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There’s a song in the air!
There’s a story from the past, just aching to be told! That’s Melodies
and Musings, RSVP’s upcoming Appalachian Festival, scheduled for
September 26th, 2009 at Guntersville’s lakeside Civitan Park.

The festival is part of a year-long project, officially titled Melodies
and Musings: Our Appalachian Legacy, that is meant to honor and
preserve important historical and cultural elements from a life-style that no
longer exists. A life-style that became known for its innovation, creativity
and resiliency because of its geographic isolation… a life-style that
celebrated through song and verse, in spite of hardship and loss. Their
stories and songs give us a glimpse of the determination and character that
it took to survive in the mountains before electricity, central heat, running
water, cars and department stores. It honors a time when neighbors
greeted neighbors, made their own fun, entertained each other… and
helped each other. It’s what the mountain communities were made of!
And Guntersville, AL is just the place to do it again. The City of
Guntersville, Artists Responding to Students (ARTS), and RSVP are
partnering to produce this celebratory event.

Maybe you remember a community festival from your own hometown.
Remember, back in the day, when families didn’t rush off to their
mountain cabin, or their favorite seaside villa? When holidays and special
occasions rolled around, neighbors gathered together to celebrate and
socialize. Maybe it was called the Fourth Fest and held on the fourth of
July, or the Strawberry Festival, when a good crop of berries was ready,
or maybe it was just the Kiwanis Fair, an event to help neighbors have a
good time and raise some money for their favorite cause.

Remember how the whole community came together to make it happen?
The volunteer fire department started the night before and roasted the best
barbeque you ever tasted. The Church ladies fixed candied apples and the
local churches and civic clubs all pitched in to build fun games and great
shows and good food. And, don’t forget the group who put up the
dunking booth, and everyone got a chance to drench the school principal.
Back then, everything was a nickel. Your Mama would give you 75 cents
and you carefully calculated that it came to 15 items…. food or games or
shows! Best of all, everyone had a grand time!

Melodies and Musings (M&M) is that old time community event, but
along with the food and games, we’re adding exhibits, demonstrations and
vendors to show off the old time crafts and skills. Some of them will even
let you have a turn. There will be sack races and fun games for the kids,
maybe a little competitive spelling for the senior citizens. Locals may even
enjoy a pie baking contest… yum, yum. Along with the booths full of fun,
we have full scale amphitheatre, right on the shores of Lake Guntersville,
that will be chock full of old time music, storytellers, comedians, and if
you’re lucky some buck dancing and maybe even a little hog calling
competition. All in all, it’s a festival you won’t want to miss.

The year-long project centers on the music and stories that came from the
Southern Appalachian region… the music and stories that captured the
essence of daily life for the old time mountain folk. Family stories…
funny ones, sad ones, unusually ones and scary ones, have been handed
down from generations past. We’re digging up the best of the best and we’
re putting them on our stage for your enjoyment. Ahhh…but Music.
Author, A.L. Huxley, once stated that it is music that comes closest to
expressing the inexpressible. No wonder those mountain folks, with their
solitary existence, hardship and loss, are so greatly characterized by their
music.

And that music was primarily played on the mountain dulcimer. A stringed
instrument, developed entirely in the United States, but based primarily on
the German Scheidholt, and the Norwegian Langeleik, it was easy to build
and easier to play. During the days preceeding the Festival, RSVP will
host an intense 3-day mountain Dulcimer, creative writing and story telling
workshop, at Guntersville’s recreation center. With room for
approximately 200 students, the event is expected to draw budding artists
from the entire southeastern United States. Four nationally known
performing dulcimer artists, Linda Brockinton, Larry Conger, Don Pedi
and Maureen Sellers, and nationally known storytellers, Sara McDaris and
Bruce Walker will teach the workshops and perform on our Festival Stage.

Perhaps you think it is a little unusual for an RSVP (Retired and Senior
Volunteer Program) group to be involved with such an artsy project. So
did the National Endowment for the Arts, whose 2009 Creativity and
Ageing Grant is helping to make this project a reality. RSVP was the first
of only 14 organizations in the nation to be selected to receive the grant,
which is a competitive grant that looks for community-based music or
literature projects that actively engage older Americans and bring in
professional instructors and artists. RSVP’s project, includes many other
workshops, focus groups, activities and events that are being presented
throughout the county, during 2009. The Appalachian Mountain Festival,
in September 2009, is the culmination of this fun and rewarding project.

The NEA announced the grant offering last spring, and requested projects
that made music and literature more accessible to ‘older American’s’.
They were specifically looking for projects that got elderly citizens
involved with the music and writing activities.
This was in response to recent research,by national health organizations,
showing that seniors who actively participated in music and writing
programs were healthier and more independent… which could reduce the
need for long-term care. The intent of the year-long project is to
encourage elderly people, today, to honor and write and sing about their
own lives in the same way that the old-time Mountain folk did.”

For more information contact Susy Quiggle at Marshall County
RSVP 571-7734 or susy@mcrsvp.org.