Notes from the League Of Young Musicologists

For the past few years the 8th grade history department of Marin Country Day school has lead a class through a state-of-the-art musicology program, using recordings from the Great Depression to unlock the mysteries of that period of time. The premise: music can tell us the stories of our lives, we just have to learn the right questions to ask.

Goals:

As John Steinbeck wrote in his forward to Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People, "you can learn more about a people by listening to their songs than in any other way, for into the songs go all the hopes and hurts, the angers, fears, the wants and aspirations." No time was that more evident than in 1930's United States.