Music of the United States

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The music of the United States includes a number of kinds of distinct folk and popular music, including some of the most widely-recognized styles in the world. The original inhabitants of the United States included hundreds of Native American tribes, who played the first music in the area. Beginning in the 15th century, immigrants from England, Spain and France began arriving in large numbers, bringing with them new styles and instruments. Africans imported as slaves provided the musical underpinnings of much of modern American music, including blues, jazz, country, rock and roll, hip hop, disco, funk, soul music, doo-wop, reggae, ragtime, and certain dance/electronic genres such as house music, techno, and electro. Other styles of music were brought by Hispanics from Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Cajun descendants of French-Canadians, Jews, Eastern Europeans and Irish, Scottish and Italian immigrants.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, popular recorded music from the United States has become increasingly known across the world, to the point where some form of American popular music is listened to almost everywhere [1]. Most of this popular music ultimately stems from African American music, especially the blues and African American gospel music. African American folk music is a part of the Afro-American tradition, which extends across most of the Western Hemisphere, where elements of African, European and indigenous music mixed in varying amounts to form a wide array of diverse styles. Celtic music, especially Irish and Scottish, also played an integral role in shaping modern American music, through massive immigration of Irish and Scottish people, bringing with them folk music. Long a land of immigrants, the United States has also seen documented folk music and recorded popular music produced in the ethnic styles of Ukrainian, Polish, Mexican, Cuban, Spanish and Jewish communities.

The modern United States is divided into fifty states and the inhabited non-state territories of Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam [2]. Most cities, and even many smaller towns, have local music scenes, ranging from casual opportunities for amateur performers at bars and other establishments to large-scale orchestras, local indie record labels and community performing venues, all supporting a number of vibrant regional traditions in various styles. Though none doubt the importance of a handful of major cities, like New York, Nashville and Los Angeles, many smaller cities and regions have produced memorable and distinctive styles of music. The Cajun and Creole traditions in Louisianan music and the unique folk and popular styles of Hawaiian music are two notable exceptions, though other styles of distinct regional music range from the colonial First New England School to modern scenes like Memphis rap and the Omaha sound.

American art
Architecture - Comics - Cuisine - Dance - Folklore - Literature - Movies - Painting - Poetry - Sculpture - Television - Theater - Visual arts
Music of the United States
History (Timeline) Ethnic music
Colonial era Native American
to the Civil War English: old-time and Western music
During the Civil War African American
Late 19th century Irish and Scottish
Early 20th century Latin: Tejano and Puerto Rican
40s and 50s Cajun and Creole
60s and 70s Hawaii
80s to the present Other immigrants
Genres (Samples): Classical - Folk - Popular: Hip hop - Pop - Rock
Awards Grammy Awards, Country Music Awards
Charts Billboard Music Chart
Festivals Jazz Fest, Lollapalooza, Ozzfest, Monterey Jazz Festival
Media Spin, Rolling Stone, Vibe, Downbeat, Source, MTV, VH1
National anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" and forty-nine state songs
Local music
AK - AL - AR - AS - AZ - CA - CO - CT - DC - DE - FL - GA - GU - HI - IA - ID - IL - IN - KS - KY - LA - MA - MD - ME - MI - MN - MO - MP - MS - MT - NC - ND - NE - NH - NM - NV - NJ - NY - OH - OK - OR - PA - PR - RI - SC - SD - TN - TX - UT - VA - VI - VT - WA - WI - WV - WY

Contents

Characteristics

The music of the United States can be characterized by the use of syncopation and asymmetrical rhythms, long, irregular melodies, which are said to "reflect the wide open geography of (the American landscape)" and the "sense of personal freedom characteristic of American life", and elements of distinctively American jazz, blues and Native American music [3]. The influence of African American music is important; the United States can be viewed as an Afro-American musical country, in that its music is a fusion of African, European and Native American styles. The African part of this fusion manifests in elements like the use of a call-and-response format, derived from African music but "not found too frequently in (African American folk music); but the original importance of this form... seems possibly to have led to the alternation of the various instruments for the 'choruses' in jazz", noted Bruno Nettl in 1965, predating the more widespread use of call-and-response form in popular funk and hip hop [4].

John Warthen Struble contrasted American music with other countries, especially European lands, concluding that the United States has not had centuries of cultural evolution, producing a distinctive field of American music. Instead, the music of the United States is that of dozens or hundreds of indigenous and immigrant groups, all of which developed largely in regional isolation until the American Civil War, when people from across the country were brought together in army units, trading musical styles and practices. Indeed, with a few limited exceptions, such as New England hymns, the ballads of the Civil War were "the first American folk music with discernible features that can be considered uniqe to America: the first 'American' sounding music, as distinct from any regional style derived from another country" [5].

The Civil War, and the period following it, saw a general flowering of American art, literature and music. Amateur musical ensembles of this era can be seen as the birth of American popular music. "(these early amateur bands) combined the depth and drama of the classics with undemanding technique, eschewing complexity in favor of direct expression. If it was vocal music, the words would be in English, despite the snobs who declared English an unsingable language. In a way, it was part of the entire awakening of America that happened after the Civil War, a time in which American painters, writers and 'serious' composers addressed specifically American themes" [6].

