Juniors Explore Music of the Southwest

As part of the Arts Across the Curriculum (AAC) program, George Scharr explored the music of the American Southwest with students in Liz Ledwell’s junior class. Over four class periods, they listened to a sampling of songs from the early to mid-twentieth century.

“This year, we read and analyzed Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya,” explained Ledwell.  Ultima is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel set in rural New Mexico in the 1940s. The class also read True West, a play by Sam Shepard that explores family dynamics, the Wild West, and the American Dream.

The class listened to country and southwestern music, much of which touched on themes of strife and struggle. They learned that country music is simpler, and uses fewer instruments including guitar, fiddle, banjo, and harmonica. According to Scharr, country music is known for its ballads and dance tunes while southwest music incorporates steel guitars and big band sounds whose style verges on swing.

Students learned the basic of songwriting, fitting lyrics to the melody, song structure, harmonization, and a bit about the creative process that is musical composition. At the end of the four days, students composed melodies and wrote lyrics with Ledwell that were harmonized by Scharr.

Click below to listen to the melodies composed by the students in the Class of 2024.

Below is an example of lyrics written by Lila Journalist: