The Forestry Musician

(object whirring)

- Hi, Sanford Smith here with Penn State Extension.

Today, we're going to be talking about teaching forestry and wildlife through music.

And I'm joined by Van Wagner, who's a popular folk singer here in Pennsylvania.

And he is also an alum in our School of Forest Resources, which is now the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at Penn State.

Van, it's great to have you here today.

- Thank you, Sandy, it's great to be here.

- I have known you for about 20 years and admired you and your music and your mission, so to speak, to teach people about natural resources and forestry through song.

Of course, he does it in many other ways.

He's a high school environmental science teacher, vo-ag teacher.

So Van, you've written so many songs.

There's one called "Be A Tree".

Can you tell us a little bit about that song or play a few chords?

- Yeah, why don't I give you a taste of the song and then we can talk about some of the lyrics.

- Okay.

- So, never did this out in the middle of the woods before.

(upbeat music)

♪ Oh, if I could be ♪ ♪ Anyone but me, I wonder who I would be ♪ ♪ And if you could be any type of tree ♪ ♪ Tell me what would you be ♪ So when I wrote that, I think I was starting out just thinking about all the different trees and if I could be a tree, what tree would it be?

And I've never answered that question, I don't know.

I ask my audiences, what kind of tree?

And I get some really thoughtful answers and then I get funny answers like a money tree, so.

- Let's talk about a wildlife song, for example.

You've got a lot of those and I love every one of them.

- So this is a song I wrote with my brother Ali about our Pennsylvania black bears.

I'll give you just enough of it.

It goes like this.

♪ Up on the mountain you can see it from the road ♪ ♪ There's a field of rocks where nothing seems to grow ♪ (upbeat music)

♪ My dad told me there's a spot on the hill ♪ ♪ Where the bears come to dance when the moon, it is filled ♪ ♪ Where they dance, where they dance ♪ So a song about the forest being cleared out by dancing bears.

Because when I was a kid going by Lock Haven on our way to the hunting camp, dad would point up at those boulder fields and he called them bear spots.

- Oh, okay.

- But we said, well, why is it called a bear spot?

Well, 'cause the bears would get together on a full moon and they would dance and knock down all the trees and the blueberry bushes, and.

- Now that's more of a cultural kind of history thing.

But many of your songs, people actually learn a lot about the biology of organisms, plants, wildlife.

- What I try to do when I write those songs is put factual stuff in there.

So for example, what often surprises my audiences is the mountain lion was last confirmed in Berks County, Pennsylvania in the 1870s.

- Okay.

- And so I find folks are going Berks County, why not Potter County?

Why not Clinton County?

Why not Tioga, the Northern tier?

- Yeah.

- And so it's a good conversation.

We get to talk about like habitat destruction.

The Northern tier was destroyed by the 1800s and you had these agricultural communities where I think the mountain lion was able to hang on feeding off of calves and lambs and whatnot down in Berks County.

- Sure.

(upbeat music)

♪ In the time of the ♪ ♪ There were wolves ♪ ♪ There were bears in the rocks and trees ♪ ♪ It was just the way things were in this land ♪ ♪ But the thing that put fear in the hearts of men ♪ ♪ Was the scream of the cat Thomas Penn ♪ ♪ As he slept in the wilderness as a young man ♪ ♪ Call then Panthers, call them Catamount ♪ ♪ Mountain lion have all been hunted out ♪ ♪ But stories stay to this day, ♪ I never did on banjo.

That's kind of fun.

- [Speaker] That sounded very good.

Any other songs you wanna share with us today?

- Yeah, sure, so this is a song called "Crosscut Saw" that if we're gonna be talking about forestry education, this is my forestry education song.

If a group invites me to present and the subject material is forestry, I need to do this song.

So I'll give you just a taste of it.

Here's the chorus ♪ All I need is my cross cuts on my double bid ax ♪ ♪ 80 trees to fall ♪ ♪ The spring it's coming, I can smell it all around ♪ ♪ And my soul's being tempted by that high water sound ♪ (gentle music)

So a song about the log rafting era of the 1800s and you know, three chords and I think it took me 10 minutes to write, but my goodness, that song has probably made me more friends and opened more doors for me than anything else I've written, it's amazing.

- It's the power of music, isn't it?

- Exactly, and that's what this conversation's all about is as an educator, you're looking for things to engage your students, your audience, whoever it may be.

- It's a real pleasure to have had Van here today.

And I wanna thank you folks who are listening and I wanna thank you, Van, for joining us.

- Thanks, Sandy. - Yeah.