Music history of the United States during the colonial era
Encyclopedia
The upper-class during the colonial era promoted ensembles who played serenade
s, feldparthien and divertimenti, such as those composed by Mozart
and Haydn. Natural horns and bassoons provided harmonic support for the melodic line, played by clarinets and oboes. Thomas Jefferson
suggested this instrumentation for the U.S. Marine Band, and asked fourteen Italian-American musicians to form the nucleus of that influential group, and thus these ensembles were the origin of the American brass band
tradition, which flourished in the 19th century, having moved from upper-class entertainment to that of the common folk. Opera
was also popular; the first opera to be performed in the US was Giovanni Pergolesi
's La Serva Padrona
in 1790.
; for some groups, music was the primary means of worship
, and song was regarded as a direct link to the divine. Though many Native Americans claim their songs are unchanged since ancient times, there is no proof of this (due to a lack of written records). Many songs were improvised
.
For a long time, and continuing into the present, many American beginner's guides to learning the piano contain a song purported to be Native American in origin. In reality, these songs have little or no relationship to actual Native American styles, and are merely a vehicle to introduce left-handed repeated harmonic fifths or the minor mode in the melody.
It was not until the 1890s that Native American music began to enter the American establishment. At the time, the first pan-tribal cultural elements, such as powwow
s, were being established, and composers like Edward MacDowell
and Henry Franklin Belknap Gilbert used Native themes in their compositions. It was not until the much later work of Arthur Farwell
, however, that an informed representation of Native music was brought into the American classical scene.
have long been a center for cultural innovation, in spite of only sparse settlement by Native Americans and Europeans alike. Due to complex geologic reasons, the mountains and subranges were difficult to cross and included ridges of uninhabitable quartz
mixed with valleys of soil unsuitable for agriculture
. As a result, immigration of Europeans and their African slaves tended to be southern in direction, along the Piedmont
area, and the Appalachian region was populated by poor Europeans, many of Irish
or Scottish
descent. This settlement occurred primarily from 1775 to 1850.
Celtic folk tunes and ballads continued evolving from their distant roots along the Appalachians, eventually forming the major basis for jug band
s, country blues
, hillbilly music and a hodge-podge of other genres which eventually became country music
. These folk tunes adopted characteristics from multiple sources, including British broadside ballad
s (which switched their themes from love to a distinctly American preoccupation with masculine work like mining or sensationalistic disasters and murder), African folk tunes (and their lyrical focus on semi-historical events) and minstrel show
s and music hall
s. Popular ballads included "Barbara Allen (song)" and "Black Is the True Color of My Love's Hair". The banjo
was also introduced, having gone through numerous geographic movements since its invention by the Arabians and subsequent travel across Africa, the Atlantic and throughout the Americas.
es and polka
s being most influential. Square dance
s, based on the cotillion
, and cakewalk
s, an African American imitation of white dances and the Virginia Reel
arose during the 19th century.
s, Primitive Baptist
s, et al., is often studied and classified as folk music. See Old Regular Baptist, Lined-Out Hymnody.
with them to the New World, church hymns were popular across the region. Common New Englanders soon developed their own traditions, which were viewed by some as degenerate and wanton.
wrote, in Directions for a Candidate of the Ministry, on the subject:
The Ainsworth Psalter provided most of the tunes in use in New England church music until the late 17th century, when congregations began abandoned the Psalter, claiming the tunes were too complex and difficult to sing.
The Bay Psalme Book (The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre) was published in Cambridge, Massachusetts
in 1640; it was the first book of any kind printed in the English colonies of North America. It became the standard used by New England churches for many years, though it contained no music itself, merely providing psalms and pointing readers to other prominent publications. The Bay Psalm Book was faithful to its source, but did not produce beautiful singing. In 1651, then, a third edition was created, and became known as the New England Psalm Book; this became the standard for many years. In 1898, the ninth edition was printed and it was the first time that printed notation was used. By this point, the evolution from the Ainsworth Psalter to the New England Psalm Book had steadily dwindled the number of tunes in use.
The practice of lining out
was often common, though its presence and utility depended on the degree of illiteracy found in congregation—generally, illiteracy was common, as was lining out. This was the process of a leader presenting one line of a song, then maintaining the first note for the congregation to match as they responded with the same line. This technique was also common in churches of Appalachia, such as the Regular Baptists of Kentucky.
, treasurer of Harvard College
in 1713, he bequeathed his organ to the Brattle Square Church in Boston, but the church (which he had founded) did not think it proper, and gave it to the King's Chapel
, which was the Church of England
. Still, the organ was used in other New England churches. The first organ said to be designed for church use was installed in Newport, Rhode Island
in 1733. Organs, however, were expensive and difficult to play. Only the largest churches could afford an organ and organist, and so many used more portable instruments, such as the bass fiddle, which was appellated "God's fiddle" to distinguish it from the much-maligned "Devil's fiddle" (violin). Later, other instruments like the ophicleide
, trombone
, cornet
, German flute
, bassoon
, violin
and clarinet
were added, thus birthing the church band.
