Article by jekky

Diversity The United States is often said to be a cultural melting pot taking in influences from across the world and making distinctively new methods of cultural expression Though aspects of American music can be traced back to specific origins claiming any particular original culture for a musical element is inherently problematic due to the constant evolution of American music through transplanting and hybridizing techniques instruments and genres Elements of foreign musics arrived in the United States both through the formal sponsorship of educational and outreach events by individuals and groups and through informal processes as in the incidental transplantation of West African music through slavery and Irish music through immigration The most distinctly American musics are a result of cross cultural hybridization through close contact Slavery for example mixed persons from numerous tribes in tight living quarters resulting in a shared musical tradition that was enriched through further hybridizing with elements of indigenous Latin and European music American ethnic religious and racial diversity has also produced such intermingled genres as the French African music of the Louisiana Creoles the Native Mexican and European fusion Tejano music and the thoroughly hybridized slack key guitar and other styles of modern Hawaiian music The process of transplanting music between cultures is not without criticism The folk revival of the mid 20th century for example appropriated the musics of various rural peoples in part to promote certain political causes which has caused some to question whether the process caused the commercial commodification of other peoples songs and the inevitable dilution of mean in the appropriated musics The issue of cultural appropriation has also been a major part of racial relations in the United States The use of African American musical techniques images and conceits in well loved music largely by and for white Americans has been widespread since at least the mid 19th century songs of Stephen Foster and the rise of minstrel shows The American music industry has actively attempted to popularize white performers of African American music because they are more palatable to mainstream and middle class Americans This process has produced such varied stars as Benny Goodman Eminem and Elvis Presley as well as well loved styles like blue eyed soul and rockabilly Folk music Main article American folk 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 descendants 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 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 but especially the lack of harmony and polyphony and the use of vocables and descending melodic figures Traditional instrumentations uses the flute and many kinds of percussion instruments like drums rattles and shakers Since European and African contact was established Native American folk music has grown in new directions into fusions with disparate styles like European folk dances and Tejano music Modern Native American music may be best known for powwow gatherings pan tribal gatherings at which traditionally styled dances and music are performed Bice waan Song This is an 1897 recording of a traditional Omaha courtship song On the Ancient Kissimmee Prairie This is a British tune recorded in Florida in 1940 The Ancient Grey Mare This is ancient time Appalachian folk music from 1925 Dollar Mamie This is a work song for hoeing recorded at Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1939 Caminode San Antonio This is a corrido recorded near Brownsville Texas in 1939 Cotton Eyed Joe Cotton Eyed Joe is a traditional folk song and a line dance mostly known in the Southern United States Problems listening to these files See media help The Thirteen Colonies of the original United States were all former English possessions and Anglo culture became a major foundation for American folk and well loved music Many American folk songs are identical to British songs in arrangements but with new lyrics often as parodies of the original material American Anglo songs are also characterized as having fewer pentatonic tunes less prominent accompaniment but with heavier use of drones and more melodies in major Anglo American traditional music also includes a variety of broadside ballads humorous tales and tall tales and disaster songs regarding mining shipwrecks and murder Legendary heroes like Joe Magarac John Henry and Jesse James are part of many songs Folk dances of British origin include the square dance descended from the quadrille combined with the American innovation of a caller instructing the dancers The religious communal society known as the Shakers emigrated from England during the 18th century and developed their own folk dance style Their early songs can be dated back to British folk song models Other religious societies established their own unique musical cultures early in American history such as the music of the Amish the Harmony Society and of the Ephrata Cloister in Pennsylvania The ancestors of today s African American population were brought to the United States as slaves working primarily in the 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 as well as syncopated beats and shifting accents The African musical focus on rhythmic singing and dancing was brought to the New World and where it became part of a distinct folk culture that helped Africans retain continuity with their past through music The first slaves in the United States sang work songs field hollers and following Christianization hymns In the 19th century a Fantastic Awakening of religious fervor gripped people across 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 