat to- œ a ™ ™ ne - ro, ne ro- ne ro- sic co- me- sei un bur giar - do- con te non gio co- più Figure 6. Volevo un gatto nero. 119 Lyrics Verse 1: Un coccodrillo vero, Un vero alligatore Ti ho detto che l'avevo E l'avrei dato a te. Ma i patti erano chiari: Il coccodrillo a te E tu dovevi dare Un gatto nero a me. Chorus (1): Volevo un gatto nero, nero, nero, Mi hai dato un gatto bianco Ed io non ci sto più. Volevo un gatto nero, nero, nero, Siccome sei un bugiardo Con te non gioco più. Verse 2: Non era una giraffa Di plastica o di stoffa: Ma una in carne ed ossa E l'avrei data a te. Ma i patti erano chiari: Una giraffa a te E tu dovevi dare Un gatto nero a me. Verse 3: Un elefante indiano Con tutto il baldacchino: L'avevo nel giardino E l'avrei dato e te. Ma i patti erano chiari: Un elefante a te E tu dovevi dare Un gatto nero a me. Bridge/Chorus (2): I patti erano chiari: L'intero zoo per te E tu dovevi dare Un gatto nero a me. Translation Verse 1: A real crocodile, A true alligator I told you what I had That I would have given to you. But the terms were clear: The crocodile to you And you should have given A black cat to me. Chorus 1: I wanted a black cat, black, black, You gave me a white cat And I’m not there anymore. I wanted a black cat, black, black, Because you are a liar With you, I don’t play anymore. Verse 2: It was not a giraffe Of plastic, or cloth: But in the flesh That I would have given to you. But the terms were clear: A giraffe to you And you should have given A black cat to me. Verse 3: An Indian elephant With the full canopy: I had in the garden And I would have given it to you. But the terms were clear: An elephant to you And you should have given A black cat to me. Bridge/Chorus 2: The terms were clear: The entire zoo for you And you should have given A black cat to me. 120 I wanted a black cat, black, black, Instead it is a white cat That you gave to me. I wanted a black cat, But in short, black or white I’m keeping the cat And nothing goes to you. Volevo un gatto nero, nero, nero, Invece è un gatto bianco Quello che hai dato a me. Volevo un gatto nero, Ma insomma nero o bianco Il gatto me lo tengo E non do niente a te. Diction for Difficult Words Coccodrillo – kok-ko-dreel-lo L’avrei – lA-vrAi Hai - Ai Bugiardo – boo-jAr-do Gioco – jo-ko Baldacchino – bAl-dAk-kee-no Giardino – jAr-dee-no L’intero – leen-tEr-no Zoo - tso Background 11th anniversary of Lo Zecchino d’Oro was in 1969, and the festival at this time was still growing in popularity. That year, over 300 children auditioned and nearly 430 songs were entered into the competition. The committee was able to narrow the songs down to the final 12, and children as performers were matched to a song according to three criteria: (1) singing qualities of the voice, (2) attributes that represent the song and (3) telegenic characteristics (Rossi, 2007). This was an important year for Lo Zecchino d’Oro, as it was the first year that the live shows were broadcasted on an international television network: Eurovision. The platform aired in many countries including, Germany, Yugoslavia, Iran, and all of South America (Rossi, 2007). It was not clear whether the broadcast extended to the United States. However, it was transmitted in six languages, increasing the festival’s international recognition. 121 Ironically, Volevo un gatto nero did not win the final contest day; it came in third (Rossi, 2007). However, its popularity superseded that of the winner, and it has become one of the most well-known songs from the festival. In fact, the song wound up winning the “referendum,” which allowed viewers to submit the name of their favorite song. So, while the Jury voted the song into third place, children throughout the country disagreed. The referendum serves as a bias check and allows the voices Italian children from the general public to be heard. Additionally, Volevo un gatto nero was an international success in both Russia, Yugoslavia, and Japan (Rossi, 2007). In Japan, the song was such a success that millions of records were sold. There, the song became known as “Tango of the Black Cat.” Friar Caspoli also referred to this song as “The Tango” in his interview (Interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). The song continued to be a success in Japan, as it transformed in to a well-known pop song that made the top charts in the country and was played in disco clubs. Whenever Il piccolo coro travels internationally to Japan, they make a point to sing Volevo un gatto nero. Additionally, for this year Lo Zecchino d’Oro partnered with Disney to feature classic Disney characters throughout the televised segment (Rossi, 2007). The characters of the Mickey Mouse family were paired with festival songs to act out each story line. Mickey Mouse (il Topolino in Italian) is very popular in Italy, and it is not uncommon to see many cultural artifacts particular to Italy being fashioned through Mickey Mouse and his peers (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Rossi, 2007; Gentilini, 1969). Thus, it is not surprising they established this partnership. Furthermore, this discovery explains the existence of the Disney comic book I found in the Michigan State University reserved section, as it was published the same year as this festival (Gentilini, 1969). 122 Context Volevo un gatto nero was part of the Lo Zecchino d’Oro medley at each performance that I observed (fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017; fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017). Furthermore, each participant in the study made reference to the song (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017; interview, Francesca, June 7th, 2017). Friar Caspoli, as mentioned earlier, refers to Volevo un gatto nero as “the tango” and agreed that this song is one of the more popular songs (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Additionally, several college students expressed that this song is one of their favorites and enjoyed singing the lyrics of the song as they paraded through streets (fieldnotes, June 16th, 2017). A roommate of a friend in the area immediately began singing the tune from memory when I stated that Volevo un gatto nero was a personal favorite (fieldnotes, June 7th, 2017). Unexpectedly, all of the other roommates also joined in, as this seemed to be the trend with well- known music from the festival; most children and adults can sing multiple songs from memory, and Volevo un gatto nero is no exception. Natalia spoke in detail about the song as I prompted her to explain why it might be popular amongst her and her friends (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). She first admitted that she liked the song “because it teaches you something” (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). Specifically, Natalia believes the song’s message is about trying not to be too picky and “to be sincere” (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). When studying the translation of the lyrics, Natalia’s interpretation becomes clear. First, the overall text of the song is about the promise of an exchange: I’ll give you any zoo animal of your choosing; in return, I would like a black cat. The story line takes a turn in the chorus when the audience learns that the person telling the story did not get the black cat, but instead, a white cat. Natalia’s mentioning of 123 sincerity is in reference to the exchange not happening as planned (the singer should have gotten a black cat). Yet, the larger message of not being too picky also is pervasive in that the singer should learn how to be happy with a white cat, even though it is not exactly what was asked for. Natalia’s justification for liking Volevo un gatto nero because of the deeper meaning of the text partially inspired the grouping of the songs for this document by “important message” and “fun”. The storyline of Volevo un gatto nero contributed to its meaning and to its success. Volevo un gatto nero has been viewed more on YouTube than any other Lo Zecchino d’Oro song, with 77 million views, overall. For context, that is more than the current population of Italy. Regardless of whether multiple people viewed the video several times, it is a remarkable number. Furthermore, Volevo un gatto nero was the only other song I heard in passing as a soundtrack song at the merry-go-round in the city park (fieldnotes, June 16th, 2017). While I cannot know if other songs were played (aside from Il pulcino ballerino as mentioned earlier) because I did not spend all of my time at that location and had no means to access the playlist, this is another affirmation that Volevo un gatto nero is well knows within Italian children’s musical cultures. Classroom Applications Though Volevo un gatto nero has three full verses rich with complex Italian words, the chorus of the song is accessible with practice. Due to the repetitive nature of the song, students would have the opportunity to sing the chorus several times. Furthermore, the melody of the verses does not change much. Thus, it would be feasible to either (1) teach this song of the course of several class meetings to achieve learning all lyrics as a class, or (2) challenge certain students to take on verses as solos. With this in mind, this song is most appropriate for upper 124 elementary grade levels. In either context, students could explore how to tell the story of the song through their performance. The verse-chorus formal structure also sets this song up well for an elementary choral setting13. The YouTube video also provides the opportunity to explore Argentinian tango style, though teachers should be aware that some form of cultural appropriation is present. I will discuss how teachers can use the cultural appropriation as a teaching moment later on in this paragraph. Some characteristics of Argentinian tango style are present in the instrumentation of the video. For example, the rhythmic and harmonic structure is a basic form of Argentinian tango. Second, the use of a bandoneon-like instrument (-like is stressed, as it is an animated version and the instrument could be mistaken for an accordion) is present from the very beginning of the song. This instrument is typical in Argentinian tangos, as are some form of shakers and a bass instrument, both of which are present in the video. Though one can identify these instruments in the recording, it would be beneficial to discuss all instruments that are typical of an Argentinian tango, which ones are present in the recording and which ones are not represented. Furthermore, the teacher could lead a discussion problematizing the use of other instruments in the video and touch upon the idea of cultural appropriation. Though it is not as pervasive in this particular song, it would be interesting for students to compare the video to a sample of Argentinian tango from Argentina and talk about the differences and similarities. The video also creates a visual image of animals dancing in a tango-fashion during an interlude, which one could consider culturally-insensitive. I believe that these points of discussion would be beneficial to the learning experience of Volevo un gatto nero and a tangible way to talk about topics of cultural appropriation and characteristics of different “world” musics in the classroom. 