Early American Music

Image of 3D rendering of the book Music Is a New Art with Us

As the Story Goes....

About a dozen years ago, I was asked to be part of a textbook project on society and culture in early America. I began my work on the project and soon completed a chapter on Early American Music. Not long after, and after hearing the editors were “very happy” with the work, the textbook project was cancelled due to a combination of the standard drivel-dravel plus flim-flam, but they did say, and quite politely, that they were so sorry, so…. After some time, a little revision, and some thinking about what I should do with this nice overview of the history of early American music, I thought, hey, put it out there, see if it sticks… It might spark a thought, it might enlighten a curious mind, it might teach a good something previously and henceforth unknown… (and you know, back in the 80s, or so I remember from my younger days, “Reading was / is Fun-damental”).

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So here is Music is a New Art with Us in PDF format and available as a free download.

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

Religious Music .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Early American Concert Life .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14

Family Music .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 19

Gentleman Musicians: The American Forefathers .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 24

The Music of War .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 34

The Music of African Slaves .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 45

The Music of Native American Indians .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 51

Into the 19th Century .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 53

Endnotes .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 56

Bibliography

Borroff, Edith. Music in Europe and the United States. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971.

Chase, Gilbert. Ed. The American Composer Speaks. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1966.

Earle, Alice Morse. Home Life in Colonial Days. Stockbridge, MA: Berkshire House Publishers, 1993.

Ellis, Joseph J. After the Revolution. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1979.

Forcucci, Samuel L. A Folk Song History of America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1984.

Hamm, Charles. Music in the New World. New York: W.W Norton and Company, 1983.

Lauter, Paul. Ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979.

Lowens, Irving. Music and Musicians in Early America. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1964.

Mellers, Wilfred. Music in a New Found Land. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Murray, Stuart. America’s Song. Bennington, VT: Images From the Past, 1999.

Sablosky, Irving L. American Music. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1969.

Silvermann, Kenneth. A Cultural History of the American Revolution. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976.

Smith, Helen Everston. Colonial Days and Ways. New York: The Century Company, 1900.

Sonneck, O.G. Early Concert-Life in America. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1969.

Sonneck, Oscar George Theodore. Francis Hopkinson and James Lyon. New York: Da Capo Press, 1967.

Southern, Eileen, ed. Readings in Black American Music. New York : W.W. Norton & Company. Inc., 1971.

Tyler, Moses Coit. The Literary History of the American Revolution. New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1966.

Early American Music

As the Story Goes....

Bibliography

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