The Titanic

Background information: This song was written and recorded by Ernest Van “Pop” Stoneman in 1924. It was originally titled “It Was Sad When That Great Ship Went Down”. It sold over one million copies. Stoneman was later inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008 (Tribe 2022).

Here are a few resources that can help briefly explain the history of the sinking of the Titanic:

-The National Geographic Resource Library: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/titanic-sinks - This includes a graphic of the sinking ship, a paragraph about the incident, vocabulary and definitions, and other related resource videos.

-Britanica: https://www.britannica.com/summary/Titanic - This site includes both a lengthy history of the event and a short summary. There are key terms, quizzes, videos, images, and links to other related content.

Click the button below to download the sheet music

Video recording

Lesson Plans

Idea #1:

-Start by singing the ballad in its entirety (preferably unaccompanied so that students can hear and pay attention to the lyrics) to the students.

-You can ask the students what they already know or what they have heard about the Titanic. This is a good time to use one of the resources provided here to briefly go over the history of the Titanic and it’s sinking.

-Another suggestion is to use the lyrics themselves to go over the history.

-To help students be able to sing this song, one can start by having them learn and sing the chorus first, while the teacher singings the verses. After a few sing throughs of the song, many students should be able to sing the verses if the lyrics are provided.

-Students can then listen to multiple recordings of this song (Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie both have recordings that can be found on YouTube).

-Have students compare and contrast the different recordings using various elements of music and performance practices of the musicians (What instruments were used? How fast or slow did they sing it? Were there any verses where the singer changed the way they were singing to match what they were singing about? Etc...)

-Students can suggest various classroom instruments that might best fit the “mood” or “feel” of the song.

-The students can then experiment with those instruments to help provide additional accompaniments parts such as keeping a steady beat, creating an ostinato, or playing at a certain part of the song (such as playing at the end of each phrase).

-Using what students found to work best, they can create a final instrumental arrangement that can accompany the ballad. I suggest that the teacher helps by playing the chord changes of the ballad on whatever instrument is available to them.

Idea #2:

-A simpler and shorter lesson for this ballad can follow the steps outlined in the first paragraph of the first lesson ideas.

-This can be followed up by teaching the class an ostinato using body percussions. This could be something as simple as: Pat, Clap, Snap, Clap. Students can also be the ones who come up with the ostinato.

-This ostinato can be used during each verse.

-Students can do something different during the chorus such as keep the beat on their lap or an instrument, or simply sing the chorus. This can be used to reenforce or introduce the verse/chorus form.