13 For a choral arrangement of this song, please contact J. Giustino at jgiustino91@gmail.com 125 After using this video as an opportunity to discuss characteristics of an Argentinian tango, an additional extension could be to have students add instrumentation to their own performance. With upper elementary grades, students could explore the typical rhythm patterns associated with the tango and add appropriate non-pitched percussion to the performance. For example, steady eighth notes on a shaker or perhaps a syncopated rhythm pattern on claves. Again, both students and teachers should be cognizant of not appropriating the tango style of music when adding instrumentation. Having conversations about the importance of this style in Argentina and the types of instruments that accompany it is one way to begin to navigate that dialectic. Discussing the message and themes that result from the story of Volevo un gatto is important when presenting the song to students, as its message is one of the main appeals of the song. To prompt discussion, it might be beneficial to show the YouTube Antoniano official video, as the animated portrayal of the song helps show the story line without the necessity of understanding the lyrics straight away. From there, the class can study the lyrics and translations and discuss their meaning. Sharing of personal experiences and ideas that relate to the story would allow children to get to know one another on a deeper level. Furthermore, this song is an example of sharing a significant message through a funny musical vehicle. 126 La banda dello zoo LA BANDA DELLO ZOO words by L. Sterpellone gran music by M. Pagano zoo 5 8 ca- Intro de - se - ra fes - ta. fu la li- del lo- ci se- ro- œn la mu si- di dare u na- Ma quan do- - ma- q = 115 q = 115 œ Œ Un giorno gli a ni ‰ œj œ 44&b &b œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ &b &b senza un po' di mu si- œ œ ™ ‰ œj Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™œ œ œ œ œ ˙ ‰ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ Ó ¿ ™ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ œ ¿ ™ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ™ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ œ œ e poi la chia me- zoo. Dis se'il noi fa re- mo- ¿ ™ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ sa te! - œ œ ™ 15 &b 19 &b per pri mo- tam bu ro, - gu ro: - "Io suo ne- e suo ne- rò- La ban da- co min - ce- rò- la ban da- non c'e re- mo- non si fes ta- del lo- co - sí..." Drums Ó - ca, la - ra, - rò'il Œ Verse fa... 1. 11 e ™ ™ Non ci pen - - can- ™ ™ Di di di di di di di... &b 2. œ Tuba œ œ œ œ œ œ Bum bum bum bum... Trombone œ Œ œ œ Œ œ œ œ œ Œ œ Œ œ œ œ Po Po... Clarinet . œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ . œ œ . œ œ Œ . Œ œ . œ . œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ Doo doo dle- loo doo dle- loo Doo doo dle- loo doo dle- 2.Sei mol to- œ ˙ ‰ œj œ œ ‰ œj œ œ . œ œ Œ . œ œ loo œ œ œ Œ œ Œ œ 3. Œ &b &b .4. œ &b . œ Doo doo dle- loo doo dle- loo Doo doo dle- loo doo dle- loo 5. Trumpet - Melody of the verse on "da" to end. Figure 7. La banda dello zoo. 127 Lyrics Intro: Un giorno gli animali dello zoo Decisero di dare una gran festa. Ma quando fu la sera La musica non c’era, E senza un po’ di musica, La festa non si fa… Verse 1: Non ci pensate! La banda noi faremo E poi la chiameremo la banda dello zoo. Disse il canguro: “Io suonerò il tamburo, Comincerò per primo e suonerò così…” Di, di, di, di… (Imitate drums) Verse 2: Sei molto bravo, tu suoni con talento. Mi piacerebbe tanto suonare insieme a te! Così dicendo il tasso prese un basso Soffiando a più non possò lui cominciò a Suonar… Bum, bum, bum, bum… (Imitate tuba) Verse 3: Udì la banda e fiero alzò la testa Il re della foresta, e forte poi ruggì Disse il leone: “Io suonerò il trombone,” Ha proprio un bel vocione; sentite come fa… Po, po, po, po… (Imitate Trombone) Verse 4: Cos’è una banda se poi non c’è il clarino? Ha un suono assai carino, ve lo farò sentir… E in questa banda ci manca un bel clarino! Barrì l’elefantino – “ed io lo suonerò…” Doo doodle loo, doodle loo… (clarinet) Verse 5: Se mi volete adesso arrivo io E suoneremo insieme la banda dello zoo! Se una scimmietta vi suona la cornetta Che bella musichetta la banda suonerà… Da, da, da, da… (Imitate trumpet) Translation Intro: One day the zoo animals Decided to throw a big party. But when it was evening There was no music, And without a little music, The party cannot happen. Verse 1: Don’t worry! We can make a band, And we’ll call it the band of the zoo. Said the Kangaroo, “I’ll play the drum, I’ll start first and play it like so…” (Imitate drums) Verse 2: You're very good, you play with talent. I would love to play with you! After saying that the badger took a tuba Blowing like crazy he began to play… (Imitate tuba) Verse 3: He heard the band play proud. The king of the forest then roared loudly. The lion said, " I will play the trombone," It has a beautiful deep voice, hear it like so… (Imitate Trombone) Verse 4: What is a band if you do not have a clarinet? It sounds very nice; I'll let you hear... In this band we are missing quite a clarinet! Said, Barrí the elephant: “I'll play it...” (Imitate Clarinet) Verse 5: If you want me to I will come too As a band we will play together in the zoo! If I, a monkey, played the trumpet, A beautiful piece of music the band will Play like... (Imitate Trumpet) 128 Diction for Difficult Words Zoo – tso Gli – lyee Decisero – dE-chee-ze-ro C’era – chE-rA Chiameremo – kee-A-me-re-mo Comincerò – kO-meen-chE-ro Così – ko-zee Piacerebbe – pee-A-chE-reb-be Background Soffiando – sof-fee-An-do Alzò – Al-zo Ruggì – rooj-jee Vocione – vo-cho-ne Cos’è – koz-e Assai – As-sAi Suoneremo – swo-ne-re-mo Scimmietta – skeem-mee-Et-tA La banda dello zoo is one of the three songs included in this document from the 10th Lo Zecchino d’Oro in 1968. In line with the festival theme of “animals”, the song details the formation of a zoo band, with classic zoo animals playing different instrument to create the band. To keep with the natural structure of the song, the festival had seven children involved with the performance of this song, each taking on the role of a different animal (Rossi, 2007). The song came in second on the first festival day, but in 6th place overall. Thus, it was not one of the more popular ones for that festival, nor is it one of the more recognized ones in Lo Zecchino d’Oro history overall. However, I have chosen to include this song as a personal favorite and because it lends itself to use in an elementary general music setting. Context When I brought the song up to Friar Caspoli, after I sang a few lines he recognized the song (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). Moreover, when asking for sheet music of each song from the Antoniano Institute music librarian, she stated that La banda dello zoo was one of her personal favorites as well. While most of the songs presented in this document are reflective of their general popularity, individuals may have different experiences with the songs. It would 129 be beneficial to check with your students to see if they have favorites from the festival, should you have Italian students in your classroom. Classroom Applications The main reason that I enjoy bringing this song into the classroom is because of how well it sets up ostinati. Not only are they simple, yet interesting, but they are prepared logically through each verse, and the harmonies interlock if all parts are sung at the same time. I have used this song in both the general and choral classroom. For each, it was fun for the students to attempt to learn all five ostinati and sing them simultaneously by the end of the song. Thus, this song would be most appropriate for use with 4th/5th grade students, due to the difficulty of performing a five-part ostinati. Students found success if they added a motion to each line, which usually was representative of the instrument they were imitating. Though there are many lyrics, there were always students who wanted the added challenge of singing some of the verses in small groups or as solos. This made the song more accessible for other students, if they were struggling to learn the text. I found that, over the course of a few class periods, the children were all able to learn the introduction and verse one comfortably. The ostinati can be transferred to barred Orff instruments. Though these instruments are not accompanying the original music of La banda dello zoo, it would not be inappropriate to approach teaching the song in this way. Lo Zecchino d’Oro prides itself on its grandiosity (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Rossi, 2007). They have incorporated a variety of barred instruments in live performances of the festival music, even when there was no inherent reason to do so. To them, more is more. The more spectacular the event, the more it will appeal to the children. Thus, it is in the nature of the festival to use this song as a teaching tool on Orff 130 instruments. Furthermore, this song even could be used as an opportunity for students who are studying instruments that are represented in the song to showcase their playing of band instruments in the classroom. Should this lead to the alienation of students who are not studying band instruments, a project extension could include those students writing ostinati for classroom instruments and incorporating them in to the final performance of the song. This makes connections to the other musical experiences in which children are participating outside of the elementary general music classroom. This same connection could be made in a choral context by adapting the song to work in an elementary choral classroom setting. I have arranged this song for such setting and taught the music to formers students with much success14. We first explored this song in the general music context by learning the ostinati, and then transferred those elements to the choral arrangement. While the arrangement does have further complexities than the single transcribed melodic line included in this document, the ostinati are the same. Teaching this song in both classroom contexts further bridges the gap between disciplines within music and allows students to make connections to different ways of engaging with music. 