, virginals
, soprano clarinet
, bassoon
, trumpet
, fife
, flute
, viol
and violin
and fiddle
and the Mrs. Healy pipe.
Despite some hostility on the part of ministers like Increase Mather
, dance music
was popular in the New England colonial era, especially by the early 18th century, as the local population boomed with an influx of more settlers.
Broadside ballads were also known. As in British music, these were printed songs performed to a well-known tune, and included border ballad
s like The Ballad of Chevy Chase
.
Though there is much in primary sources referring to folk music of the time, it is virtually all written by those who condemned the songs as uncouth. As such, little is objectively known. There was a distinction between the "Regular Singing" style of zealous reformers, mostly clergymen educated at Harvard, and the "Common Way" of the folk. Reformers included prominent clergymen like Thomas Walter and Nathaniel Chauncey, many of whom regarded their style of "regular" singing as more sophisticated as well as more devout. The evidence, however, indicates that the common people's music was more complex, using techniques like ornamentation
.
The formation of schools and societies promoting regular singing helped to spread the practice, and instruction books were published.
; the English nonconformist Isaac Watts
, especially his Hymns and Spiritual Songs
, was also very popular. John Wesley
, the founder of the Methodist Church
, played a major role in revivalist hymnody after a trip to Georgia in 1735 at the invitation of James Oglethorpe
. Wesley and his brother, Charles Wesley
, went with Oglethorpe and twenty-six Moravia
n missionaries
. The Moravian singing inspired John Wesley to study their music. He published a collection of translations of German hymns in 1737, A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, then returned to England in 1738, attending meetings of the Moravian Brethren in London. There, during a reading of Luther
's preface to the Epistle to the Romans
, Wesley had a spiritual experience and found his faith in Christ rejuvenated.
, along with George Whitefield
and Jonathan Edwards, among others. Wesley and his brother began writing a number of hymns, at first just words, and then with music beginning with a collection usually called the Foundery Collection.
Wesley and some other preachers fought against the embellishment of his hymns. In 1761, Wesley's collection Select Hymns, with Tunes Annext: Designed Chiefly for Use of the People Called Methodists directed singers to follow the tunes "exactly as printed" and to "sing in tune"; both directions were impractical, since most of the worshippers likely couldn't read music or carry a tune.
Nevertheless, the Great Awakening (and other hymnal styles from New England) spread south and changed from Wesley's strict formulas. John Cennick
(known for widespread hymns like "Jesus My All to Heaven Is Gone") and John Newton
are likely the two most important individuals in the creation of Great Awakening-era hymns, which were sung at camp meeting
s. These hymns, sung at large gatherings, especially in the south, provided a basis for gospel
and blues
in the late 19th and early 20th century. Some of the common features included Cennick's innovation of hymns sung as a dialogue, as well as Newton, a former slave trader who converted after reading On the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
, who wrote more than two hundred hymns that drew on his own experiences wrestling with sin, and proved extremely popular.
, arose, creating hymns that remain standard across the country. This field was called the First New England School. Following Billings' pioneering footsteps were Supply Belcher
, Andrew Law
, Daniel Read
, Jacob Kimball, Jeremiah Ingalls
, John Wyeth, James Lyon
, Oliver Holden
, Justin Morgan
and Timothy Swan
.
The First New England School is usually considered the first uniquely American invention in music. The most characteristic feature was that the voices, male and female respectively, doubled their parts in any octave in order to fill out the harmony; this generated a texture of close-position chords that was unknown in European traditions.
William Billings was of special importance and popularity. A native of Boston, Billings was a tanner by trade, and was mainly self-taught in music. He did not always follow the standard rules of composition in his works, and has thus been called the "first American composer to emphasize strongly a creative independence and to flaunt his personal idiosyncrasies in both his music and (especially) his published writings". He taught a famous singing school in Stoughton, Massachusetts in 1774. A few of the singers later formed the Stoughton Musical Society
, a choral organization consisting of 25 men.
Supply Belcher, born in Stoughton, Massachusetts
, though later based out of Farmington, Maine, is also especially well-known. His only published tunebook was 1794's The Harmony of Maine, which included anthems, fuging pieces, psalms and hymns, a number of which were secular. His songs were distinctively folky and down-to-earth. His contemporary Daniel Read
, a Massachusetts-born musician who later moved to New Haven, Connecticut
, was a popular musician who supported himself almost entirely off the sale of tunebooks. His first publication was entitled The American Singing Book; or, a New and Easy Guide to the Art of Psalmody Devised for the Use of Singing Schools in America. The title's use of psalmody is here referring to singing societies which were spreading across the country, and is used without religious connotations.
