Boil 'Em Cabbage

At Journey Montessori this week we listened to a song called Boil 'Em Cabbage Down.

We listened to a version played by Harry House.  You can find it on iTunes.  This was our listening activity.  After listening to the music the students told me what instruments and sounds they heard.  Then we did an instrument play along to the song.

Here is a little history about the music from wikipedia and Mark O'Connor.

"Boil Them Cabbage Down"  is an American folk song.^[1]  The song has roots reaching all the way to the African slaves that were brought to the southern part of the United States

This simple tune is often used in Old Time Music circles to teach young folks how to play the fiddle, banjo, mountain dulcimer and/or guitar. The following is the basic tune with the lyrics of the chorus. These tabs assumes you have a diatonically fretted instrument tuned to one of the 1-5-8 open tunings like G-D-G or D-A-D such as you might find on a mountain dulcimer or a stick dulcimer.

2 2 2 2 3 3

Boil them cab-bage down, down.

2 2 2 2 1 1

Turn them hoe-cakes 'round, 'round.

2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3

The on-ly song that I can sing is

2 2 1 1 0

Boil them cab-bage down.

The word "hoecakes" refers to small cornmeal cakes that were fried in the fire on the blade of a hoe. A breakfast of hoecakes and cabbage soup testifies to the humble origins of this song.

Variations of this song can be found in Mark O'Connor's violin book 1.  They coincide with the Suzuki methods Twinkle variations.  

Here are some great versions of the song to enjoy at home.