14 For a choral arrangement of “La banda dello zoo”, please contact J. Giustino at jgiustino91@gmail.com 131 Il valzer del moscerino IL VALZER DEL MOSCERINO words by L. Zanin 34& q = 90 Œ 6 & 10 & œ sul œ œj e œj Il œ co - Œ ∑ Œ music by A. Della Giustina Œ œ Verse œ œ œ Bep - po - ne œ œ suo na - so - œ œ œ œ ™ œj œ œ œ œ œ ™ va nel gran de- giar - di - no œ œ œ œ œ ™ œ sa- - œj vo - lò mo - sce - ri - no. œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ ™ rus ne œ ven - to suo - na - va un bel val - ze - rino 14 & œ# œ œ sì'il mo - sce - œ ri œ - no œ si œ œ œ# ˙ mi - se'a bal - lar... 18 & Chorus œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ ˙ Un lal - la, un lal - la, un lal la- là- questo'e il val zer - del mo - sce - ri - no. 26 & œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ Un lal - la, un lal - la, un lal la- là- questo'e il val zer - che fa lal - la- - là! Figure 8. Il valzer del moscerino. 132 Lyrics Verse 1: Beppone russava Nel grande giardino E sul suo nasone Volò un moscerino. Il vento suonava Un bel valzerino Così il moscerino Si mise a ballar. Chorus Un lalla un lalla un lallalà Questo è il valzer Del Moscerino Un lalla un lalla un lallalà Questo è il valzer Che fa lallalà. Verse 2: Nel sonno Beppone Che più non russava Il naso arricciava Rideva sognava Sognava una piuma Un fiocco di neve Un petalo di rosa Caduto dal ciel. Chorus Verse 3: Ma un gatto birbone E pazzerellone Colpì il moscerino Graffiò il suo nasone E il valzer finiva E il gatto fuggiva Così per Beppone L'incanto svanì. Chorus 133 Translation Verse 1: Beppone was snoring In the large garden And on his nose Flew a fly. The wind sounded Like a beautiful waltz So, the fly Began to dance. Chorus: One lalla, two lalla, three lallalà This is the waltz Of the fly. One lalla, two lalla, three lallala This is the waltz That goes lallalà. Verse 2: Beppone still sleeping, Was no longer snoring. His nose wrinkled He laughed and dreamed He dreamed of a feather A snowflake A rose petal Fallen from the sky. Chorus Verse 3: But a rascal And crazy cat Hit the fly, Scratched his nose And the waltz ended. The cat ran away And for Beppone The spell was broken. Chorus Diction for Difficult Words Valzer – vAl-tzer Moscerino – mo-she-ree-no Giardino – jAr-dee-no Arricciava – Ar-reech-chee-A-vA Sognava – so-nya-vA Fiocco – fee-Ok-ko Ciel - chel Pazzerellone – pAt-tser-rEl-lOh-ne Fuggiva – fooj-jee-vA Svanì – zvA-nee Background As mentioned, the 10th Zecchino d’Oro festival was especially important because of how many songs are still remembered from that particular festival year, including Il valzer del moscerino. The song came in third place and the singer, Cristina D’Avena, was the most popular among viewers that year (Rossi, 2007). Her story won over audience members’ hearts, as she was an orphan whose singing capabilities were discovered by a nun affiliated with the Antoniano Institute. A nun shared Cristina’s story and helped her get involved with the festival when she was only three years old. She is one of the youngest children to ever participate in the festival (Rossi, 2007). Now, Cristina is recognized as a singer of both contemporary and animated children’s music in Italy and has paid tribute to Lo Zecchino d’Oro by singing popular songs of the festival at some of her performances15. Context Il valzer del moscerino also was one of the songs in the medley. However, during data collection, it did not surface much outside of the medley. When I asked Natalia about the song, 15 Information on Cristina d’Avena retrieved from: http://www.corriere.it/la-lettura/cards/cristina-d-avena-ho-reso-l- infanzia-eterna/prima-canzone-zecchino-d-oro.shtml 134 she stated that she knew it, but less so than some of the others I had mentioned (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). Friar Caspoli also acknowledged that he knew the song but did not have much to say about it (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). In a separate conversation, he also referred to Il valzer moscerino as “the waltz.” During the concert and fundraiser performance, the audience seemed to know the lyrics, especially those of the chorus due to their simplicity (fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017; fieldnotes, fundraiser dinner, June 7th, 2017). While this song might not be at the top of the list in terms of being the most popular, it certainly is recognized by most adults and children, supporting the notion that many songs from the festival are known on a general level in Italian culture. Classroom Applications The most important facet of this song is its meter and waltz style. Due to the simplicity of the lyrics, this song would be a useful, practical example of how to helps students feel the meter of a waltz. Furthermore, it seems as if some remember Il valzer del moscerino as “the waltz.” The Lo Zecchino d’Oro official video on YouTube visually tells the story of a fly dancing the waltz with a partner, and could serve as an introduction to the story line of the song through imagery. A further extension may include teaching students how to dance the Waltz, as the rhythmic structure of the piece facilitates learning that style of dance. Not only does this provide students with the opportunity to engage with the music kinesthetically, but the teacher can also use the song as a platform to teach other music styles and the history of where the dance comes from. Overall, the simple rhythmic structure makes this song most appropriate for middle elementary-aged children. I would suggest using this song in a second-grade curriculum to reinforce practice with patterns consisting half notes, 3/4 time, and exposure to a raised fourth 135 scale degree aurally. While Il valzer del moscerino was not discussed much by participants, it clearly was well-known from its presence in the medley and can serve as a useful introduction to Italian songs, as the lyrics are simple and repetitive for the chorus. 136 Popoff POPOFF music by P. Gualdi & M. Pagano words by L. Zanin q = 100 q = 100 44&bbbSwing Ó Piano 6 &bbb &bbb 10 œ œ œ fis - schia no- œ œ œ Verse Nel la- scon fi- step pa- Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ Œ œ œ lo- del ge i œ œ œ - - na ta, ta- sot to- a qua ran- œ œ Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œn œ œ œ œ œ Zar. lo- sac del chi co - - œ œ œ ™ œj Œ ze ro, - se ne'in œ œ œj Col col - œ ™ œ bac co'e - gli sti - va - li, cam mi - - nan do- tut - ti'in fi - la, con la 14 &bbb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ™ œj œ œ# œ œ Molto ritard. ˙ Ó ne - ve'a mez za- gam ba, - van - no ver - so'il fiu me - Don. 18 q = 120 q = 120 &bbb Chorus œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Ma Pop off- sbuf fa- 21 &bbb Clap: œ œ œ œ ˙ ¿ sbuf fa'e - do po'un - po' gli si'af fon- da- lo sti va- le- nel la- œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ne ve'e - res ta- lì. Ma Pop off- del co - sac co- che cos' ha? Ha'il col - 24 &bbb 27 &bbb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ - ma non pos so- li, no- bas tar. - La la bac co'e - gli sti va- œ œ œ œ œ ¿ ¿ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ poco accel... œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ¿ la la la la la la la la œ œ œ œ œ la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. Figure 9. Popoff. 137 Lyrics Verse 1: Nella steppa sconfinata A 40 sotto 0 Se ne infischiano del gelo I cosacchi dello Zar. Col colbacco e gli stivali Camminando tutti in fila Con la neve a mezza gamba Vanno verso il fiume Don. Chorus 1: Ma Popoff Sbuffa, sbuffa e dopo un po’ Gli si affonda lo stivale Nella neve e resta li. Ma Popoff del cosacco che cos’ha Ha il colbacco e gli stivali, Ma non possono bastar. La la la… Verse 2: I cosacchi lunghi e fieri Con i baffi volti in su Nella neve vanno alteri Ma Popoff non c’è più. E’ rimasto senza fiato Sulla pancia accovacciato: Che cosacco sfortunato Questo povero Popof. Chorus 2: Ma Popoff non si arrende e dopo un po’ Scivolando sulla pancia Fila verso il fiume Don. Hei! Popoff così proprio non si può Non cammina in questo modo Un cosacco dello zar. La la la… Verse 3: I cosacchi sono stanchi Non si vede il fiume Don Con i baffi congelati Più non vogliono marciar. 