Billings, Belcher and Read were the beginning of a chain of tunebook compilers that grew increasingly secular, as the art of psalmody lost its religious importance. Other Massachusetts-born compilers followed in their footsteps, beginning with Jeremiah Ingalls
of Newbury, Vermont
. Their songs were generally fugue
s, and were disapproved of by religious authorities. Andrew Law
was an important compiler as well; he felt that American music should be more like European, and is best known for organizing singing schools and tunebooks. In addition, he composed several songs of note, and invented a kind of musical notation
called shape note
.
, England by Ann Lee
(Mother Ann). Lee had been born poor, and worked as a child in a cotton factory before her parents married her to a blacksmith. After giving birth to four children, all of whom died in infancy, Mother Ann came to view sexual intercourse as evil. Celibacy
became an integral part of her religion; she was jailed for disturbing the Sabbath in 1772. Two years later, Shakers started moving to North America, settling in New England as far south as New York. Though their strange customs and British mannerisms caused some hostility by the colonists, as the American Revolutionary War
was brewing, the Shakers grew in number and eventually spread as far south as Kentucky. Though Mother Ann died in 1784, the rituals she designed, which she claimed to have seen in visions, included passionate dances that were part of a battle between the holy Shakers and the devil and the flesh. Their best known dance song is Simple Gifts
, used by Aaron Copland in his ballet score Appalachian Spring
.
, the first musical society in North America. At the time, Charleston was a cultural center, attracting a number of musicians from Europe. In the decades after the Revolution, more northern cities like Philadelphia, New York and Boston largely took Charleston's place. Philadelphia, home of the esteemed Alexander Reinagle
, John Christopher Moller
, Rayner Taylor and Susannah Haswell Rowson
, was especially renowned for musical development. Reinagle became the most influential figure in Philadelphia's musical life, organizing a number of concerts, organizations and musical events.
The English singer Benjamin Carr
was especially notable. He arrived in New York in 1793, along with his brother and father. They soon became prominent music publishers and vendors, owning stores in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Carr himself was a composer, organist, pianist and a publisher and editor. They published, in Philadelphia, "The President's March" in 1793; written by Philip Phile
, "The President's March" is one of the most enduring of American patriotic songs. The march was soon politicized, adopted by the Federalists as a rallying song.
The British James Hewitt
was one of the most distinguished musicians of early American history. He was already renowned in London before moving across the Atlantic, accompanied by Belgian composer and violinist Jean Gehot. Hewitt became established in New York, organizing concerts and other musical events. His opera Tammany; or, The Indian Chief became controversial after its first performance. It was the first American opera to deal with Native Americans, and was sponsored by the New York Tammany Society, an anti-Federalist
organization. Hewitt was the target of much invective from Federalists as a result.
The English organist, choirmaster and composer William Selby
was a major figure in Boston's musical life, along with the Dutch organist, violinist and composer Peter Albrecht van Hagen and German oboist Johann Christian Gottlieb Graupner.
, Johann Friedrich Peter
and Alexander Reinagle
were prominent composers of the era, though Francis Hopkinson
, a signer of the Declaration of Independence
from Philadelphia, remains the best-known. One of his compositions, "My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free", is well-remembered as the first art song from the United States (though this is disputed); it is, however, lacking in originality and innovation to set it apart from European compositions.
At the time, professional musicians were looked-down upon and considered coarse. Gentlemen performers played often, mostly for other aristocratic audiences, and without pay. As the United States developed, the south became the land of deep socioeconomic divisions. Land ownership and the possession of chattel slavery became an integral component of a gentleman's livelihood, while in the north, the idea of a landed aristocracy never carried as much weight.
. A native of Boston, Mason campaigned against the use of shape-note notation, and for the education in standard notation. He worked with local institutions to release collections of hymns and maintain his stature. Opposed to the shape-note tradition, Mason pushed American music towards a European model.
n and Lutheran communities. While the Quakers had few musical traditions, Protestant churches frequently made extensive use of music in worship J. F. Peter emerged from the Moravian tradition, while Conrad Beissel
(founder of the Ephrata Cloister
) innovated his own system of harmonic theory. The Lutheran traditions of Johann Sebastian Bach
, Buxtehude
, Johann Pachelbel
and Walther were propagated in Pennsylvania, and the city of Bethlehem
remains a center of Lutheran musical traditions today.
, settled in Germantown
after emigrating from the German Palatinate and Switzerland between 1683 and 1748. They were led by Willem Rittinghuysen (grandfather of astronomer and mathematician David Rittenhouse
). The Mennonites used a hymnbook from Schaffhausen
, reprinted in Germantown in 1742 as Der Ausbund Das ist etliche schöne christliche Lieder
.
on the Cocalico River in 1720. This was a group of Seventh Day Baptist
s led by Peter Miller
and Conrad Beissel
, who believed in using music as an integral part of worship. Beissel codified the Ephrata Cloister's unique tradition in his Beissel's Dissertation on Harmony; here, he divided notes into two types. These were masters, or notes belonging to the common chord, and servants, or all other notes. Accented syllables in Beissel's works always fell on master notes, leaving servant notes for unaccented syllables. The Ephrata Cloister's hymnbook was large, consisting of more than 1,000 hymns, many of which were accompanied by instruments including the violin. Many of these hymns were published in the 1740s and 50s.
