Sweet Betsy from Pike
Background information: There is a real Pike County in both Missouri and Illinois. Many gold seekers began their trek to seek their fortune out West in those counties. This ballad comes from a songbook called "Put's Golden Songster" that was published in 1858. That songbook contained many songs for and about gold miners. The tune of this ballad comes from an old Irish melody (Ballad of America, 2020).
More information can be found at the Ballad of America webpage at this link: https://balladofamerica.org/sweet-betsy-from-pike/
Click the button below to download the sheet music
Video recording
Lesson Plans
Idea #1
-Sing the first verse of the song for your students. Ask them to listen to it again and try to figure out what this song is about. Sing it again and listen to a few of the student suggestions.
-Use this time as an opportunity to discuss pioneers and the California gold rush.
-Sing the rest of the ballad for the class. You may want to stop in between verses to define words and check for understanding of the story. Words to consider defining include: the Platte, alkali, and cholera.
-Depending on the time you wish to take, not all verses need to be shared for the first time in the same lesson.
-Teach the students the refrain by rote and they can sing it after each verse.
-The tone set for the refrain is drmfs. If students are using these syllables, consider having students sing the refrain using solfege syllables. The refrain consists of two four measure phrase with a good deal of repetition and can be taught by rote.
-You can break the refrain down into shorter phrases to have students decode the words into solfege (sing the phrase using words, give students a moment to think the answer in their heads, then have them sing the answer back to you.)
-When teaching the verses, you can teach the first by rote and then show the lyrics for the following verses. This should be done sometime after sharing the full song with the students so that they will have heard the tune a variety of times.
Idea #2
-The bass line can be performed by either solfege or being played on a barred instrument to accompany the song.
Idea #3
-This can be performed as a partner song with the song "Crossing the Prairie". The sheet music for this can be found in the Partnerama Americana: A collection of partner songs from American's folk heritage, by Jill Gallina (Gallina, 1987).