Folk music

Main article: American roots music

Folk music in the United States is varied across the country's numerous ethnic groups. The Native American tribes each play their own varieties of folk music, most of it spiritual in nature. African American music includes blues and gospel, descendents of West African music brought to the Americas by slaves and mixed with Western European music. During the colonial era, English, French and Spanish styles and instruments were brought to the Americas. By the early 20th century, the United States had become a major center for folk music from around the world, including polka, Ukrainian and Polish fiddling, Ashkenazi Jewish klezmer and several kinds of Latin music.

Native American music

Main article: Native American music

The Native Americans played the first folk music in what is now the United States, using a wide variety of styles and techniques. Some commonalities are near universal among Native American traditional music, however, including the lack of harmony and polyphony, the presence of choiral vocals, the use of vocables and the descending melodic figures. Traditional instruments include the flute and many kinds of percussion instruments like drums, rattles and shakers [7].

Since European and African contact was established, Native American folk music has grown in new directions. Waila, or chicken-scratch music, is a fusion of Mexican-Texan norteño and European dance music like the polka and mazurka. Modern Native American music may be best-known for powwow gatherings, pan-tribal gatherings at which traditionally-styled dances and music are performed; despite the traditional appearance of this music, powwows are a modern, syncretic invention, dating back to the early 20th century, though there are those who claim that the tradition goes back hundreds or thousands of years "in essence" [8].


African American music

Main article: African American music

A banjo, a string instrument that is an important part of African American music and can be directly traced back to the West African kora
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A banjo, a string instrument that is an important part of African American music and can be directly traced back to the West African kora

The ancestors of today's African American population were brought to the United States as slaves, working primarily in the cotton plantations of the South. They were from hundreds of tribes across West Africa, and they brought with them certain traits of West African music including call and response vocals and complexly rhythmic music [9], as well as syncopated beats and shifting accents [10]. The African musical focus on rhythmic singing and dancing was brought to the New World, and where it became part of a distinct folk music culture that helped Africans "retain continuity with their past through music"; these polyrhythmic percussive practices using clapping, foot-stamping and other techniques (this was called patting juba), spread because drums were outlawed by slaveowners who feared they would be used in slave rebellions [11].

The first slaves in the United States sang work songs, field hollers [12] and, following Christianization, hymns. In the 19th century, a Great Awakening of religious fervor gripped both blacks and whites across much of the country, especially in the South. Protestant hymns written mostly by New England preachers became a feature of camp meetings held among devout Christians across the south. When blacks began singing sometimes adapted versions of these hymns, they were called Negro spirituals. It was from these roots, of spiritual songs, work songs and field hollers, that blues and gospel developed. Shout bands also from the spiritual tradition but are distinct in that they adopt brass instruments in arrangements similar to gospel choirs.



Spirituals

Main article: Spirituals

Originally monophonic and a cappella, spirituals are antecedents of the blues. Spirituals were often improvised and used call-and-response vocals, in which a leader and a chorus alternated lines and refrain responses [13]. David Ewen characterizes spirituals using "mobile changes from major to minor without the benefit of formal modulations; by the freedom of its rhythm and intonation; by its plangent moods; by the injection of notes, like the flatted third or seventh, foreign to the formal scale; by the variation of the rhythmic patterns" [14].

Spirituals were primarily expressions of religious faith, sung by slaves on southern plantations. Secular songs that also fall within the genre sometimes contained hidden messages of a slaveowner’s unexpected return, or of rebellion or escape. "Follow the Drinking Gourd," for example, contained a coded map to the Underground Railroad, instructing escapees to follow the Big Dipper (the "drinking gourd.") "Wade in the Water" was another such song that combined religious imagery and codified instructions for potential runaways [15].

The first printed spiritual was "Roll, Jordan Roll", published in Philadelphia in 1862. It was followed by a few other publications, and the first spiritual collection, Slave Songs of the United States (1867) [16]. Spirituals had already spread out of the US South, however, with the travel of both blacks and whites, especially abolitionists. In 1871, Fisk University became home to the Jubilee Singers, a pioneering group that popularized spirituals across the country. In imitation of this group, gospel quartets arose, followed by increasing diversification with the early 20th century rise of jackleg and singing preachers, from whence came the popular style of gospel music.



Blues

Main article: Blues

Blues is a combination of African work songs, field hollers and shouts [17]. It developed in the rural south in the first decade of the 20th century. The most important characteristics of the blues is its use of the blue scale, with a flatted or indeterminate third, as well as the typically lamenting lyrics; though both of these elements had existed in African American folk music prior to the 20th century, the codified form of modern blues (such as with the AAB structure) did not exist until the early 20th century [18].