, Poland
and Bohemia
before persecution forced the remaining faithful to Saxony
, where they lived under the protection of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Zinzendorf wrote hymns, and led the Moravians to America, where they began missionary work in Georgia but with little success. They moved on to Pennsylvania, and founded the town of Bethlehem
on the banks of the Lehigh River
. A group then left for Salem, North Carolina (now a part of Winston-Salem
).
Both in Salem and Bethlehem, Moravians continued to use music in their ceremonies. Instruments included organs and trombones, and voices were usually in choirs. Players generally played on rooftops for most any occasion, ensuring that they could be heard for great distances. A legend has arisen claiming that a group of Native American warriors approachied a Moravian settlement during the French and Indian War
, but left after hearing a trombone choir because they believed it to be the voice of their Great Spirit. Moravians were devoted to missionary work, especially among African slaves and Native Americans; in 1763, they published a collection of hymns in the Delaware language.
Moravians also had a tradition of secular art music that included the famed composer Johann Friedrich Peter
, who was a German born in Holland who emigrated to Bethlehem in 1770. He brought with him copies of compositions by Joseph Haydn
, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach
, Johann Stamitz
and C. F. Abel. After living in Bethlehem for a time, Peter moved to Salem, where he founded the Collegium Musicum
(in 1786) and collected hundreds of symphonies, anthems and oratorios. It was during this period that Peter also composed a number of well-respected instrumental pieces for twio violins, two violas and a cello; he also composed sacred anthem
s like "It Is a Precious Thing" and aria
s like "The Lord Is in His Holy Temple".
The Moravian Church continued to produce a number of renowned composers into the 19th century, including John Antes
as well as Francis F. Hagen, Johann Christian Bechler, Edward W. Leinbach, Simon Peter, David Moritz Michael
, Georg Gottfried Müller, Peter Wolle, Jeremiah Dencke
and Johannes Herbst. Herbst was also a noted collector, whose archives, left to the Salem church after his death, were made public in 1977; these included more than 11,000 pages of content. Salem has gradually become the center for Moravian musical innovation, partially due to the presence of the Moravian Music Foundation.
brought a group of German Pietists
to the banks of the Wissahickon Creek
in southeastern Pennsylvania. These became known as the Hermits or Mystics of the Wissahickon; this 1871 map of Wissahickon Creek notes a Kelpius spring and Hermits Glen. Kelpius was a musician, and he and his followers brought with them instruments that became an integral part of church life. Kelpius was also a composer, and is sometimes called the first Pennsylvanian composer, based on his unproven authorship of several hymns in The Lamenting Voice of the Hidden Love. It is likely that he wrote the text, though the tunes are mostly based on German songs; the English translations in the collection are attributed to Christopher Witt, an Englishman who immigrated and joined the mystics, also building them a pipe organ, said to be the first privately-owned organ in North America.
In 1703, Justus Falckner
was ordained as pastor of the Gloria Dei Church; Falckner evidently believed that music was a very important element of missionary work, writing to Germany to ask for an organ, which he said would attract more Native American converts. Falckner was a Lutheran who wrote hymns such as "Rise, Ye Children of Salvation".
led by George Rapp
arrived from Württemberg, Germany, settled in Harmony, Pennsylvania
, and formed the Harmony Society
in 1805. The group lived communally
, were pacifistic
, advocated celibacy
, and music was a big part of their lives. The Harmonites (or Harmonists) wrote their own music and even had an orchestra. The Society lasted until 1906, but their final settlement, Old Economy Village
(now Ambridge, Pennsylvania
) contains archives with sheet music that is still performed at special community events.
, including the Ashanti, Yoruba
, Bini, Congo
and Dahomean
tribes. They spoke hundreds of languages; some came from rival tribes, or isolated communities with little connection to anyone else until the arrival of the slave traders. Some of the larger groups had extensive contact with the Muslim
s of North Africa and the distant cultures of East
and Southern Africa
.
Slaves brought with them work song
s, religious music and dance, and a wide variety of instruments, including kalimba, xylophone
, flute
s and rattle
s. Perhaps the most important characteristic, however, was the call-and-response vocal style, in which a singer and the audience trade lines back-and-forth. This practice lent itself well to the burgeoning New England hymn tradition, and the two fields began commingling early in the nation's history. Another unusual characteristic of much African music is that, rather than begin and end a tune or phrase on a pure note as in Western music, African singers would slide onto or below the note.
The most distinctive component of African music, however, is the focus on the rhythm
. In this respect, African folk styles are far more complex than anything developed anywhere else in the world. African music is usually polyrhythm
ic, made by a wide variety of percussion instrument
s, both pitched and unpitched, using numerous kinds of natural materials. Polythythms were imported along with slaves to the New World, where it has found its way to genres ranging from African American gospel
to pop-swing and rock and roll
.