138 Translation Verse 1: In the boundless steppe Of 40 below 0 They could not care about the frost The Cossacks of the Czar. In their fur and boots Walking all in a row With snow up half the leg They went down Don River. Chorus 2: But Popoff Huffs, snorts and after a while, With boots sinking In the snow, he left them. But what did Popoff of the Cossack do He has the bearskin and boots, But they do not suffice. La la la… Verse 2: The Cossacks long and proud With mustaches on their faces, The snow will change But for Popoff, no more. He was out of breath Lying on his belly: What bad luck for The Cossack, This poor Popoff. Chorus 2: But Popoff did not give up and after a little He slid on his belly In a line down to the Don River. Hey! Popoff this you cannot do. You cannot go in this way As a Cossack of the Tsar. La la la… Verse 3: The Cossacks are tired They do not see Don River With frozen mustaches, They do not want to march anymore. In the boundless steppe Of 40 below 0 They are still in the midst of the frost The Cossacks of the Czar. Chorus 3: But Popoff made himself into a ball And rolled in the snow All the way down to Don River. La la la… Nella steppa sconfinata A 40 sotto 0 Sono fermi in mezzo al gelo I cosacchi dello zar. Chorus 3: Ma Popoff così tondo che farà Rotolando nella neve Fino al fiume arriverà. (x2) La la la… Diction for Difficult Words Infischiano – een-fees-kee-A-no Cosacchi – ko-zAk-kee Zar - tzAr Colbacco – kol-bAk-ko Gli - lyee Sbuffa – sboof-fA C’è - che Lunghi – loon-gee Accovacciato – Ak-ko-vAch-chA-to Sfortunato – sfOr-too-nA-to Scivolando – skee-vo-lAn-do Pancia – pAn-chA Marciar – mAr-chAr Background In early March of 1967, the ninth Lo Zecchino d’Oro took place featuring the winning song, Popoff. Winning by many points, Popoff quickly became one of the most popular songs of the Lo Zecchino d’Oro repertoire (Rossi, 2007). Additionally, this year was the first time the referendum took place, where children throughout the country could submit their vote for their favorite song (Rossi, 2007). While the purpose of the referendum was that of ensuring that children outside of the selected jury had their voices heard, the song was a favorite amongst both the jury and the general population. Thus, in this case, the jury agreed with the voices of their peers across the country. From the start of the festival preparation, the singer of Popoff, Valter 139 Brugiolo, was deemed a favorite (Rossi, 2007). At only five years old, he declared in an interview prior to the festival’s premiere that he wanted to become the most popular child in Italy by winning the Zecchino d’Oro, for he knew that would be a fast way to achieve that goal. His performance was so popular that the video is still shown today. Furthermore, the “disc” (produced EP of the song) also sold well and, within the nine years of the festival, was the most successful disc produced (Rossi, 2007). Context Though Popoff is only from the ninth year of the festival, its recognition continues as it was included in the medley of Lo Zecchino d’Oro songs. Even more important, Popoff seemed to be the favorite of many of the college students who shared their opinions about the festival (fieldnotes, June 17th, 2017, 2017; fieldnotes, June 23rd, 2017). This song, again, was fully embraced when mentioned and immediately turned into a spectacle of song as the students, once again, paraded down the street singing the lyrics. Chiara, a college student I only had the opportunity to meet two times, stated that Popoff is her favorite Zecchino d’Oro song (fieldnotes, June 17th, 2017). Friar Caspoli, the former director, also mentioned Popoff when listing some of the top songs that were most popular (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017). When translating the lyrics, it seems odd that the song is popular, as the text of the song is about a dog Cossack during the Russian Civil War. The Russian Civil War ended in 1918, so why would Italian children be interested in a dog solider going off to war? Natalia was most helpful in determining why Popoff has had such success. First, she exclaimed the song was funny. Then, when asked: “but Popoff is about a Russian soldier, right?....Why is it so popular?” (group interview, investigator, June 28th, 2017), Natalia responded, “a DOG solider!” (group 140 interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). To her, the song was likeable because of the ridiculousness of a dog going off to war as a solider. Furthermore, the storyline progressively gets funnier as the dog struggles to keep up with the other soldiers because of his clumsy personality. While this seems inconsequential, college students also attested to their interest in the song being solely because of how funny it is to them (fieldnotes, June 23rd, 2017). Classroom Applications While Popoff is straight forward rhythmically, this song would fit well into an upper elementary music curriculum. The lyrics are accessible for older grades and could be performed at a fast tempo with practice. Students can learn about tempo changes and what those changes contribute to the meaning and feel of the song. This song also immerses children in minor tonality. Additionally, the students and teacher should swing the rhythm, as specified in the sheet music. Since the rhythmic structure of the song is less complex, teachers can review rhythmic patterns in the music and then proceed to discuss the idea of “swinging” in music and how that impacts the way people perform the music. Since the storyline of the song is so important to the popularity of the song, it would be interesting to see students enact the lyrics in performance. Students could come with movements that help tell the story of the song. Furthermore, the verse-refrain form of the song supports doing this type of enactment. Together as a class, students can create movements for the chorus that include with the clapping that is referred to in the text, and they can enact the verses either in small groups, as a class, or as individuals. This would allow the opportunity for students who learn the lyrics quickly to serve as soloists while other students continue to learn them. I have done this activity with students, and they embraced the opportunity to create their own enactment 141 of the song. They especially enjoyed using the official Lo Zecchino d’Oro video as a reference for ideas. I suggest showing students the video as an introduction to the song, as it clearly outlines the message of the song through animation. 142 Il coccodrillo come fa? IL COCCODRILLO COME FA? words by Oscar Avogadro music by Peno Massara q = 110 q = 110 ‰ œj œ# 44& Chorus 1 œ œ œ# & 5 Il coc co- di ce- man gi- mol to- spes so- œ œ œ# ‰ œj œ# œ œ œ# Il coc co- che lo sa. œ œ œ œ œ œn j‰ Œ - - lo- fa? dril co me- trop po, non metta mai œn j‰ Œ Ó œ œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ# œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ# Ó œ œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ# œn j‰ Œ pian ga, co me- rò- dril fa? lo- pe - - quan d'è- to, no- Non c'è nes su- ‰ œj œ# œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ# œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œj œ# œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ# non c'è nes su- tran quil co me- no- lo- - il cap pot - - che con i den ti- - fa 'sto coc co- œ œ œ œ œ œn j‰ Œ Si Œ ‰ œj œ œ œ ‰ œj œ œ œ Œ ‰ œj pun ga, Œ dril che lo? - œ œ œ œ œ che lo sa. Si'ar - rab bia- ma non stril - la, sor - seg gia- ca mo- - mil - la, e mezzo a dor - - men ta- do- se ne non c'è scrit to- œ œ œ# œ œ Œ œj œ gen te. - - Œ nien te: œ œ œ Œ ‰ œj œj ‰ ‰ Ma œ œ D.C. al fine lo ‰ la sa, Ó Œ œj 8 & 11 & 15 & 18 & 21 & 24 & 26 & Œ œj ‰ œ œ œ# va. Ó Fine Verse œ œ œ# œ œ œ Œ Guar do- œ œ œ œ œ - sui gior na- œ œ Œ li, Œ sem bra- che'il pro ble- ma- non im por - ti- al la- œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œn œ œ per ca - so'al mon do- c'è qual - cu - no che œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ se œ mia do man - - da è'an - cora ques ta- qua... Figure 10. Il coccodrillo come fa? 143 Lyrics Introduction: Oggi tutti insieme cercheremo di imparare come fanno per parlare fra di loro gli animali. Come fa il cane? Bau! Bau! E il gatto? Miao! L'asinello? Hi! Hoo! Hi! Hoo! La mucca? Muuu?! La rana? Cra! Cra! La pecora? Beee?! E il coccodrillo?? E il coccodrillo?? Boh?! Chorus: Il coccodrillo come fa non c'è nessuno che lo sa. Si dice mangi troppo, non metta mai il cappotto, che con i denti punga, che molto spesso pianga, però quand'è tranquillo come fa 'sto coccodrillo?? Il coccodrillo come fa non c'è nessuno che lo sa. Si arrabbia ma non strilla, sorseggia camomilla e mezzo addormentato se ne va. Verse: Guardo sui giornali, non c'è scritto niente: sembra che il problema non importi alla gente. Ma se per caso al mondo c'è qualcuno che lo sa, la mia domanda è ancora questa qua? Chorus 144 Translation Introduction: Today all together We will try to learn How the animals speak With each other. What does a dog say? Bow! Bow! And the cat? Meow! The donkey? Hee! Hoo! Hee Hoo! The cow? Mooo! The frog? Cra! Cra! The sheep? Behhhh?! And the crocodile? And the crocodile? I don’t know?! Chorus: What sound does the crocodile make? There is no one that knows. They say he eats too much, He never puts on his coat He has sharp teeth, And very often weeps. But when he is relaxing, What does the crocodile do? What sound does the crocodile make? There is no one that knows. He gets angry but does not scream, He sips chamomile, And half asleep he leaves. Verse: I look in the newspapers, Nothing is written: It seems that this problem Does not matter to people. But what if in the world There is someone who knows, My question: Because it still remains! Chorus *The introduction is not transcribed in the music. To perform, have soloist(s) speak the text rhythmically for a “hosting” exchange effect. Diction for Difficult Words Cercheremo – chEr-ke-re-mo Gli – lyee L'asinello – lA-zee-nEl-lo Quell’tranquillo – kwEl-trAn-kweel-lo Arrabbia – Ar-rAb-bee-Ah Sorseggia – sOr-sej-jA Addormentato – Ad-dor-mEn-tA-to Background In 1971 the Antoniano Institute initiated a collaboration with the Italian Children’s world Art Exhibit that continued for decades past, including the year of the 36th Lo Zecchino d’Oro in 1993. Each year, the art exhibit chose a theme, and Lo Zecchino d’Oro would display artwork that was relevant to that theme during the festival. In 1993, the exhibit’s theme was children’s artwork from around the world (Rossi, 2007). Accordingly, the festival displayed artwork of children from around the world during their airing. To follow the theme, a second jury of children partook in the festival that consisted of children from countries other than Italy. These children were able to vote in tandem with the Italian children’s jury on the third day of the festival, though the Italian jury followed protocol of a numerical score, while the foreign jury only voted with a “yes” or “no” for whether they liked each song. While their votes did not make much of a difference, since they voted “yes” for each song, the goal was to have children’s voices from around the world represented in the festival (Rossi, 2007). Lo Zecchino d’Oro, in collaboration with the Children’s World Art Exhibit, hoped to foster the theme of reinforcing universal feelings of harmony, and “moral and spiritual development of the young across countries” (Rossi, 2007). 