Unit 1 -- Introduction

What is American Music?

Music is difficult enough to define. What is music to one person may be noise to another. If the definition of music itself is contentious, then the meaning of American is even more so. We must admit from the outset that there is a bias in our use of the term American in this class. In the most inclusive sense, “America” refers to the entire Western Hemisphere—North, Central and South America along with the islands of the Caribbean. There is a narrower (and ethnocentric, or culturally biased) sense in which “America” is used to refer only to the United States. It is admittedly primarily in this latter sense that we will be using the term in this course. However, we will need to keep the broader sense of “America” in mind, because, as we’ll see, what we understand to be “American music” in the United States is actually from all over the world, including important strains of influence from Latin America.

“Streams of Influence”

As we know, the United States is a nation populated primarily by immigrants. The Native American population was here first, of course, and the music of the Native culture will form part of the landscape of American music as we view it. But every other region of the world has contributed to American music as well, with immigrants to the United States bringing their own musical cultural traditions with them. We will not wish to neglect the contributions of Native, Jewish, Asian and other cultural traditions to American music, but there are three “streams of influence” identified by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman in their book American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3 that we will encounter with the most frequency:

• ·         European American Music
• ·         African American Music
• ·         Latin American Music

European American music is the tradition that came with people who were colonizers of the New World. In the beginning, the strongest European influence in what is now the United States was from the English. These Europeans came to the United States often for economic, political or religious reasons. The most privileged among them came primarily by choice, while others were escaping persecution or hardship in Europe.

Those who became known as African Americans were decidedly brought here against their wills. As slaves transported from Africa, they were unable to bring anything with them but their cultural memories, including music. In the United States, the African musical traditions they brought with them merged with the European traditions of their masters to form a type of music that should not be thought of as either African or European, but something entirely new that could only have been forged from these influences on American soil—a whole new type called African American music. We will find that much of what emerges as distinct about American music over its history may be traced to this African American synthesis.

Latin American music is itself already a synthesis of African and European musical traits developed in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of the New World, since slaves were brought to these regions as well. Like the African American music just discussed, Latin American music fuses European and African practices, but preserving different aspects of each, resulting in a different style that that developed by black slaves in the English colonies of the United States. The proximity of the US to Latin American countries and increasing immigration from Latin America to the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries means that Latin American music is another important “stream of influence” on music in the United States.

One way of thinking about American music, then, is in terms of its sources—the different ethnic, national and cultural traditions that it combines. It is important however to think of these “streams of influence” not only as distinct traditions with their own histories and cultural significance for the individual groups that identify with them, but also as merging and blending into each other in complex ways. Jazz, for example, is a rich combination of European, African and Latin American influences.

Cultivated, Vernacular and Popular Musics

Another way of thinking about American music is to classify it according to type, style or function. Music in the United States (and many other places) is commonly understood as breaking down into the following categories:

• ·         Cultivated (classical)
• ·         Vernacular (folk)
• ·         Popular

Cultivated music is “art music.” Many cultures around the world have cultivated or classical traditions—music for an elite class, intended for a high artistic purpose, or having a long history and venerated status in society. In the Western world, classical music refers primarily to European classical music—concert music for symphony orchestras, operas, ballets, string quartets, etc. In the United States, this music developed into an American style of classical music by the twentieth century. This music originated in Europe, but may be combined with other styles and traditions. For example, the African American composer William Grant Still wrote symphonies and works for piano that incorporate jazz and blues.

Vernacular or folk music, in general terms, is music considered to belong to the common people, especially in traditional and community contexts. Folk songs like “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” and folk dances like the square dance and the reel are examples of American folk music. Folk music may be passed on through oral tradition rather than written down, and there is often the assumption that it is a relatively “authentic” and non-commercial type of music reflecting the true artistic and cultural expressions of a people (these are overgeneralizations about which we will be very skeptical!).

Popular music is also considered to be music of the people, but more commercial in nature and disseminated as sheet music, sound recordings, and other forms that may be bought and sold. The assumption by many that popular music is necessarily more commercial and less authentic than classical or vernacular music is another belief about which we will be highly skeptical. Because they are both “music of the people,” vernacular and popular music may be considered as belonging to the same broad category of popular music in distinction to the “elite” classical music.

As you might be able to tell from my abundant use of “scare quotes” above, the categories of classical, vernacular and popular music are useful for making general comparisons, but ultimately artificial. We will find that many pieces of music and musical performances do not fit neatly into one of these categories. In fact, American musicians and composers seem to take special delight in mixing elements of these categories in order to surprise audiences (and their fellow musicians!) by challenging our assumptions about the distinctions between different kinds of music. So these categories, (like all categories) will be convenient for general observations, bit will become very difficult to maintain when we start to investigate things in more detail.

Music, Meaning and Identity

This course will be about listening to music and its sound content as well as discussing it in its historical and social context. In each class we will spend a significant amount of time on active listening to recordings relevant to each unit. We are surrounded by music today to such an extent that we are not always listening, especially where it forms background noise in the grocery store or doctor’s waiting room. Our work in class will allows us to listen actively to music and then discuss what we’ve heard.

Talking about music has been compared to “dancing about architecture.” It seems impossible to communicate in words what we hear in music. However, although it may be difficult at first, we must do it. In order to discover the meaning of music in people’s lives and in history and society, we will need to develop vocabulary and strategies for talking about what we hear.

As we do, we will be empowered to understand the ways in which music can have meaning. One of the most important kinds of meaning we will find embodied in music is the expression of identity which music makes possible for both musicians and listeners. We have already noted that many ethnic and cultural traditions contribute to American music. There are therefore many different types of American identity that can be expressed in music in any combination of ethnic and national influences. We will also find that music expresses, and helps to create, people’s self-understanding in terms of gender, sexuality, religion, politics and economic class. The ability to listen and to talk about music will allows us to make these connections.

What is Modern American Music?

Modern, like American and music, is a tricky term that can mean many things. In one sense, modern may refer to the modern era in world history, from the end of the Middle Ages (around the year 1500) to the present. This idea of modern is very much bound up with the idea of America. Columbus came to the New World in 1492, and so the modern era begins with European exploration, conquest and colonization of the Americas. It was the beginning a rapid process of globalization and global commerce that has defined the last five centuries. American colonization and the trans-Atlantic slave trade are central to this process. The idea of America is inseparable from the idea of modernity in this sense.

A more specific sense of modern comes into play around the beginning of the twentieth century when artists, musicians and intellectuals became preoccupied with concerns about what it meant to be modern people in their own time. This modernist movement coincided with the emergence of jazz and other styles of music that were important in the Unites States during the first half of the century. This more up-to-date sense of modern will also be useful to keep in mind, since most of this course will focus on American music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is often said that it is during this more recent modern period that American music (indeed the United States itself) has reached its current height of maturity and influence.