Many slaveowners encouraged their slaves to sing as they work, believing that it improved morale and made the slaves work harder. They generally required that all tunes remain cheerful and pleasant in tone to ensure that this occurred. This music, when accompanied, used only a single drum or other object used for percussion. Since they were often without instruments, clapping
and foot-stomping became an integral part of slave music. The banjo and various kinds of drums were the most important instruments, but African slaves also used varieties of panpipes, notched gourds played with a scraper (similar to a güiro
) and rattle
s. The thumb piano
was also known, similar to the African mbira
or sanza
. In addition, blacks soon mastered European instruments like the clarinet
, oboe
, French horn and, most importantly, the violin
. Often, prominent gentlemen had black slaves act as musicians and entertainers. Some became quite prominent, like Virginia's Sy Gilliat, who performed at state balls in Williamsburg
. His assistant after the capitol moved to Richmond
was known as London Brigs and was a renowned player.
, Brazil
and the Dominican Republic
retained the use of drums, and their percussion has formed an integral part of Afro-Caribbean
and Latin music. In the British North American colonies, however, drums were prohibited; colonial masters had feared drums would be used as communication between slaves, and that the drums use may aid uprisings and rebellions. Drums did, however, remain a prominent part of the music of the French colony of Louisiana
.
, for example, in his Notes on the State of Virginia
, which refers to it as a banjar, and notes that the instrument came from Africa. Other names included bangoe, banshaw, bangelo, banza, bangil and banjer. The instrument was described in West Africa as early as 1620 by Richard Jobson
, but was present for some time before.
In North America, the banjo was typically made by hollowing out a gourd
or calabash
and attaching a long neck. The slaves then stretched a piece of animal hide, usually raccoon
, over the bowl and attached four strings. Jefferson claimed that the banjar with which he was familiar was tuned to E-A-d-g.
Serenade
In music, a serenade is a musical composition, and/or performance, in someone's honor. Serenades are typically calm, light music.The word Serenade is derived from the Italian word sereno, which means calm....
s, feldparthien and divertimenti, such as those composed by Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
and Haydn. Natural horns and bassoons provided harmonic support for the melodic line, played by clarinets and oboes. Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
suggested this instrumentation for the U.S. Marine Band, and asked fourteen Italian-American musicians to form the nucleus of that influential group, and thus these ensembles were the origin of the American brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
tradition, which flourished in the 19th century, having moved from upper-class entertainment to that of the common folk. Opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
was also popular; the first opera to be performed in the US was Giovanni Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist.-Biography:Born at Iesi, Pergolesi studied music there under a local musician, Francesco Santini, before going to Naples in 1725, where he studied under Gaetano Greco and Francesco Feo among others...
's La Serva Padrona
La serva padrona
La serva padrona is an opera buffa by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi to a libretto by Gennaro Antonio Federico, after the play by Jacopo Angello Nelli. The opera is only 45 minutes long and was originally performed as an intermezzo between the acts of a larger serious opera...
in 1790.
Native American music
Native Americans had no indigenous traditions of classical music, nor a secular song tradition. Their music was spiritual in nature, performed usually in groups in a ritual setting important to their religionNative American religion
Traditional Native American religions exhibit a great deal of diversity, largely due to the relative isolation of the different tribes that were spread out across the entire breadth of the North American continent for thousands of years, allowing for the evolution of different beliefs and practices...
; for some groups, music was the primary means of worship
Worship
Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship.Evelyn Underhill defines worship thus: "The absolute...
, and song was regarded as a direct link to the divine. Though many Native Americans claim their songs are unchanged since ancient times, there is no proof of this (due to a lack of written records). Many songs were improvised
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
.
For a long time, and continuing into the present, many American beginner's guides to learning the piano contain a song purported to be Native American in origin. In reality, these songs have little or no relationship to actual Native American styles, and are merely a vehicle to introduce left-handed repeated harmonic fifths or the minor mode in the melody.
It was not until the 1890s that Native American music began to enter the American establishment. At the time, the first pan-tribal cultural elements, such as powwow
PowWow
PowWow is a wireless sensor network mote developed by the Cairn team of IRISA/INRIA. The platform is currently based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard radio transceiver and on an MSP430 microprocessor...
s, were being established, and composers like Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Edward Alexander MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", and "New England Idylls". "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose"...
and Henry Franklin Belknap Gilbert used Native themes in their compositions. It was not until the much later work of Arthur Farwell
Arthur Farwell
Arthur Farwell was an American composer, conductor, educationalist, lithographer, esoteric savant, and music publisher.- Biography :Farwell was born in St Paul, Minnesota...
, however, that an informed representation of Native music was brought into the American classical scene.