145 On the fourth day of the competition, Il coccodrillo come fa? won the title of “Zecchino d’Oro”, placing first by over 10 points. This is a large margin, as most songs typically only win by 1 to 5 points difference. The win also was interesting because the song tied in first on the first day with another song, but then proceeded to win the competition by a landslide (Rossi, 2007). Context Out of the 10 songs presented in this collection, Il coccodrillo come fa? was one of the most referenced Lo Zecchino d’Oro songs in performances, interviews, and fieldnotes. Like many of the other songs, it, too, was included in the performance medley. However, its role in the medley was much more predominant than some of the other songs. The medley begins with the chorus of the song, and at both the dinner and the concert, the audience immediately started to sing along. Then, it goes into a verse and modulates up to chant parts of the introduction before seguing into the chorus again in the new key. In addition to singing along enthusiastically, the audience clapped along with radiant smiles on their faces, fully engaged in the performance (fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017). This enthusiasm also was reflected in college students’ opinions about the song, as they, too, considered it to be one of the most popular songs from the festival; they could recite most of the lyrics from memory (fieldnotes, June 7th, 2017; Fieldnotes, June 17th, 2017). The song was less than a decade old when they were of the primary age demographic that watches the television broadcast of the festival. Despite Il coccodrillo come fa? being nearly 25 years old, Natalia also expressed that the song is popular among her peers and is a well-known Zecchino d’Oro song (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). Once I mentioned the title, she quickly confirmed that she knew the song and mentioned that she had performed it for her audition into the choir. Later on in the 146 interview, she corrected herself, as it was Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina that she actually used to audition. I was not surprised by her mistake, as the two songs seem to be the two most popular of the older songs from the festival for children. Furthermore, Natalia emphasized that she wanted to sing Il coccodrillo come fa? as her audition song, but her parents told her about Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina, and she wound up practicing that one instead. It was clear that she enjoyed the song. Natalia stated, “I like that one because it is funny” (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). This was stated two times before Natalia explained that she thinks the song is more for younger children because of the animals sounds that are made at the beginning of the song. We agreed that learning about the different sounds animals makes the song appropriate for younger children, but that the song is still fun for everyone. Although I was not privy to the specific information, Natalia proceeded to share that a similar song was going to debut in the 60th Lo Zecchino d’Oro about animals. Again, throughout the festival’s tenure, animals have continued as a pervasive theme in the repertoire. Perhaps what makes Il coccodrillo come fa? exceptionally popular is that it addresses the playful question of “but what sound does the crocodile make?” The song comes in second with over 51 million views of the Lo Zecchino d’Oro official video on YouTube. Considering Volevo un gatto nero’s fame in Japan and that it is 24 years older than Il coccodrillo come fa?, it is possible that Il coccodrillo may overtake it in time. Classroom Applications Natalia emphasized that Il coccodrillo come fa? tends to be more popular with younger children because of the introduction of animal sounds at the beginning of the piece (group interview, Natalia, June 28th, 2017). Developmentally, this makes sense, as younger children 147 often enjoy learning about different animals sounds through song. However, since the song seems to be one of the most popular songs children learn when they are younger, its allure extends beyond that of their youth through the form of nostalgia. Therefore, exploring this song in the context of multiple grade levels is an option for classroom teachers, particularly since teachers could approach the song differently depending on students’ age levels. While the lyrical content of Il coccodrillo come fa? is most appropriate for the Kindergarten/1st grade classroom, the melodic line is not particularly accessible for younger voices. There are many altered scale degrees, and the overall formal structure is not as clear, with the song following an: introduction-chorus-verse-chorus formal structure. Thus, the most appropriate way to first introduce this song to younger students is as a listening example. A possible way to study this song through an interdisciplinary approach is to consider the importance of the Children’s World Art Exhibit and the role visual arts (as drawn by children) played in the year in 1971, when Il coccodrillo come fa? was part of the festival. As mentioned, the festival displayed artwork from children who lived all around the world during the week premiere (Rossi, 2007). To translate this theme to the classroom, students could draw their interpretations of the song for the teacher to put on display around the classroom. One could display the drawings of different classes to show how each class interpreted the song and activity. This song would fit more appropriately in the context of a 5th grade general music class due to the difficulty of the melodic line. Teachers could reintroduce the song later on in the scope and sequence of the school’s curriculum through a performance lens. Perhaps when considering including the song in an upcoming performance, student artwork could be displayed in tandem with the singing, as a way of connecting with the original context of the song. Since many 148 students begin to play instruments during that fifth grade, discussing the function of sharps and flats as they appear in the notation might be developmentally appropriate. Furthermore, the class can explore the role of pick-up notes, as they are prominent throughout the song. Il coccodrillo come fa? would also work well as a choral arrangement. Overarching Suggestions for Culturally Responsive Pedagogy The ten songs I selected for this study were chosen as the more popular songs of Lo Zecchino d’Oro based on data collected from fieldnotes, and interviews. However, not all Italian children or adults may list these ten songs as their top favorites. In order to be more culturally responsive of students of Italian heritage in the U.S., teachers should confirm with their students whether the above songs represent their musical experiences from Italy. Introducing a project similar to Peters’s (2009) study, where children conduct their own ethnographic research to learn about music in the local community can help teachers learn which songs of Lo Zecchino d’Oro might be more familiar to their students. Furthermore, a theme of the festival is the idea of community and passing down of tradition. Students can interview family members to learn about their experiences with the festival back in Italy. For students who are not of Italian heritage, the project could extend into the community for them to learn about the world of their neighbors beyond the classroom. Thought each song has some specific contextual ways teachers can incoproate the song into a music education curriculum, the overarching suggestions in this chapter more accurately represent how children in Italy experience music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro. The connection between the Children’s World Art Exhibit and the 36th Lo Zecchino d’Oro. can extend beyond that of the song, Il coccodrillo come fa?. Since the early 1970’s, the 149 Antoniano Institute has maintained a relationship with the exhibit, showcasing children’s artwork for the festival. With each song presented in this document, teachers could create an interdisciplinary lesson in combination with visual arts. Students can express their thoughts and emotions visually, while listening to the song, create a backdrop for performances of the songs, or structure their artwork around the storyline of each text. One can further integrate the Arts within the music classroom by including theatre/drama elements when performing the songs. This interdisciplinary approach would align well with Lo Zecchino d’Oro values, as the festival includes artwork, costuming, visual cut-outs of characters, and lighting/sound design elements to create a spectacolo event (interview, Friar Caspoli, June 22nd, 2017; Rossi, 2007). Furthermore, children from throughout Italy had their artwork showcased for the 36th Zecchino d’Oro; thus, having students contribute in this capacity, and then featuring their work would be another way to make culturally relevant decisions of how to brings songs into the classroom. As mentioned earlier16, the name of Lo Zecchino d’Oro takes origin in the tale of Pinocchio, an important part of Italian culture and a well-known novel in Italy. The success of Pinocchio has extended beyond Italy’s borders, and, due to the partnership developed between its creators and Disney, it is a story that is known by most young children. Teachers could share this detail about the festival in addition to exploring the story of Pinocchio, especially since Italians take pride in the story. Discussing the origin of the festival name, the importance of the tale in Italy, as well as the success of Pinocchio in United States through the Disney movie, would be a culturally-responsive way to bridge a connection between two culturally prominent artifacts of both Italy and the United States. 