Week 6

As we move into the 1970s this week, I have to say, I very much enjoy the happy upbeat sounds compared to what we heard in the 1960s. I tend to enjoy most music that is upbeat, happy, and fun to sing along with, which is basically disco music.  The 1970s is a decade shifts from communitarian, politically engaged ideals of the 1960s to a more materialistic and conservative attitudes (Starr & Waterman, 2013). There is a huge shift in the music industry in the 1970s from the rock ‘n’ roll of the 1960s. The Vietnam war ended and the music, in a broad sense, changed with the overall feel lets love and enjoy life.

As an elementary teacher, teaching vernacular music can be difficult if there is a focus on the history of the music and the time period, but there are a number of tunes from the 1970s that could be used for teaching. “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John sounds like a great song and very catchy, and the song isn’t inappropriate for the elementary crowd. “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder is another great song that I could see students enjoying this song, where a song like “Hotel California” by the Eagles is a great song but not appropriate for elementary school. Even some the rock music of the 1970s has the fun upbeat sound, “Oye Como Va” by Santana has another fun song that many of my students would connect with, where “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin might not be something I would share.

The Disco Era has a lot of great music, with some music being great to share with students and others not as much. Disco is known for it’s great dance beats, with nice upbeat tempos that students would be interested in moving to. “Bad Girl” and “Love to Love You Baby” by Donna Summer are great songs and very important to Disco for their popularity and ranks on the charts, but are too sexy for elementary school. “Good Times” by Chic would be a great disco song but a little bit better in turms of the theme of the song. The biggest part of disco music if finding a song that is appropriate and if showing a video, the video is appropriate. So much about the Disco Era is not appropriate to discuss (sex and drugs), but the music by itself is just fine to share. This video of “Good Times” would be a great way to share the music and the feel of the Disco Era with students while still being appropriate.

Overall, there is a lot of music from the 1970s that is very appropriate to share with students. All of the songs that I have spoken about would be great to use in a unit on verse/chorus unit. My only complaint about this 1970s is the length of the music. With songs much longer than the three minute mark and being as long as eight minutes in length, students will not be able to sit and listen to the lengthy songs of the 1970s. Sharing short clips of the music from the 1970s will be necessary to keep students engaged in the music.

Starr, L. & Waterman, C. (2013). American popular music: From

minstrelsy to MP3 (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press

(ISBN:978-0-19-985911-5).