An Introduction to America's Music

by Richard Crawford, Larry Hamberlin

Overview

An Introduction to America's Music tells the fascinating story of music in the United States, from the sacred music of its earliest days to the jazz and rock that enliven the turn of the millennium. Beginning with the music of Native Americans and continuing with traditions introduced by European colonizers and Africans brought here as slaves, the book reveals how this bountiful heritage was developed and enhanced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to produce the music we hear today.

Author Biography: Richard Crawford is Hans T. David Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan and perhaps the most highly respected scholar teaching American music today. A past president of the American Musicological Society, Crawford has published ten books on American music and won numerous honors, fellowships, and awards, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393668285
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/01/2019
Edition description:	Third Edition
Pages:	600
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Richard Crawford (1935—2024), a longtime professor at the University of Michigan, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and served as president of the American Musicological Society, published ten books on American music.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
Part 1	The First Three Centuries
1	"The First Song": Native American Music	3
2	European Inroads: Early Christian Music Making	12
3	From Ritual to Art: The Flowering of Sacred Music	22
4	"Old, Simple Ditties": Colonial Song, Dance, and Home Music Making	42
5	Performing "By Particular Desire": Early Military, Concert, and Theater Music	56
6	Maintaining Oral Traditions: African Music in Early America	69
7	Correcting "the Harshness of Our Singing": New England Psalmody Reformed	81
Part 2	The Nineteenth Century
8	Edification and Economics: The Career of Lowell Mason	91
9	Singing Praises: Southern and Frontier Devotional Music	101
10	"Be It Ever So Humble": Theater and Opera, 1800-1860	111
11	Blacks, Whites, and the Minstrel Stage	123
12	Home Music Making and the Publishing Industry	137
13	From Jeanie to Dixie: Parlor Songs, 1800-1865	149
14	Of Yankee Doodle and Ophicleides: Bands and Orchestras, 1800 to the 1870s	169
15	From Church to Concert Hall: The Rise of Classical Music	181
16	From Log House to Opera House: Anthony Philip Heinrich and William Henry Fry	193
17	A New Orleans Original: Gottschalk of Louisiana	203
18	Two Classic Bostonians: George W. Chadwick and Amy Beach	214
19	Edward MacDowell and Musical Nationalism	227
20	"Travel in the Winds": Native American Music from 1820	236
21	"Make a Noise!": Slave Songs and Other Black Music to the 1880s	249
22	Songs of the Later Nineteenth Century	265
23	Stars, Stripes, and Cylinders: Sousa and the Phonograph	281
24	"After the Ball": The Rise of Tin Pan Alley	292
Part 3	The Twentieth Century
25	"To Stretch Our Ears": The Music of Charles Ives	309
26	"Come On and Hear": The Early Twentieth Century	325
27	Blues, Jazz, and a Phapsody: The Jazz Age Dawns	344
28	"The Birthright of All of Us": Classical Music, the Mass Media, and the Depression	356
29	"All That is Native and Fine": American Folk Song and Its Collectors	369
30	From New Orleans to Chicago: Jazz Goes National	382
31	"Crescendo in Blue": Ellington, Basie, and the Swing Band	393
32	The Golden Age of the American Musical	408
33	Classical Music in the Postwar Years	421
34	"Rock Around the Clock": The Rise of Rock and Roll	436
35	Songs of Loneliness and Praise: Postwar Popular Trends	448
36	Jazz, Broadway, and Musical Permanence	461
37	Melting Pot or Pluralism?: Popular Music and Ethnicity	475
38	The Beatles, Rock, and Popular Music	488
39	Trouble Girls, Minimalists, and The Gap: The 1960s to the 1980s	496
40	Black Music and American Identity	510
	Acknowledgments	521
	Index	525

Editorial Reviews

Crawford (U. of Michigan) tells the story of music in the U.S., from the sacred works of the 1500s to the jazz and rock of today. Following the widely varied paths music has taken (beginning with Native American songs and chants and continuing with traditions introduced by Spanish, French, and English colonizers, Africans brought here as slaves, and other immigrants to North America), he sets each topic in its historical and social context and shows how the spheres of folk, popular and classical music have continually interacted to form a variegated whole. The book contains many b&w illustrations. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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