16 See chapter IV. 150 These songs could be incorporated into an American general music classroom around the time of the actual festival itself, which takes place every year during the month of October. It is not difficult to find out information about the festival, regardless of one’s proficiency in Italian, for several social media websites affiliated with the Antoniano Institute advertise the event. Furthermore, both the Antoniano Institute and Rai Uno network detail specifics about the event weeks leading up to the event17. During the festival week, Lo Zecchino d’Oro is streamed live on Rai Uno during the evening. With the time difference of at least six hours (compared to E.S.T.), it is possible for students to experience the festival live in the classroom, should their class period line up. If that is not the case, videos of the songs are usually available within 24 hours. It would be interesting for students to engage with the music, form their own jury, and vote on their favorite songs out of the 12 presented each year so that they experience the festival the way most Italian children do. A further extension of this experience could center around class or individual composition projects, as the premise of the festival is to vote on newly composed repertoire for children. Teachers could explore having students share compositions and a rotating panel of children judges to give feedback on students’ work to foster collaboration, critical thinking, and peer review. However, I caution that teachers should only implement this model in the classroom if a positive classroom culture of giving feedback is already established, as the sharing of personal compositions is a vulnerable activity. Finally, it is evident that media plays a large role in the distribution of songs from Lo Zecchino d’Oro, both during the time of the festival’s airing and thereafter. While there are many concepts that one could address with the above songs in the context of the classroom, it may not always be feasible to integrate new, difficult repertoire in to established curricula (though I argue 17 For more information, visit Antoniano.it (Antoniano Institute) or https://www.rai.it/rai1/ (Rai 1 network) 151 that it is important to prioritize culturally responsive, new experiences). A simple way to expose children to music from Italy or engage with students of Italian heritage in the classroom could be through the presentation of these songs using sound and media files. Fortunately, the Antoniano Institute of Bologna has invested much time and effort into producing videos of many songs from the festival that are both engaging, developmentally appropriate, and easily accessible. As YouTube and CDs are two of the primary resources through which children access music of the festival, it is appropriate to share music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro with students in this way. It might also be fascinating for students to compare newly-animated videos of songs with videos of the actual performance. For all of the songs included in this document, live performances spanning from the early 1960’s to the most recent festival are available. However, in sharing music of the festival with children through recorded videos, one must be mindful of avoiding tokenism. Simply playing a video for students without providing some context about the festival, the song, and the role of music in Italian children’s lives may lead to insensitively representing Italian children’s music in the classroom. It is my hope that the above analyses, detailed lists of lyrics and their translations, and background contextual information provide enough information that is practical for teachers to apply in the classroom. In following the model of giving children a voice in what music that represents them, I organized the collections of songs in this chapter according to the opinions of the children I interviewed. It is my hope that when integrating songs from this collection into their classrooms, teachers strive to support the overarching goal of the festival in fostering child-centered learning and student agency in determining the music they engage with as a part of their educational journeys. 152 CHAPTER VI SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, & SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH Summary While Italian classical music has a been a strong influence on the United States classical musical canon, there is a dearth of Italian children’s musical repertoire readily available for elementary music classroom teachers. The purpose of this research was to collect songs from the annual Italian music composition festival for children, Lo Zecchino d’Oro, and investigate their significance in Italian society so that I could contextualize their use for American elementary music classrooms. The specific problems were to present a collection of children’s songs from Italy, provide contextual cultural information about each song, and develop age-appropriate suggestions for American music teachers who wish to incorporate these songs in elementary music classroom settings. It is the hope that in doing such, teachers will have a quality resource to which they can refer when trying to incorporate Italian songs in the music in efforts to be culturally responsive to their students’ needs and backgrounds. For approximately six weeks in the city of Bologna, Italy, I collected, transcribed, and translated ten songs from the Lo Zecchino d’Oro children’s music composition festival. I present all songs in standard Western notation, and each song is accompanied with information about its placement in the festival’s history. A full diction guide outlining general pronunciation rules for the Italian language is located in appendix A of this document, and a diction guide for difficult words accompanies each song. I provided contextual information for each song that was inspired by themes, categories, and statements that surfaced from interviews and fieldnotes so that 153 teachers would have a greater understanding of the significance of each song both to Italian children and in Italian society. I chose to provide suggestions for classroom applications in a less-structured format, because it became clear to me that teachers should have the choice on how to incorporate this music in their classroom in a way that best aligns with their personal teaching philosophy. Thus, the applications are suggestions of various ideas and ways in which teachers can incorporate the songs, rather than detailed lesson plans. The collection of songs represents nine songs from the festival that surfaced the most in data, with one additional song that I chose to include because of personal preference. Each song is unique and has much to offer the music education community and those interested in engaging with Italian music for children with their students. I began my research hoping to collect 10 to 15 songs from the Lo Zecchino d’Oro festival Conclusions that best represent the music interests of children in Italy related to the festival. While there are hundreds of songs from the festival in existence, I narrowed the collection down to ten songs that seemed to be the most popular (with the exception of the one song that I included of my own volition). Due to my prior experiences studying in Italy and seeking music from the festival, I was not surprised by the songs that were mentioned the most in my data. I organized the presentation of songs into two main categories: (1) Songs about food and, (2) Songs about animals. I furthermore grouped the songs into the two additional themes of: (1) important message and, (2) fun! Additionally, the songs within each category are organized in order of popularity from least to most. Each song is accompanied by background information about the song in the context of the festival’s history, contextual information that provides insight into the 154 songs presence in Italian society and how people of all ages know and interact with the song, and a section of suggested classroom applications. These applications include a ride array of suggestions from interdisciplinary approaches, movement, listening, and composition activities, to ways in which a teacher may be able to touch upon music literacy components within a unit. Most importantly, these activities provide teachers with tools to incorporate Italian songs into an American classroom in a way that is culturally sensitive and eschews tokenism. Both the organization of songs based on popularity and the categories are influenced by themes that emerged from the data, and most specifically represent the voices of children in why songs appeal to them or become popular. Songs about food that I sorted under the theme of important message included: (1) Ninna nanna del chicco di caffè and, (2) Il caffè della Peppina. A song about food that is well-liked simply because it is fun includes, (3) Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina. Songs about animals that are liked because of the important messages they have to share include, (4) Il pulcino ballerino, (5) Quarantaquattro gatti and, (6) Volevo un gatto nero. Animal songs that are fun and well-liked include, (7) La banda dello zoo (I opted to include this song because of my personal preference), (8) Il valzer del moscerino, (9) Popoff and, (10) Il coccodrillo come fa?. Another theme that emerged related to the success of songs from the festival was the festival goal of making the experience of Lo Zecchino d’Oro child-centered. The festival creator, Cino Tortorella, saw a void in the Italian musical canon, in that there was not a music culture for children. He created the festival with a declaration of making sure children had a voice in what music entered their canon. From a chorus of children, individual performers that come from different regions of the country, a panel of children judges who vote on the songs, to a referendum that allows viewing children to cast their vote, it is clear that the focus of Lo 155 Zecchino d’Oro is not about the talent of the performance, but about the success of a song’s appeal to children. From the start, Lo Zecchino d’Oro collaborated with the Rai Uno television network to premiere songs of the festival year for live performances. Currently, the live network premiere is hosted in the fall and takes a week’s time. During that week, auditioned soloists and Il piccolo coro, the resident festival choir, perform 12 songs that were narrowed down by a committee of professionals. After days of performances and preliminary voting by the judges, the