Donald Clarke has claimed that, in the blues, the "verses and musical accompaniment are like two voices: the accompaniment is a commentary on the story being told, and the result is a polyrhythmic, almost poly-emotional music. The blues is... a passionate, intensely rhythmic way of keeping the spirit up, by commenting on problems of life and love with lyrics full of irony and earthy imagery" [19].



Anglo-American music

Main article: Anglo-American music

The Thirteen Colonies of the original United States were all former English possessions, and Anglo culture became a major foundation for American folk and popular music.

Many American folk songs use the same music, but with new lyrics, often as parodies of the original material. American Anglo songs can also be distinguished from British songs by having fewer pentatonic tunes, less prominent accompaniment (but with heavier use of drones) and more melodies in major [20].

Anglo-American traditional music, dating back to colonial times, includes a variety of broadside ballads, humorous stories and tall tales, and disaster songs regarding mining, shipwrecks (especially in New England) and murder. Folk heroes like Joe Magarac, John Henry and Jesse James are also part of many songs. Folk dance of Anglo origin include the square dance, descended from the European high society quadrille, combined with the American innovation of a caller instructing the dancers. [21]

Folklorist Alan Lomax described regional differences among rural Anglo musicians as included the relaxed and open-voiced northern vocal style and the pinched and nasal southern style, with the west exhibiting a mix of the two. He attributed these differences to sexual relations, the presence of minorities and frontier life [22].



Old-time music

Main article: Old-time music

Old-time music, a traditional style of American music, has roots in Irish, Scottish and African folk music. During the late 19th and early 20th century, minstrel, tin pan alley and other popular music also entered the genre. Practitioners play it with stringed instruments such as the fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin and double bass.

Protestant Christian music was an important influence on old-time music, which was originally derisively labelled hillbilly music. The hillbillies who innovated old-time music were deeply religious, though not by and large devoted churchgoing people; they belonged to churches like the Holiness Pentecostal church, known for guitar and banjo-led happy clappy services, and the Old Regular Baptist church, which disapproved of instrumentation and allowed only a cappella and unharmonized singing [23].



Other immigrant communities

Main article Music of immigrant communities in the United States

The United States is a melting pot consisting of numerous ethnic groups. Many of these peoples have kept alive the folk traditions of their homeland, often producing distinctively American styles of foreign music.

Some nationalities have produced local scenes in regions of the country where they have clustered, including Cape Verdean music in New England [24], Armenian music in California [25], Norwegian music in Minnesota and Italian music in New York City. Some of these local scenes have produced performers with some mainstream appeal, such as Pawlo Humeniuk, a star of the Ukrainian fiddling scene [26].



Cajun and Creole

Main article: Cajun and Creole music

The Cajuns are a group of Francophones who arrived in Louisiana after leaving Acadia in Canada [27]. The Creoles are African Americans who combine elements of Cajun culture with their own. The city of New Orleans, Louisiana, being a major port, has acted as a melting pot for people from all over the Caribbean basin. Thus, many Caribbean music styles have left their mark on Cajun and Creole music, which has evolved into a popular style called zydeco, best-exemplified by the 1950s pop star Clifton Chenier.

In southwestern Louisiana in the 1800s, the fiddle was the most popular Cajun instrument and the music still carried clear influences from the Poiteu region of France and the Scottish/Canadian influences of their earlier homeland. In the late 19th century German immigrants spreading outward from central and eastern Texas and New Orleans soon brought the accordion as well. African American farmhands at the time sang a rhythmic type of work song called juré, which mixed with Cajun folk music to form la la, a central component of Creole music. La la was primarily rural, played at parties also known as la las.

Tex-Mex and Tejano

Main article: Tex-Mex and Tejano

Mexico controlled much of what is now the western United States until the Mexican War, including the entire state of Texas. After Texas joined the United States, the Mexicans living in the state (Tejanos) began culturally developing somewhat separately from their neighbors to the south, and also remained culturally distinct from other Texans.

Central to the evolution of early Tejano music was the blend of traditional Mexican forms such as the corrido, and Continental European styles introduced by German and Czech settlers in the late 19th century [28]. In particular, the accordion was adopted by Tejano folk musicians at the turn of the 20th century, and it became a popular instrument for amateur musicians in Texas and Northern Mexico. Small bands known as orquestas, featuring amateur musicians, became a staple at community dances.



Klezmer

Main article: Klezmer

Klezmer is a style of Jewish music that came to the United States through Ashkenazi Jews immigrating from Eastern Europe. The United States soon became a major center for klezmer development. Klezmer remains rooted in the music of Eastern Europe, especially the Yiddish-speaking peoples of Romania, Ukraine, Poland and Russia.

The klezmorim were travelling musicians who played for weddings and other events in Eastern Europe. Their ensembles (kapelyes) were often based around families, and were usually based on string instruments, led by a violin. In the 19th century, the clarinet replaced the violin as the lead instrument, creating an important element of modern klezmer.

By the middle of the 1920s, more than three million Eastern European Jews arrived in New York City through Ellis Island. These included such legends as Dave Tarras. In 1917, Abe Schwartz signed to Columbia Records and Harry Kandel signed to Victor Records; this was the beginning of modern popular klezmer [29].