Appalachian folk music
The Appalachian MountainsAppalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
have long been a center for cultural innovation, in spite of only sparse settlement by Native Americans and Europeans alike. Due to complex geologic reasons, the mountains and subranges were difficult to cross and included ridges of uninhabitable quartz
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
mixed with valleys of soil unsuitable for agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
. As a result, immigration of Europeans and their African slaves tended to be southern in direction, along the Piedmont
Piedmont (United States)
The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the eastern United States between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the main Appalachian Mountains, stretching from New Jersey in the north to central Alabama in the south. The Piedmont province is a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division...
area, and the Appalachian region was populated by poor Europeans, many of Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
or Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
descent. This settlement occurred primarily from 1775 to 1850.
Celtic folk tunes and ballads continued evolving from their distant roots along the Appalachians, eventually forming the major basis for jug band
Jug band
A Jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper...
s, country blues
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
, hillbilly music and a hodge-podge of other genres which eventually became country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
. These folk tunes adopted characteristics from multiple sources, including British broadside ballad
Broadside (music)
A broadside is a single sheet of cheap paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations...
s (which switched their themes from love to a distinctly American preoccupation with masculine work like mining or sensationalistic disasters and murder), African folk tunes (and their lyrical focus on semi-historical events) and minstrel show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....
s and music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
s. Popular ballads included "Barbara Allen (song)" and "Black Is the True Color of My Love's Hair". The banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
was also introduced, having gone through numerous geographic movements since its invention by the Arabians and subsequent travel across Africa, the Atlantic and throughout the Americas.
Fiddling
A Scottish fiddler named Neil Gow is usually credited with developing (during the 1740s) the short bow sawstroke technique that defined Appalachian fiddling. This technique was altered during the next century, with European waltzWaltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
es and polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
s being most influential. Square dance
Square dance
Square dance is a folk dance with four couples arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, beginning with Couple 1 facing away from the music and going counter-clockwise until getting to Couple 4. Couples 1 and 3 are known as the head couples, while Couples 2 and 4 are the side couples...
s, based on the cotillion
Cotillion
In American usage, a cotillion is a formal ball and social gathering, often the venue for presenting débutantes during the débutante season – usually May through December. Cotillions are also used as classes to teach social etiquette, respect and common morals for the younger ages with the...
, and cakewalk
Cakewalk
The Cakewalk dance was developed from a "Prize Walk" done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around"...
s, an African American imitation of white dances and the Virginia Reel
Virginia Reel (dance)
The Virginia reel is a folk dance that dates from the 17th century. Though the reel may have its origins in Scottish country dance and the Highland reel, and perhaps have an even earlier influence from an Irish dance called the Rinnce Fada, it is generally considered to be an English country dance...
arose during the 19th century.
Lined-out hymnody
Lined-out hymnody, a religious music style perpetuated by the Old Regular BaptistOld Regular Baptist
The Old Regular Baptists are an American Christian denomination based primarily in the Appalachian region of the United States.-History:Most Regular Baptists merged with the Separate Baptists near the beginning of 19th century. The party names were dropped in favor of United Baptists...
s, Primitive Baptist
Primitive Baptist
Primitive Baptists, also known as Hard Shell Baptists or Anti-Mission Baptists, are conservative, Calvinist Baptists adhering to beliefs that formed out of the controversy among Baptists in the early 1800’s over the appropriateness of mission boards, bible tract societies, and temperance...
s, et al., is often studied and classified as folk music. See Old Regular Baptist, Lined-Out Hymnody.
New England colonial music
The religious singing traditions of New England played an important role in the early evolution of American music. Beginning with the Pilgrim colonists, who brought the Ainsworth PsalterAinsworth Psalter
Published in Holland in 1612, the Ainsworth Psalter was written by English Separatist clergyman Henry Ainsworth and was brought to America by the Pilgrims in 1620....
with them to the New World, church hymns were popular across the region. Common New Englanders soon developed their own traditions, which were viewed by some as degenerate and wanton.
New England choral traditions
The original Puritan immigrants to New England sang a number of spiritual psalms, but generally disliked secular music, or at least those varieties which they viewed as encouraging immorality and disorder. They also objected to the use of musical instruments in churches and a complex vocal liturgy, both being associated with Roman Catholicism. The well-known minister Cotton MatherCotton Mather
Cotton Mather, FRS was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author and pamphleteer; he is often remembered for his role in the Salem witch trials...
wrote, in Directions for a Candidate of the Ministry, on the subject:
- For MUSIC, I know not what well to day.--Do as you please. If you Fancy it, I don't Forbid it. Only do not for the sake of it, Alienate your Time too much, from those that are more Important Matters. It may be so, that you may serve your GOD the better, for the Refreshment of One that can play well on an Instrument. However, to accomplish yourself at Regular Singing, is a thing that will be of Daily Use to you. For I would not have a Day pass without Singing, but so at the same to make a Melody in your Heart unto the Lord;...
