American Music

On a topic as broad as American music and culture, one cannot begin to provide such a large historical overview by including every detail, for they are endless. To begin it is more important to understand what is meant by the term American music. American music and culture refers to those styles and traditions whose origins took place, if not within national borders, within the North American continent. In considering musical traditions, it is necessary to recognize when something practiced in one region could very well have originated in another. This distinction is always difficult to make, especially considering the notion of tradition. Tradition inherently refers to those patterns of behavior handed down from one person to another, although in this process the patterns are indelibly altered. When considering music it is important to understand that its traditional heritage is inextricably tied with element of change, that nothing is static. Also, musical traditions are closely related with social identities, and in understanding the nature of these identities one can better understand the nature of their respective musics. The idea of social identities is open to interpretation as well, though more commonly they can be thought of according to distinctions of ethnicity, geography, religion, language, gender, and also sexuality.

The first inhabitants of North America were Native Americans. Their legacy has been handed down through oral traditions. Nothing describes music better than music itself though. I have chosen to include a listening example titled “Black Foot War or Grass Dance Song” that can be found on the CD accompanying the Prentice Hall textbook Excursions in World Music.

The arrival of European colonialism in North America in the 17^th century brought along with settlers and African slaves musical traditions this region had never heard of before. Though a legacy of European classical conservatories and instrumentation undoubtedly made the journey, something that could be distinguished as undoubtedly American had yet to develop. African slaves occupyed an entirely separate space in society yet had nothing material to show for it. Enduring persecution and eternal servitude, Africans brought with them the idea of polyrhythms and the call and response song form. Exposed to Christian choir music and long hard hours of manual labor in the fields, work songs became passionate and changed the field holler into what is commonly referred to as gospel. Here I include from the Excursions in World Music CD an example of this new type of singing with “Amazing Grace”.

Finally, the genre I view as an ideal example of something that is truly American is Jazz. With the development of blues music and a unique sense of rhythm pioneered by African Americans, the merging of these traditions with western harmony and instrumentation inevitably resulted in something that could be found nowhere else. With the influence of military bands, the transfer from vocal blues music to instrumental music occurred during the American Civil War. With western instruments and this new bluesy style of harmony there emerged the jazz band, an ensemble fit to rival its European symphonic predecessors. Thanks to the emergence of the recording technology engineered by the American inventor Thomas Edison we can still hear encapsulated within the historical era of their inception the way original jazz bands sounded. And who better to listen than the world renowned jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong. The example I have chosen to include here is the early recording he made with his Dixieland jazz band titled “West End Blues”.