Classical music

Main article: American classical music

The European classical music tradition was brought to the United States with some of the first colonists. European classical music is rooted in the traditions of European art, ecclesiastical and concert music. The central norms of this tradition developed between 1550 and 1825, centering on what is known as the common practice period. At the time the first Europeans arrived in North America, the prevailing view was that the only serious music worth considering was the European classical tradition; styles of folk music were denigrated as repulsive and proper only for the lower classes.

John Warthen Struble notes that early American music historians felt that the United States was "in effect, another European nation partaking of the same cultural values, traditions and artistic objectives" as European nations, ignoring the "vital traditions of rural folk music and the important musical subculture of African Americans". Indeed, American classical composers, until the 19th century, attempted to work within European models; Struble contends that these attempts were a "blind alley, a necessary period of experimentation, the result of which was to demonstrate that American classical music would never find itself by imitating European models" (emphasis in original). Antonin Dvorak, a prominent Czech composer, iterated this idea, that American classical music needed its own models instead of imitating European composers, when he visited the United States from 1892 to 1895 -- Struble also points out that Dvorak's visit predates "one of the first pieces of characteristically American-sounding classical music, music that could not have been written by any European composer (namely) Edward MacDowell's Woodland Sketches" [30]. By the beginning of 20th century, many American composers were incorporated national elements into their works; soon after, old-time music, jazz, blues and Native American music were used in classical compositions.

Colonial music

During the colonial era, there were two distinct fields of what are now considered classical music. The First New England School was inarguably the more influential in the long-term, and was based around simple hymns that were performed with increasingly sophistication over time. The other colonial classical tradition was that of the mid-Atlantic cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore, which produced a number of prominent composers who worked almost entirely within the European model, and are little appreciated today; these composers were mostly English in origin, and worked specifically in the style of prominent English composers of the day, like Samuel Arnold and George Frideric Handel [31].

First New England School

Main article: First New England School

European classical music was brought to the United States during the colonial era. Many American composers of this period worked exclusively with European models, while others, such as William Billings, Supply Belcher, Daniel Read, Oliver Holden, and Justin Morgan, also known as the First New England School, developed a native style almost entirely independently of European models [32]. Of these, Billings is by far the most well-remembered of these composers; he formed the basis of the first major musical organization in the country, the Stoughton Musical Society, and was also influential "as the founder of the American church choir, as the first musician to use a pitch-pipe, and as the first to introduce a violoncello into church service" [33].

Many of these composers were amateurs, and many were singers: they developed new forms of sacred music, such as the fuging tune, suitable for performance by amateurs, and often using harmonic methods which would have been considered bizarre by contemporary European standards [34]. Many writers have criticized the First New England School for what they consider a "faulty technique", but Struble points out that this criticism is "valid (only) if one assumes that the choral models developed between the 12th and 18th enturies in France, Germany, England, Italy and the Netherlands are the only appropriate ones" and that the supposedly faulty techniques, including the "presence of parallel fifths, octaves and unisons, the crossing of voices and false relations between them are (also found in European classical fields like the) Notre Dame school of Perotin or other examples of early polyphony, where such phenomena are accepted as legitimate elements of the style" [35]. Jean Ferris, another music historian, called these composers "Yankee pioneers (who were) untouched by the influence of their sophisticated European contemporaries" and who were not entirely aware of the development of "tonality (as) the major harmonic system" of European classical music. Ferris also notes that the First New England School based "their melodies upon modal or pentatonic scales" instead of using the European model, and that the "European rules harmony, that governed relationships between 'tense' and 'relaxed' (or dissonant and consonant) sounds were quite unfamiliar to the American pioneers [36].

19th century

Second New England School

Main article: Second New England School

During the mid to late 19th century, a vigorous tradition of home-grown classical music developed, especially in New England. The composers of the Second New England School included such figures as George Whitefield Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, and Horatio Parker [37].

20th century

George Gershwin
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George Gershwin

In the early 20th century, George Gershwin was greatly influenced by African American music; however, this was during an era of legally enforced "Jim Crow" segregation during which his music perhaps enjoyed undue fame owing to the refusal of white listeners to listen to music that formed Gershwin's sources. On the other hand, he created a convincing synthesis of music from several traditions once considered to be irreconcilable, and which continues to enjoy enormous popularity.

Many of the major classical composers of the 20th century were influenced by folk traditions, none more quintessentially, perhaps, than Aaron Copland. Other composers adopted features of folk music, from the Appalachians, the plains and elsewhere, including Roy Harris, William Schuman, David Diamond, and others. Yet other early to mid-20th century composers continued in the more experimental traditions, including such figures as Charles Ives, George Antheil, and Henry Cowell.