final day of the week concludes with a “Zecchino d’Oro”, or a winner of the festival. Often, the winner becomes a popular song within Italian children’s music repertoire, though ones that have not placed in first have gained popularity as well. The influence of the media as a way of sharing the songs of the festival is a crucial component of how children learn of the music and warranted the identification as a theme. Other forms of media that contributed to spreading the music across and between generations included CDs and YouTube videos, but the most important is the live televised premiere on the Rai Uno network. Known Identity was another theme related specifically to the societal presence of Lo Zecchino d’Oro and mostly encompassed the idea that most Italians are familiar with the festival. Regardless of age, it became clear that most people in Italy were exposed to the festival in some way and that the majority of them participated as a viewer when they were children. Often, families passed down the tradition of watching the festival during its live premiere and songs that they learned when they were younger. This category fell under the theme of community, as Italians expressed waiting to watch the festival with each other during as the fall approached. Furthermore, Lo Zecchino d’Oro and the Antoniano Institute make great efforts to become involved with the community in Bologna (the host city of the festival) as well other regions 156 throughout the country by hosting concerts, events, and celebrations related to the festival even in the off season of the festival’s annual premiere. Overall, it was clear that Lo Zecchino d’Oro has some cultural importance in Italian society, which I also labeled as a theme. Content of the songs from the festival intersected with other aspects of Italian culture that they take pride in, e.g. food. For children, the officials involved with the selection of the final 12 songs looked for music that best represented the daily lives of Italian children. When discussing my purpose in the country, Italians were amazed continuously that I was interested in studying music of the festival and honored and proud of the music culture that has developed from it. More importantly, the participants I interviewed valued (a category within this theme) the existence of the festival and wished to see it continue to thrive. The data revealed that both the festival itself, and songs of Lo Zecchino d’Oro are important to Italian people regardless of age, but are an especially important experience of Italians’ childhoods. Implications The results of this study provide contextual information for how teachers can incorporate Italian songs from Lo Zecchino d’Oro into elementary music classroom while attempting to avoid tokenism. In contextualizing the ways in which Italians engage with music from the festival, I hope this collection will serve as a quality resource for teachers to rely on when searching for Italian songs for children. Furthermore, it is the hope that the classroom applications are valuable for teachers hoping to introduce Italian music in their classroom in efforts to be more culturally responsive of their students as they are informed by the contextual information derived from the data. 157 The collection is not limited to a specific grade level within the elementary spectrum, and thus, allows teachers to bring the Italians songs into the music curriculum across grade levels. I envision teachers sharing the music from this collection with their students in tandem with other musics in the classroom, or as a unit within the scope of the academic year. If the songs are integrated at all grade levels, students have the opportunity to develop a better understanding of how Italian children may experience music. Additionally, by introducing multiple Italian songs into the curriculum, students are able to engage in learning about other music epistemologies and the teacher is fostering a multimusical classroom environment (Hess 2018; Koops, 2002). As I return to the elementary music classroom, I hope to incorporate the Italian songs collected in this study in my teaching. It is my aim to share music from this culture with students who may be of Italian heritage, and also with children of other cultural backgrounds so that they can learn about different music epistemologies. Through this experience, I hope to engage culturally responsive teaching to learn about my students’ identities outside of the music classroom and foster an environment in which students are able to develop an understanding of musics outside of their own culture (Lind & McKoy, 2016). Suggestions for Future Research In light of the fact that the United States is increasingly becoming an interconnected and pluralistic society, it is important for students, educators, and researchers to develop an understanding of the worlds of their neighbors. Many music textbook series commonly used in the elementary general music classroom setting do not include music of countries and cultures outside of the Eurocentric music paradigm (Mason, 2010; Simmons, 2007). Furthermore, most songs from music cultures that textbook series do provide often does not adequately represent the 158 culture with integrity (Campbell, 2002). Thus, more research is needed to provide contextual information for how songs from Other cultures may be brought in to a general music classroom, as well as research collecting songs from countries and cultures that currently, might not have representation. While the aim of this study was to fill a void in the dearth of Italian repertoire available for elementary music teachers, it can only represent the voices of those who participated in the study. Moving forward, more research is warranted to understand the opinions of other members in Italian society for a fuller scope of the ways in which Lo Zecchino d’Oro is important to them. Thus, interviewing more adults, children, and elders would be beneficial. Additionally, selecting participants who represent a variety of perspectives also would provide more information. For example, I was unable to interview the director of choirs or a grandparent. During my time in Italy, I was unable to observe how Italian children engage with music in a school setting for my research took place during the summer. However, it would be useful to understand how and if music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro is taught in schools, as it would allow for more direct parallels of how to incorporate the songs in a school setting in the United States. While I was able to make choral arrangements of three songs collected for this study, they are not available for the purpose of this publication for copyright reasons. However, because of the heavy involvement of Il piccolo coro in the festival experience, many of the songs in this collection would transfer well to an elementary children’s choir setting. Thus, working with scholars in the area of composition and children’s choirs to create additional arrangements would provide more resources that represent Italian music for children with integrity. This endeavor also does not have to be limited to the songs collected in this study. Lo Zecchino d’Oro began in 1959 and still thrives today, providing decades worth of songs for teachers and researchers to 159 explore. Whether in a choral or general music context, teachers and ethnographers should strive to keep up to date with music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro as the festival continues in future years. Last, more extensive ethnomusicological research about the festival itself is warranted as my study revealed a lack of resources in English that describe the festival. I hope that this study has piqued the interest of both music educators and ethnographers, and encourages people to consider delving deeper into understanding the presence of Lo Zecchino d’Oro in Italian society. My advice for those wishing to learn about the festival is to make the opportunity to study the festival during the live premiere week, as it is a special occasion that one can only understand fully by experiencing it in person. Coda The last song in the medley was “Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina.” Immediately, everyone began to clap along to the beat. A family sitting near me stirs because their young boy (probably around four-years-old) sits up excitedly. From the very beginning of the concert I had heard murmurs of exchanges between the parents and child. The boy kept asking for Lo Zecchino d’Oro songs when the choir was performing music not related to the festival. Specifically, he kept asking for “Le tagliatelle di nonna Pina.” When the first few chords of the song finally filled the air, the boy’s face lit up with the biggest smile. He turned to look up at his mother whose lap he was sitting on, and clapped his hands together in excitement, avidly waiting for the choir to begin singing the lyrics. The boy began to bop up and down on his mother’s lap and the parents confirmed, “yes, this is your song!” while bopping along to the music with him. Their dancing continued for the duration of the song as the boy sang along. With a big, “HEY!” at the end of the song from both the choir members and the audience, everyone raised their hands in the air. 160 The audience let out sighs of laughter and cheered loudly as the choir director cued for the choir to put their hands down. Excitement, joy, laughter, and relief flooded the concert hall. Finally, the boy was able to hear his favorite Lo Zecchino d’Oro song performed live. (fieldnotes, Antoniano concert, June 13th, 2017). Excitement, joy, laughter, and relief: These are the emotions I hope to stimulate when bringing music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro into my future classrooms; both for the child who is already familiar with the music, and for the child who is just experiencing music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro for the first time. 161 APPENDICES 162 APPENDIX A Italian Diction Guide 163 ITALIAN DICTION GUIDE The following guide is meant to help guide the pronunciation of the lyrics for each of the songs presented in this document. I have chosen to detail the specifics of each rule phonetically, as it is more accessible for classroom teachers who may not have had classical International Phonetic Alphabet training. Overall, there are many similarities between English and Italian pronunciation, with few exceptions. General guidelines are detailed below and I have included a chart phonetically spelling out how to pronounce more difficult words on each song’s individual page. General Concepts (1) Syllabic stress almost always occurs on the second-to-last syllable unless there is an accent over a letter; in which case, the stress false on the syllable with the accented letter. (2) Most phrasing and placement of words within music adhere to the natural stress of words; Elisions of vowels may occur to allow for this. Example: Volev’un gatto nero vs. Volevo un gatto nero. (3) Aside from elisions, each vowel sound is individually pronounced, even if there are two consecutive vowels. Diphthongs do not exist and all vowels should be as pure as possible. a. Exceptions: when a vowel is used to soften a consonant. Example: Giustino = joos-tee-no, the “i” softens to “G” to a “J” sound, so the first vowel pronounced is the “u”. (4) Double consonants are a distinctive characteristic of the Italian language. Words with double consonants should sound different in that the double consonants interrupt the sound of the vowels on either side; double consonants have duration. 