The Ainsworth Psalter provided most of the tunes in use in New England church music until the late 17th century, when congregations began abandoned the Psalter, claiming the tunes were too complex and difficult to sing.
The Bay Psalme Book (The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre) was published in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
in 1640; it was the first book of any kind printed in the English colonies of North America. It became the standard used by New England churches for many years, though it contained no music itself, merely providing psalms and pointing readers to other prominent publications. The Bay Psalm Book was faithful to its source, but did not produce beautiful singing. In 1651, then, a third edition was created, and became known as the New England Psalm Book; this became the standard for many years. In 1898, the ninth edition was printed and it was the first time that printed notation was used. By this point, the evolution from the Ainsworth Psalter to the New England Psalm Book had steadily dwindled the number of tunes in use.
The practice of lining out
Lining out
Lining out is a form of a cappella hymn-singing or hymnody in which a leader, often called the clerk or precentor, gives each line of a hymn tune as it is to be sung, usually in a chanted form giving or suggesting the tune...
was often common, though its presence and utility depended on the degree of illiteracy found in congregation—generally, illiteracy was common, as was lining out. This was the process of a leader presenting one line of a song, then maintaining the first note for the congregation to match as they responded with the same line. This technique was also common in churches of Appalachia, such as the Regular Baptists of Kentucky.
The organ and the birth of the church band
Organs were the only instrument in use in church music during this era, and even this was not without controversy. Some claimed it to be inappropriate to use the organ in a religious setting. Indeed, after the death of Thomas BrattleThomas Brattle
Thomas Brattle was a well-educated and prosperous Boston merchant who served as treasurer of Harvard College, and was a member of the intellectually elite Royal Society....
, treasurer of Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
in 1713, he bequeathed his organ to the Brattle Square Church in Boston, but the church (which he had founded) did not think it proper, and gave it to the King's Chapel
King's Chapel
King's Chapel is "an independent Christian unitarian congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association" that is "unitarian Christian in theology, Anglican in worship, and congregational in governance." It is housed in what was formerly called "Stone Chapel", an 18th century...
, which was the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. Still, the organ was used in other New England churches. The first organ said to be designed for church use was installed in Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
in 1733. Organs, however, were expensive and difficult to play. Only the largest churches could afford an organ and organist, and so many used more portable instruments, such as the bass fiddle, which was appellated "God's fiddle" to distinguish it from the much-maligned "Devil's fiddle" (violin). Later, other instruments like the ophicleide
Ophicleide
The ophicleide is a family of conical bore, brass keyed-bugles. It has a similar shape to the sudrophone.- History :The ophicleide was invented in 1817 and patented in 1821 by French instrument maker Jean Hilaire Asté as an extension to the keyed bugle or Royal Kent bugle family...
, trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
, cornet
Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
, German flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
were added, thus birthing the church band.
Secular folk music
Though it had long been supposed that the religious aversion to secular music inhibited instrumental folk music in New England, recent research by Barbara Lambert, focused on the Boston area, shows otherwise. Personally-owned instruments recorded included the citternCittern
The cittern or cither is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the Medieval Citole, or Cytole. It looks much like the modern-day flat-back mandolin and the modern Irish bouzouki and cittern...
, virginals
Virginals
The virginals or virginal is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family...
, soprano clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
, bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
, trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
, fife
Fife (musical instrument)
A fife is a small, high-pitched, transverse flute that is similar to the piccolo, but louder and shriller due to its narrower bore. The fife originated in medieval Europe and is often used in military and marching bands. Someone who plays the fife is called a fifer...
, flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, viol
Viol
The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
and violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
and the Mrs. Healy pipe.
Despite some hostility on the part of ministers like Increase Mather
Increase Mather
Increase Mather was a major figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay . He was a Puritan minister who was involved with the government of the colony, the administration of Harvard College, and most notoriously, the Salem witch trials...
, dance music
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
was popular in the New England colonial era, especially by the early 18th century, as the local population boomed with an influx of more settlers.
Broadside ballads were also known. As in British music, these were printed songs performed to a well-known tune, and included border ballad
Border ballad
The English/Scottish border has a long and bloody history of conquest and reconquest, raid and counter-raid . It also has a stellar tradition of balladry, such that a whole group of songs exists that are often called "border ballads", because they were collected in that region.Border ballads, like...
s like The Ballad of Chevy Chase
The Ballad of Chevy Chase
There are two extant English ballads known as The Ballad of Chevy Chase, both of which narrate the same story. As ballads existed within oral tradition before being written down, other versions of this once popular song may also have existed....
.
Though there is much in primary sources referring to folk music of the time, it is virtually all written by those who condemned the songs as uncouth. As such, little is objectively known. There was a distinction between the "Regular Singing" style of zealous reformers, mostly clergymen educated at Harvard, and the "Common Way" of the folk. Reformers included prominent clergymen like Thomas Walter and Nathaniel Chauncey, many of whom regarded their style of "regular" singing as more sophisticated as well as more devout. The evidence, however, indicates that the common people's music was more complex, using techniques like ornamentation
Ornament (music)
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...