Popular music

Main article: American popular music

The United States has produced many of the most popular musicians and composers in the modern world. Beginning with the birth of recorded music, American performers have continued to lead the field of popular music, which, out of "all the contributions made by Americans to world culture... has been taken to heart by the entire world" [38]. The country has seen the rise of many popular styles, including ragtime, the blues, jazz, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk rock, disco, salsa, grunge and hip hop.

American popular music, being well-known across the world, has had many milestones. Most histories of popular music start with American ragtime or Tin Pan Alley; David Clarke, however, in The Rise and Fall of Popular Music, traces popular music back to the European Renaissance and through broadsheet ballads and other popular traditions [39]. Other authors typically look at popular sheet music, tracing American popular music to spirituals, minstrel shows and vaudeville, or the patriotic songs of the American Civil War.

Of especial importance are a handful of performers who did more than anyone to create American popular music. Louis Armstrong's "virtuosity (which) inspired awe among his followers" helped make him a "giant figure" in the world of jazz, and a major foundation for later popular styles [40]. Later, following the white teen swing phase, a number of vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots became very popular, especially among the youth. A number of Italian-American crooners also found a major youth audience, including Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Frankie Laine and, most famously, the "first pop vocalist to engender hysteria among his fans" Frank Sinatra[41]. Elvis Presley and Bill Haley, responsible for popularizing rock and roll, also deserve special note for changing the whole of popular music, both within and without the United States.

The era of the modern teen pop star, however, began in the 1960s. Bubblegum pop groups like The Monkees were chosen entirely for their appearance and ability to sell records, with no regard to musical ability. Pop groups like these remained popular into the 1970s, producing such acts as the Partridge Family and The Osmonds. By the 1990s, there were numerous varieties of teen pop, including boy bands like *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, while female diva vocalists like Christinia Aguilera and Britney Spears also dominated the charts.

Recently, American popular music has shifted away from teen pop and mainstream rock. In the early 2000s, it became increasingly rarer for songs belonging to these genres to reach the tops of the charts. Instead, the charts have yielded mostly hip-hop, rap, and R&B hits. Also, there has been a growing movement towards modern rock music since the 90s; this movement has owed some of its very recent chart hits, such as Fall Out Boy's Sugar We're Goin' Down, which peaked at number eight on the Hot 100, to the revival of the music single through paid digital downloads.

Early popular song

The first popular form of distinctively American music was the First New England School of classical choral singing, but it was the lay songs of the American Revolution that first arose as a mainstream kind of popular music, some few years after those New England composers. These songs were the first patriotic songs devoted to the fledgling nation, and included songs like "The Liberty Tree", written by Thomas Paine, and "The Liberty Song". Cheaply-printed as broadsheets, these songs were spread across the colonies and were performed at home and at public meetings [42].

Fife songs were especially celebrated, and performed commonly on fields of battle during the American Revolution. The longest-lasting of these fife songs is clearly "Yankee Doodle", which is still well-known today. The melody for "Yankee Doodle" dates back to 1755, and was sung by both American and British troops [43].

Patriotic songs were mostly based on English melodies, with new lyrics added to denounce British colonialism; others, however, used tunes from Ireland, Scotland or elsewhere. Some, however, did not utilize a familiar melody, such as "The American Hero", with words set to the melody of Andrew Law's "Bunker Hill". The song "Hail Columbia" was a major work, written by Joseph Hopkinson, and was set to the tune of "The President's March", composed by Philip Phile and published in Philadelphia in 1793 [44]; it remained an unofficial national anthem until the adoption of "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Many songs from the early 19th century were sentimental ballads, like "Woodman Spare That Tree" and "Home, Sweet Home", the latter of which became an internationally famous song [45].

Civil War ballads

During the Civil War, when soldiers from across the country commingled, the multifarious strands of American music began to crossfertilize each other, a process that was aided by the burgeoning railroad industry and other technological developments that made travel and communication easier. Army units include individuals from across the country, and they rapidly traded tunes, instruments and techniques. The songs that arose from this fusion were "the first American folk music with discernible features that can be considered uniqe to America" [46]. The war was an impetus for the creation of many songs that became and remained wildly popular; the songs were aroused by "all the varied passions (that the Civil War inspired)" and "echoed and re-echoed" every aspect of the war. John Tasker Howard has claimed that the songs from this era "could be arranged in proper sequence to form an actual history of the conflicts; its events, its principal characters, and the ideals and principles of the opposing sides" [47].

The most popular songs included "Dixie", written by Daniel Decatur Emmett, who went on to become one of the most famous American composers of the 19th century. The song, originally titled "Dixie's Land", was made for a minstrel show, and specifically for the closing; it spread to New Orleans, first, where it was published and became "one of the great song successes of the pre-Civil War period" [48]. Other popular songs from this era include "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" and "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", which is now more closely associated with the Spanish-American War. "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground" was one of many songs popularized by a concert group called the Hutchinson Family, and was written by George F. Root; Root was, along with Henry Clay Work, the "most prolific composers in writing Civil War songs" [49].

In addition to, and in conjunction with, popular songs with patriotic fervor, the Civil War era also produced a great body of brass band pieces, from both the North and the South [50], as well as other military musical traditions like the bugle call "Taps".