started singing 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 jazz and gospel developed Blues and spirituals Main articles Blues and spiritual music We are Americans Ethnographic recordings collected for the Library of Congress s Archive of American Folk Song Problems listening to this file See media help Spirituals were primarily expressions of religious faith sung by slaves on southern plantations In the mid to late 19th century spirituals spread out of the U S South 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 well loved style of gospel music pharoah s army got drowned gov edis negro_spirituals htm recorded by Thomas Edison in 1921 released in 1924 Problems listening to this file See media help Blues is a combination of African work songs field hollers and shouts It developed in the rural South in the first decade of the 20th century The most vital 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 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 like Cape Verdean music in New England Armenian music in California and Italian and Ukrainian music in New York City The Creoles are a community with varied non Anglo ancestry mostly descendant of people who lived in Louisiana before its buy by the U S The Cajuns are a group of Francophones who arrived in Louisiana after leaving Acadia in Canada The city of New Orleans Louisiana being a major port has acted as a melting pot for people from all over the Caribbean basin The result is a diverse and syncretic set of styles of Cajun and Creole music Spain and subsequently Mexico controlled much of what is now the western United States until the Mexican American War including the entire state of Texas After Texas joined the United States the native Tejanos living in the state started culturally developing separately from their neighbors to the south and remained culturally distinct from other Texans Central to the evolution of early Tejano music was the blend of traditional Mexican forms such as mariachi and the corrido and Continental European styles introduced by German and Czech settlers in the late 19th century In particular the accordion was adopted by Tejano folk musicians at the turn of the 20th century and it became a well loved instrument for amateur musicians in Texas and Northern Mexico 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 Many American classical composers attempted to work entirely within European models until late in the 19th century When Antonn Dvok a prominent Czech composer visited the United States from 1892 to 1895 he iterated the thought that American classical music needed its own models instead of imitating European composers he helped to inspire subsequent composers to make a distinctly American style of classical music By the beginning of the 20th century many American composers were incorporating disparate elements into their work ranging from jazz and blues to Native American music Early classical music During the colonial era there were two distinct fields of what is now considered classical music One was associated with amateur composers and pedagogues whose style was based around simple hymns that were performed with increasing sophistication over time The other colonial tradition was that of the mid Atlantic cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore which produced a number of prominent composers who worked nearly entirely within the European model these composers were mostly English in origin and worked specifically in the style of prominent English composers of the day 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 and Justin Morgan also known as the First New England School developed a style nearly entirely independent of European models Of these composers Billings is the most well remembered he 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 Many of these composers were amateur singers who developed new forms of sacred music suitable for performance by amateurs and often using harmonic methods which would have been considered bizarre by contemporary European standards These composers styles were untouched by the influence of their sophisticated European contemporaries using modal or pentatonic scales or melodies and eschewing the European rules of harmony In the early 19th century America produced diverse composers such as Anthony Philip Heinrich who composed in an idiosyncratic intentionally American style and was the first American composer to write for a symphony orchestra Many other composers most famously William Henry Fry and George Frederick Bristow supported the thought of an American classical style though their works were very European in orientation It was John Knowles Paine but who became the first American composer to be accepted in Europe Paine s example inspired the composers of the Second New England School which included such figures as Amy Beach Edward MacDowell and Horatio Parker Louis Moreau Gottschalk is perhaps the best remembered American composer of the 19th century said by music historian Richard Crawford to be known for bringing indigenous or folk themes and rhythms into music for the concert hall Gottschalk s music reflected the cultural mix of his home city New Orleans Louisiana which was home to a variety of Latin Caribbean African American Cajun and Creole musics He was well acknowledged as a talented pianist in his lifetime and was also a known composer who remains admired though small performed 20th century The New York classical music scene included Charles Griffes originally from Elmira New York who started publishing his most innovative material in 1914 His early collaborations were attempts to use non Western musical themes The best known New York composer was Geor