Listening to the West

“Listening to the West” is an interactive curriculum guide that allows the viewer to learn about some of the great singers of the American West. Click on an artist name bellow for a pop up window that contains information on their life and music. Most the artists have pictures and music clips at the bottom of the page.

This curriculum guide stems from a gathering held August 10-13, 2000, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The conference theme, “Listening to the West: Music In the Soul of a Region,” brought together musicians from various backgrounds, musicologists, folklore experts, and professors of history, English, anthropology, and other fields, for three days of exploring and celebrating the cultural diversity of the region through music.

The conference was very much a spirited reflection of the mission of the Center of the American West, which seeks to bring all westerners together as informed participants in the larger regional community. This was best reflected at the end of the conference when the Center joined with its other major sponsors, the American Music Research Center, also at CU, the Chautauqua Association, the Swallow Hill Music Association, and the public radio show e-town, to present a public festival of music on the Green of the historic Chautauqua Park in Boulder. Some of the musicians who performed at the conference and festival can be found in this guide’s lesson plans, including Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Tish Hinojosa, Nick Forster, Calvin Standing Bear, and Santiago Jimenez, Jr.

It was the hope of the conference planners to continue the dialogue about music and culture through a curriculum guide designed for younger students. This guide makes the case for using music as a way of bringing attention to important questions in Western American history and life. More often than not, lesson plans in this guide are designed to break down stereotypes about the region, while asking questions that might lead to useful classroom discussions about the many past and present American Wests. The diversity of people and musical styles in the region receives special attention here. Anglo, Asian, African American, and Hispanic people on the pages of the guide illuminate a multiplicity of musical styles, cultures, and histories within the context of the West.

Funding from Everen Securities and the Scripps Howard Foundation at Boulder’s Daily Camera Newspapers in Education Project (NEP) helped make this guide possible. Most lesson plans incorporate questions that utilize audio sound clips from the accompanying compact disk, while every lesson plan calls for the use of newspapers as a primary tool in classroom learning.

This guide was designed with enough flexibility for use in all grades, but it is intended primarily for use in middle-schools and high-schools. The very nature of the NEP works best with competent, maturing readers, yet it has been my intention and hope that elementary school teachers will adapt these lesson plans to their younger students’ needs.

Enjoy.

Aaron Copland
Bill Graham
Colorado Bluegrass
The Eagles
Gold Rush
Hattie McDaniel
Litefoot
Merle Haggard and Los Tigres
Roy and Dale
Santiago Jimenez, Jr.
Patsy Montana
Ramblin' Jack Elliot
Calvin Standing Bear
Cole Porter
Ferde Grofß
Gene Autry
Joe Hill and the Industrial Workers
John Denver
Nanci Griffith
Red Rocks
Tish Hinojasa
R.E.M. and Widespread Panic
Otis Taylor
Acknowledgements