Late 19th century music

Main articles: Military march, minstrelsy and the cakewalk

Stephen Foster
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Stephen Foster

Following the Civil War, minstrel shows became the first distinctively American form of music expression. The minstrel show was an indigenous form of American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, usually performed by white people in blackface. Minstrel shows used African American elements in musical performances, but only in simplified ways; storylines in the shows depicted blacks as natural-born slaves and fools, before eventually becoming associated with abolitionism [51].

Minstrel shows date back to about 1843, when the full-fledged minstrel show was invented by the Dan Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels [52]. Minstrel shows produced the first well-remembered popular songwriters in American music history: Thomas Rice, Dan Emmett and, most famously, Stephen Foster.

The composer John Philips Sousa is closely associated with the most popular trend in American popular music just before the turn of the century. Formerly the bandmaster of the United States Marine Corps Band, Sousa wrote military marches like "The Stars and Stripes Forever" which reflected his "nostalgia for (his) home and country", giving the melody a "stirring virile character". His complete body of work, which includes "King Cotton", "Semper Fideles" and "Hands Across the Sea", are "an impressive library of marches without equal in American music", as well as ten serious and comic operas [53].

Ragtime

Main article: Ragtime

Tin Pan Alley and Broadway

Main articles: Tin Pan Alley and Broadway_Theatre

Popular recorded music

Blues

Main article: Blues

Country music

Main article: Country music

Electronic music

Main article: Electronic music

Gospel

Main article: Gospel music

Heavy metal

Main article: Heavy metal music

Hip hop

Main article: Hip hop music

Jazz

Main article: Jazz

R&B

Main article: Rhythm and blues

Rock and roll

Main articles: Rock and roll and rock music

Salsa and other mainstream Latin pop

Main article: Salsa music

Soul and funk

Main article: Soul music and funk

Other regional popular styles

Main article: Zydeco, Tex-Mex and Tejano and slack-key guitar

Music institutions

Many American cities are home to a orchestra, with the most prominent including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony in the country. There is also a National Symphony Orchestra.

There are a number of non-profit organizations in the United State that promote music in various aspects, such as ethnic folk music or music education. The Save the Music foundation, which promotes musical education and enrichment, is very well-known.

Music education

Main article: Music education in the United States

Music festivals and holidays


References

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  • Baraka, Amiri (Leroi Jones) (1963) Blues People: Negro Music in White America, William Morrow. ISBN 068818474X
  • Blush, Steven (2001) American Hardcore: A Tribal History, Feral House. ISBN 09229157177
  • Chase, Gilbert (2000) America's Music: From the Pilgrims to the Present, University of Illinois Press. ISBN 025200454X
  • Clarke, Donald (1995) The Rise and Fall of Popular Music, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312115733
  • Collins, Ace (1996) The Stories Behind Country Music's All-Time Greatest 100 Songs, Boulevard Books. ISBN 1572970723
  • Crawford, Richard (2001) America's Musical Life: A History, W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393048101
  • Ewen, David (1957) Panorama of American Popular Music, Prentice Hall
  • Ferris, Jean (1993) America's Musical Landscape, Brown & Benchmark. ISBN 0697125165
  • Garofalo, Reebee (1997) Rockin' Out: Popular Music in the USA, Allyn & Bacon. ISBN 0205137032
  • Gillett, Charlie (1970) The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, Outerbridge and Dienstfrey. ISBN 0285626191; cited in Garofalo
  • "Band Music From the Civil War Era". Library of Congress. URL accessed on June 13, 2005.
  • Lipsitz, George (1982) Class and Culture in Cold War America, J. F. Bergin. ISBN 0030592070
  • Lomax, Alan (1960) The Folksongs of North America in the English Language, Doubleday and Company; cited in Nettl
  • Malone, Bill C. (1985) Country Music USA: Revised Edition, University of Texas Press. ISBN 0292710968; cited in Garofalo
  • Marcus, Greil (June 24, 1993). Is This the Woman Who Invented Rock and Roll?: The Deborah Chessler Story, Rolling Stone: 41; cited in Garofalo
  • Nettl, Bruno (1965) Folk and Traditional Music of the Western Continents, Prentice-Hall, Inc
  • Palmer, Robert (April 19, 1990). The Fifties, Rolling Stone: 48; cited in Garofalo
  • "Hank Williams". PBS' American Masters. URL accessed on June 6, 2005.
  • Ward, Ed, Geoffrey Stokes and Ken Tucker (1986) Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll, Rolling Stone Press. ISBN 0671544381
  • Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.) (2000) Rough Guide to World Music, Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1858286360
  • "Nashville Sound". Roughstock's History of Country Music. URL accessed on June 6, 2005.
  • Sawyers, June Skinner (2000) Celtic Music: A Complete Guide, Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306810077
  • Schuller, Gunther (1968) Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195040430
  • Struble, John Warthen (1995) The History of American Classical Music, Facts on File, Inc. ISBN 081602927
  • Szatmary, David P (2000) Rockin' in Time: A Social History of Rock-And-Roll, Prentice Hall. ISBN 013022636
  • van der Merwe, Peter (1989) Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music, Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0193161214
  • Vibe magazine (1999) The Vibe History of Hip Hop, Vibe magazine. ISBN 0609805037
  • Werner, Craig (1998) A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race and the Soul of America, Plume. ISBN 0452280656

