Music in the USA A Documentary Companion

by Tick, Judith; Beaudoin, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780195139877
• ISBN10: 0195139879
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-26
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion charts a path through American music and musical life using as guides the words of composers, performers, writers and the rest of us ordinary folks who sing, dance, and listen. The anthology of primary sources contains about 160 selections from 1540 to 2000. Sometimes the sources are classics in the literature around American music, for example, the Preface to the Bay Psalm Book, excerpts from Slave Songs of the United States, and Charles Ives extolling Emerson. But many other selections offer uncommon sources, including a satirical story about a Yankee music teacher; various columns from 19th-century German American newspapers; the memoirs of a 19th-century diva; Lottie Joplin remembering her husband Scott; a little-known reflection of Copland about Stravinsky; an interview with Muddy Waters from the Chicago Defender; a letter from Woody Guthrie on the "spunkfire" attitude of a folk song; a press release from the Country Music Association; and the Congressional testimony around "Napster." "Sidebar" entries occasionally bring a topic or an idea into the present, acknowledging the extent to which revivals of many kinds of music play a role in American contemporary culture. This book focuses on the connections between theory and practice to enrich our understanding of the diversity of American musical experiences. Designed especially to accompany college courses which survey American music as a whole, the book is also relevant to courses in American history and American Studies.

Author Biography

Judith Tick is a high-profile music historian who writes about American music, particularly early modernism, and women's history. Among her publications are books and articles about Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, and in particular, the prize-winning biography of the American composer, Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music (OUP 1997). She is an Associate Editor for the journal Musical Quarterly. A faculty member at Northeastern University since 1986, she was named a Matthews Distinguished University Professor in 1999 and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

Table of Contents

PrefaceIntroductionAcknowledgementsTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsFigures and Graphics1540-17701. Early Encounters between Indigenous Peoples and European Explorers, 1540-1642 (Castaneda, Drake, de Meras, Smith, Wood)2. From the Preface to the Bay Psalm Book (1640)3. Four Translations of Psalm 100 (Tehilim, Bay Psalm Book, 1640 and 1698, Watts)4. From the Diaries of Samuel Sewall5. The Ministers Rally for Musical Literacy, 1720-21 (Mather, Walter, Symmes)6. Benjamin Franklin Advises His Brother on How to Write a Ballad and How Not to Write like Handel (ca. 1764)7. Advertisements and Notices from Colonial Newspapers, 1716-17748. Social Music for the Elite in Colonial Williamsburg in the 1750s/1770-18309. "Christopher Crotchet, Singing Master from Quavertown"10. Singing the Revolution (Adams, Dickinson, Greeley)11. Elisha Bostwick Hears a Scots Prisoner Sing "Gypsie Laddie" in 177712. A Sidebar into Ballad Scholarship ca.1880-1970: The Wanderings of "The Gypsy Laddie" (Child, Sharp, Coffin, Bronson)13. William Billings and the New Psalmody, 1770-1794 (Billings, Gould)14. Daniel Read on Pirating and "Scientific Music," ca. 1790-183015. Padre Narciso Duran Describes Musical Training at the Mission San Jose, 1813-181516. Moravian Musical Life at Bethlehem in the 1800s (Henry, Till, Bowne)17. Reverend Burkitt Brings Camp Meeting Hymns from Kentucky to North Carolina in 180318. John Fanning Watson and The Errors in Methodist Worship (1819)19. Reverend James B. Finley and Mononcue Sing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" in 182320. Turn-of-the Century Theater Songs from Reinagle, Rowson, and Carr: "America, Commerce, and Freedom" and "The Little Sailor Boy"/1830-187021. Thomas D. Rice Acts Out "Jim Crow" and "Cuff," in the 1830s22. William M. Whitlock, Banjo Player for the Virginia Minstrels in the 1850s23. Edwin P. Christy, Stephen Foster, and "Ethiopian Minstrelsy"24. Stephen Foster''s Legacy, ca. 1845-1960 (Foster, Gordon, Robb, Simpson, Willis, Galli-Curci, Kuller and Webster, Charles)25. The Fasola Folk, The Southern Harmony and The Sacred Harp, ca. 1830-1860 (Walker, White, and King )26. A Sidebar into the Discovery of Shape-Note Music by a National Audience (Jackson, the 1991 Edition)27. The Boston Public Schools Set a National Precedent in Music Education in 183728. Music Education for American Girls in the 1850s29. Lorenzo Da Ponte Recruits an Italian Opera Company for New York (1831)30. Early Expressions of Cultural Nationalism in the 1850s (Hopkins, Fry, Putnam''s Monthly)/31. John S. Dwight Remembers How He and His Circle "Were But Babes in Music"32. George Templeton Strong Hears the American Premiere of Beethoven''s Fifth in 184133. German Americans Adapting and Contributing to Musical Life in the Mid 1800s34. Emil Klauprecht''s German-American novel, Cincinnati, oder die Geheimnisse des Westens, 185435. P. T. Barnum and the Jenny Lind Fever in 185036. Miska Hauser, Hungarian Violinist, Pans For Musical Gold in 185337. From the Journals of Louis Moreau Gottschalk38. The ''Four-Part Blend'' of the Hutchinson Family39. Walt Whitman''s Conversion to Opera in the 1850s40. Clara Kellogg and the Memoirs of an American Prima Donna in the 1860s and ''70s41. Frederick Douglass from My Bondage and My Freedom, 185542. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Two Scenes from Uncle Tom''s Cabin, 185243. From Slave Songs of the United States, 186744. A Sidebar into Memory: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'' Project, 1936-193845. George F. Root Recalls How He Wrote a Classic Union Song46. A Confederate Girl''s Diary during the Civil War47. Soldier-Musicians from the North and the South Recall Duties on the Front48. Patrick S. Gilmore and the Golden Age of Bands (Newspaper review, Herbert)49. Ella Sheppard Moore, a Fisk Jubilee Singer in the 1870s50. Theodore Thomas and His Musical Manifest Destiny (Rose Fay Thomas, Theodore Thomas)/1880-192051. John Philip Sousa -Excerpts from his Autobiography52. Why is a Good March like a Marble Statue?