164 a. Example: Tutti should be pronounced as two separate sounds, with a pause between the two t’s: toot-tee Consonants Table 1. Consonant Diction Chart Letter Pronunciation B C CH D F G Gli H L Same as in English Ex: Beppina = BEhp-pee-nAh Depends on the succeeding vowel; a “C” followed by an “i” or “e” functions as “Ch”, while all other combinations are a hard “k” sound. Ca = kAh Ce = chay Ci = chee Co = kOh Cu = Koo A “ch” is pronounced as a “k” sound, not akin to the typical English “ch” Ex: Chicco = keek-koh All “D’s” are dentalized; The tongue should be placed slightly behind the back of your front teeth to create sound. Ex: Di = dthee Same as in English unless it is at the end of a word (rare) Ex: Caffè = kAf-fEh; Popoff = pop-ovf Depends on the succeeding vowel and sometimes, consonant. Ga = gah Ge = gEh Gi = jee Go = goh Gu = goo Gh = this hardens the “G” if followed by a vowel. Ex: Spaghetti = spA-gEt-tee Gn = nyuh (similar to the “ñ” sound in Spanish); Ex: gnocchi = nyoh-kee An entirely separate vowel/consonant formation than any other language best pronounced as such: gli – lyee, with emphasis on the “l”. This is best formed by curling the back of the tongue; Ex: Tagliatelle = Tah-lyee-a-tEl-le This consonant is never pronounced in Italian. It serves the function of closing a vowel or hardening a consonant. It is always silent. Ex: Spaghetti = spAh-gEt-tee Same as English but sharper, and more forward in the mouth Ex: Pulcino = pool-chee-no 165 Table 1 (cont’d). M N P Qu R S T V Z Same as in English Ex: Mamma = mAhm-mAh Same as in English Ex: Ninna = neen-nah Same as in English Ex: Pane = PAh-ne Same as in English Ex: Questo = qwEs-to This consonant is pronounced two ways, with a “flip” of the tongue or “roll” of the tongue. Rr – roll Before consonant – roll Between two vowels – flip Ends of words – flip Generally pronounced the same as in English with few exceptions: Between two vowels: pronounced as “z”; Ex: Caprese = kAh-preh-zeh Sc + i or e = “sh”; Ex: Moscerino = moh-shE-ree-noh Detalized (see “D”, above) Ex: Tutto = Toot-toh Same as in English Ex: Volevo = Voh-leh-voh This consonant can be voiced or unvoiced Voiced: Ds as in “beds”. This is typical at the start of a word; Ex: Zia = dsee-Ah Unvoiced: ts as in “bets”. This is typical with double “z’s”, in between two vowels, and when preceded by an “l”; Ex: Pallazone = pAl-lAht-sOh-neh **J, K, W, X, Y do not exist in the Italian alphabet unless it is an adopted word (i.e. yogurt) Vowels All Italian vowels are pure. Vowels represented as a capital letter have a more open sound, whereas lowercase letters are more closed. When there is an accent on a vowel, the sound is generally more open and sharper. For example: perche [pEr-ke] vs. perché [pEr-kEh]. Table 2. Vowel Diction Chart Letter Pronunciation A Almost always open; as in “father” Ex: Banda = BAhn-dAh 166 Table 2 (cont’d). E e i O o u As in “pet” Ex: Nella = nEhl-lAh As in “chaos”; Ex: Caffè = kAf-fe As in “bee”; there is no “I” sound as in “bit” in Italian. Ex: fila = fee-lAh As in “loan” Ex: Oggi = Ohj-jee As in “boat”; the best comparison of this pronunciation in the English language is that of the “o” in most Mid-Western accents. Ex: Volevo = voh-leh-voh As in “soup” Ex: Tutto = toot-toh 167 APPENDIX B Interview Questions 168 Interview Questions for Children Not Involved with Il piccolo coro (ages 6-12) 1. You sing in the choir in Brescia? 2. For how long? For how many years? 3. How did you start singing? 4. How did you find the choir? 5. Do you know a lot of the songs that they’re singing? 6. Do you like the music from Lo Zecchino d’Oro? 7. What are your favorites? 8. What songs are your favorite to sing? 9. Where do you learn those songs? In choir? 10. Did you grow up listening and watching Lo Zecchino d’Oro? 11. Is it a big event? 12. Did you watch it on T.V.? 13. When you were young, did you love seeing it on T.V.? Is it a special event? 169 Group interview Questions: Two children involved with Antoniano Institute & parent 1. What are some of your favorite things that you like to do for fun? 2. You do like singing? When did you start singing? 3. How did you sing when you were younger? 4. Did you sing in the choir, or do it at home, just for fun? 5. So, what types of songs did you sing in school? 6. Why did you start singing in the choir? 7. What are some of your favorite songs to sing? 8. What’s that song about? 9. Where did you learn that song? 10. Do you sing with some of your friends? 11. What songs do you sing together at home? 12. What’s your favorite songs to sing? 13. Do you sing with your friends at school too? 14. are you singing in school? 15. Are you learning songs? 16. Do you listen to any music? 17. What types of music do you listen to? 18. What’s your favorite song right now? 19. Tell me about what you do in choir. 20. You study music too, you don’t just sing? 21. Do you learn solfege? 22. Do you have fun in choir? 23. Do you have friends in choir? 24. How long have you been singing in choir? 25. Are there other choirs in the area? 26. Do you know the music of Lo Zecchino d’Oro? 27. How do you know the music? 28. Why do you like the festival? 29. Did you watch the festival when you were little? 30. How did you learn about the songs? 31. What is your favorite song from the festival? 32. “Il caffé della Peppina!” That is one of the older ones. Do you like that one? 33. What does it teach us? 34. What else does the song teacher us? 35. Do you know “Il coccodrillo comé fa? 36. Why do you think the song is for younger children? 37. Is it fun? 38. Do you think that one is going to win? 39. What makes it funny? 40. What about La tagliatelle di nonna Pina? 41. What about Quarantaquattro gatti? 42. What about Popoff? Do you know that one? 43. Why is it that song funny? 44. Why is that song so popular? 170 45. What about Il valzer del moserino? 46. Do you know La ninna nanna del chicco di caffé? 47. Do you know the song, Il pulcino ballerino? 48. What is the important message? 49. I want to maybe teach the songs to students like your cousins or others who might have family who are Italian so they can learn about what you do here and about the songs you sing. Do you have any advice for me on how to do it? 50. Tell me about yourself 51. Do you think music is important to children’s culture in Italy? 52. Is there anything else you think I should know or look into? 171 Interview Questions for Former Director of the Antoniano Institute: Zecchino d’Oro? 1. Can you explain the relationship between the Antoniano Institute and the festival of Lo 2. You audition to make sure the child can sing, but they’re not showcased in any particular way to make that song stand out more? 3. Can you explain how the festival works? 4. Who judges the songs? 5. How are the groups chosen? 6. How are the child judges chosen? 7. Does a song win by having the most votes? 8. What do you think sticks out to the children? What makes them like a song? 9. You also talked about how Lo Zecchino d’Oro you think is important because it’s never changed. A lot of festivals adapt with time. So, has it always been such a big event? 10. Do you think that there has been waves of popularity? 11. Where do you think it’s at right now? 12. Are CDs the most prominent way that the kids have access to the music besides watching it during the live show, or you think YouTube now? 13. If I just saw kids playing at Giardini Margherita, would they be singing music they hear on the radio? Or are there folk songs, or Lo Zecchino d’Oro…. 14. Why is music not taught in schools? Or is there a stigma? 15. Whenever they sing at concerts and they have music the recordings...how does that work? 16. When you were a kid, what did you sing growing up? Just for fun, as a child? 17. Outside of your childhood, what’s your favorite Zecchino d’Oro song? 18. What do you remember about Lo Zecchino d’Oro from growing up? 19. Why do you think the festival began? 20. Which songs do you think are the most popular? 21. Which do you consider traditional ones? 22. Is Ninna nanna one of them? 23. Valzer del moscerino? 24. Who knows the music of Zecchino d’Oro? 25. Do you think every child in Italy knows it? And by every, I mean most…or, is it a privilege? aside from that? 26. It’s more popular with younger children? 27. What is the role of Il piccolo coro? I know they sing the music for the live show, but 28. How do you think Italians would feel about my collecting some of these songs and bringing them back to teach in the US? What’s your opinion? 29. As a music teacher in the States, if I were to introduce the songs of Lo Zecchino d’Oro to my students, how do you think would be the best way to do it? There’s no wrong answer. 30. Someone brought to my attention that Italians like to play with words a lot. Do you think that plays a role in the popularity of songs? 172 REFERENCES 173 REFERENCES Abril, C. R. (2006). 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