Notes

  1. ^  Provine, Rob with Okon Hwang and Andy Kershaw. "Our Life Is Precisely a Song" in the Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 2, pg. 167 Andy Kershaw, a BBC radio DJ, remarks that North Korea is the only country on earth where I have not, at some stage, heard country music.
  2. ^  Though the scope of the topic music of the United States necessarily includes the non-state territories, the music of these regions is generally quite distinct from the rest of the country, and has more in common with regional neighbors than the more distant mainland. This article, therefore, will focus on the fifty states and the music of Washington D.C., discussing the musics of Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa and Virgin Islands only in as much as they have had on effect on the more general aspects of American music.
  3. ^  Ferris, pg. 11 American rhythms, metered or unmetered, are often more flexible than the rhythms of European music. Western composers have always varied rhythmic effects by placing accents between beats or on normally weak beats in the technique called syncopation. However, the bold and consistent syncopation of some American classical, as well as popular, music has a distinctive flavor. Much of the refreshing spontaneity we associate with some characteristically American pieces is in fact derived from their delightfully asymmetrical rhythms. (paragraph break) The long, irregular melodies of a number of American vocal and instrumental works are sometimes thought to reflect the wide-open spaces of our land. These flexible melodies also seem to suggest the informality and the sense of personal freedom characteristic of American life. Composers sometimes quote or imitate a familiar American melody for programmatic or nationalistic effect. For example, some American have used black spirituals, Indian melodies, cowboy songs or early American hymn tunes as musical references to particular American experiences. (emphasis in original)
  4. ^  Nettl, pg. 180
  5. ^  Struble, pg. xvii
  6. ^  Rolling Stone, pg. 18 At first, it was a body of music that combined the depth and drama of the classics with undemanding technique, eschewing complexity in favor of direct expression. If it was vocal music, the words would be in English, despite the snobs who declared English an unsingable language. In a way, it was part of the entire awakening of America that happened after the Civil War, a time in which American painters, writers and 'serious' composers addressed specifically American themes. (quotations around serious in original)
  7. ^  Ferris, pgs. 18-20 Ferris notes the use of three instruments in three families: percussion, wind and string, though gives no examples of the latter in use. She names five basic types of instruments: rattles, rasps, drums, whistles and flutes, elsewhere also noting the rare use of trombone and panpipes in isolated areas. She characterizes Native American music as essentially song, generally monophonic, utilizing vocables and descending melodic phrases and usually accompanied by one or more rattles or drums, providing a percussive effect. Ferris does not mention the use of choral vocals.
  8. ^  Means, Andrew. "Hey-Ya, Weya Ha-Ya-Ya!" in the Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 2, pg. 594 Some insist that in essence it goes back hundreds, maybe thousands of years; others that it was created as a tourist spectacle by traders and Indian agents around the turn of the century. The truth probably embraces part of each theory. In context, the turn of the century can only be the 20th century. Means' qualifier of in essence is important, because any Native American music that predates European contact is folk music, which evolves steadily over time; thus, any music played hundreds or thousands of years ago either had little to do with modern native folk music or else represents a profound and unique exception to the ordinary evolution of folk music. The atmosphere and purpose surrounding modern powwows may, of course, extend prior to European contact, but due to a lack of written records, this is purely speculative.
  9. ^  Nettl, pg. 171
  10. ^  Ewen, pg. 53
  11. ^  Szatmary, pg. 2 Torn from their kin, enduring an often fatal journey from their homes in West Africa to the American South, and forced into a servile way of life, Africans retained continuity with their past through music. Szatmary attributes patting juba to an ex-slave writing in 1853.
  12. ^  Ferris, pg. 50
  13. ^  Ferris, pg. 99
  14. ^  Ewen, pg. 54
  15. ^  Broughton, Viv and James Attlee. "Devil Stole the Beat" in the Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 2, pg. 569-570 Broughton and Attlee addresses the uses and purposes of spiritual songs with coded messages, citing the examples "Steal Away to Jesus", "Let My People Go" and "Go Down Moses".
  16. ^  Ewen, pg. 58
  17. ^  Garofolo, pg. 44. ’’The evolution of the blues as a fundamentally African American musical genre can be traced back to the shouts, field hollers, and work songs of slavery.’’
  18. ^  Rolling Stone, pg. 20 Ward, Stokes and Tucker cite the lament in the lyrics, the so-called blues scale, with its flatted or indeterminate third and the codified form of the blues with an A A B structure. The explicit timeframe is sourced as scholars usually place the event in the first decade of this century.
  19. ^  Clarke, pg. 136
  20. ^  Nettl, pg. 201
  21. ^  Nettl, pgs. 201-202
  22. ^  Lomax, pg. 1, cited in Nettl, pg. 202
  23. ^  Barraclough, Nick and Kurt Wolff. "High an' Lonesome" in the Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 2, pg. 536 Barraclough and Wolff describe the religious beliefs of the hillbillies and musical practices of the Holiness Pentecostal and Old Regular Baptist churches, but that Protestant Christian music was an influence on old-time music is an inference. They also introduce the term happy clappy, distinguishing it with scare quotes.
  24. ^  Máximo, Susana and David Peterson. “Music of Sweet Sorrow" in the Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 1, pgs. 454-455
  25. ^  Hagopian, Harold. "The Sorrowful Sound" in the Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 1, pg. 337
  26. ^  Kochan, Alexis and Julian Kytasty. "The Bandura Played On" in the Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 1, pg. 308 Kochan and Kytasty describe Humeniuk as King of the Ukrainian Fiddlers, alongside an image of a record entitled Pawlo Humeniuk: King of the Ukrainian Fiddlers, New York 1925-1927: The Early Years, with the apparent logo indicating the label as Arhoolie Polalyric and the number as 7025.
  27. ^  Burr, Ramiro. "Accordion Enchilada" in the Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 2, pg. 604 Burr refers to conjunto historian Manuel Peña, but does not provide an explicit citation or quotation, though he is the implied source for the embryonic conjunto form originated in south Texas in the late nineteenth century when German, Czech and Polish immigrants introduced the accordion into the region (emphasis in original). Burr specifically cites as Mexican and European forms: corridos, rancheras, boleros, waltz, polka; a sidebar entitled Conjunto Rhythms cites as rhythmic influences: vals (French waltz), shottis (scottische), mazurka, huapango, cumbia, bolero, ranchera, corrido, the "most prominent" rhythm being the Bavarian oom-pah polka beat (parenthetical descriptors in original).
  28. ^  Broughton, Simon. "Rhythm and Jews" in the Rough Guide to World Music, Volume 2, pg. 583 Setting the timeframe as between 1880 and 1924, Broughton claims around three million -- a third of the then population, presumably referring to the Jews of Eastern Europe. Broughton mentions by name Tarras, Kandel and Schwartz, along with Naftule Brandwein, and cites modern klezmer musician and historian Henry Sapoznik in support for his general claim regarding the roots of modern klezmer.
  29. ^  Struble, pg. xiv - xv
  30. ^  Struble, pg. 2
  31. ^  Ewen, pg. 7
  32. ^  Struble, pg. 4-5
  33. ^  Struble, pg. 4
  34. ^  Ferris, pg. 66 The best songs of these "Yankee pioneers" were as rugged, naive, and honest as the sturdy tunesmiths who wrote them. Untouched by the influence of their sophisticated European contemporaries, they relied upon old, familiar techniques and their own honest taste. Colonial Americans, after all, had been out of touch with European music since the early seventeenth century, the very time that tonality was becoming the harmonic system of the Western World. Although aware of the major and minor scales, the singing school masters did not know all the rules of the tonal system. Nor did they feel obliged to conform to those they understood, frequently basing their melodies upon modal or pentatonic scales. The European rules of harmony that governed relationships between "tense" and "relaxed" (or dissonant and consonant) sounds were also quite unfamiliar to American pioneers, whose harmonies were often conceived according to personal taste rather than formal precedent.
  35. ^  Crawford, pg. unavailable
  36. ^  Chase, pg. unavailable
  37. ^  Ewen, pg. 3
  38. ^  Clarke, pgs. 1-19
  39. ^  Ewen, pg. 153-154
  40. ^  Garofalo, pg. 72 The first pop vocalist to engender hysteria among his fans (rather than simple admiration or adoration) was an Italian American who refused to anglicize his name -- Frank Sinatra, the "Sultan of Swoon".
  41. ^  Ewen, pg. 9
  42. ^  Ewen, pg. 11
  43. ^  Ewen, pg. 17
  44. ^  Struble, pg. xvii
  45. ^  Howard, John Tasker, cited in Ewen, pg. 19 (no specific source given)
  46. ^  Ewen, pg. 21
  47. ^  Ewen, pg. 25
  48. ^  Clarke, pg. 21
  49. ^  Clarke, pg. 23
  50. ^  Library of Congress: Band Music from the Civil War Era
  51. ^  Ewen, pg. 29

Further reading

  1. Claghorn, Charles Eugene (1973) Biographical Dictionary of American Music, Parker Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 0130763314
  2. Hitchcock, H. Wiley (1999) Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction, Prentice Hall. ISBN 0139076433
  3. Koskoff, Ellen (2000) Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 3: The United States and Canada, Garland Publishing. ISBN 0824049446
  4. Seeger, Ruth Crawford (2003) The Music of American Folk Song and Selected Other Writings on American Folk Music, Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 1580461360
  5. "Performing Arts, Music". Library of Congress collections. URL accessed on June 13, 2005.

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