.
The formation of schools and societies promoting regular singing helped to spread the practice, and instruction books were published.
John Wesley's legacy and the spread south
In the 18th century, Americans composed a number of their own hymns, often based on the Old TestamentOld Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
; the English nonconformist Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...
, especially his Hymns and Spiritual Songs
Hymns and Spiritual Songs
Hymns and Spiritual Songs may refer to:* Hymns and Spiritual Songs , a 1765 book by Christopher Smart* Hymns and Spiritual Songs , a 2007 album by Bradley Joseph...
, was also very popular. John Wesley
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
, the founder of the Methodist Church
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
, played a major role in revivalist hymnody after a trip to Georgia in 1735 at the invitation of James Oglethorpe
James Oglethorpe
James Edward Oglethorpe was a British general, member of Parliament, philanthropist, and founder of the colony of Georgia...
. Wesley and his brother, Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley was an English leader of the Methodist movement, son of Anglican clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley, the younger brother of Anglican clergyman John Wesley and Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley , and father of musician Samuel Wesley, and grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley...
, went with Oglethorpe and twenty-six Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
n missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
. The Moravian singing inspired John Wesley to study their music. He published a collection of translations of German hymns in 1737, A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, then returned to England in 1738, attending meetings of the Moravian Brethren in London. There, during a reading of Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
's preface to the Epistle to the Romans
Epistle to the Romans
The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, often shortened to Romans, is the sixth book in the New Testament. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by the Apostle Paul to explain that Salvation is offered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ...
, Wesley had a spiritual experience and found his faith in Christ rejuvenated.
Great Awakening
After returning to America, Wesley became an important preacher in a rise of fervent Christianity called the Great AwakeningFirst Great Awakening
The First Awakening was a Christian revitalization movement that swept Protestant Europe and British America, and especially the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American religion. It resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal...
, along with George Whitefield
George Whitefield
George Whitefield , also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican priest who helped spread the Great Awakening in Britain, and especially in the British North American colonies. He was one of the founders of Methodism and of the evangelical movement generally...
and Jonathan Edwards, among others. Wesley and his brother began writing a number of hymns, at first just words, and then with music beginning with a collection usually called the Foundery Collection.
Wesley and some other preachers fought against the embellishment of his hymns. In 1761, Wesley's collection Select Hymns, with Tunes Annext: Designed Chiefly for Use of the People Called Methodists directed singers to follow the tunes "exactly as printed" and to "sing in tune"; both directions were impractical, since most of the worshippers likely couldn't read music or carry a tune.
Nevertheless, the Great Awakening (and other hymnal styles from New England) spread south and changed from Wesley's strict formulas. John Cennick
John Cennick
John Cennick was an early Methodist and Moravian evangelist and hymnwriter. He was born in Reading, Berkshire, England to an Anglican family and raised in the Church of England....
(known for widespread hymns like "Jesus My All to Heaven Is Gone") and John Newton
John Newton
John Henry Newton was a British sailor and Anglican clergyman. Starting his career on the sea at a young age, he became involved with the slave trade for a few years. After experiencing a religious conversion, he became a minister, hymn-writer, and later a prominent supporter of the abolition of...
are likely the two most important individuals in the creation of Great Awakening-era hymns, which were sung at camp meeting
Camp meeting
The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in Britain and once common in some parts of the United States, wherein people would travel from a large area to a particular site to camp out, listen to itinerant preachers, and pray...
s. These hymns, sung at large gatherings, especially in the south, provided a basis for gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
in the late 19th and early 20th century. Some of the common features included Cennick's innovation of hymns sung as a dialogue, as well as Newton, a former slave trader who converted after reading On the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
Thomas à Kempis
Thomas à Kempis was a late Medieval Catholic monk and the probable author of The Imitation of Christ, which is one of the best known Christian books on devotion. His name means, "Thomas of Kempen", his home town and in German he is known as Thomas von Kempen...
, who wrote more than two hundred hymns that drew on his own experiences wrestling with sin, and proved extremely popular.
First New England School
Compared with the older songs, Wesley and other new composers wrote with a simple structure. Rural farmers and workers expanded on these structures, creating complex songs which some musical conservatives railed against to no avail. It was in this context that a wave of itinerant singing masters, including William BillingsWilliam Billings
William Billings was an American choral composer, and is widely regarded as the father of American choral music...
, arose, creating hymns that remain standard across the country. This field was called the First New England School. Following Billings' pioneering footsteps were Supply Belcher
Supply Belcher
Supply Belcher was an American composer, singer, and compiler of tune books. He was one of the members of the so-called First New England School, a group of mostly self-taught composers who created sacred vocal music for local choirs. He was active first in Lexington, Massachusetts, then...
, Andrew Law
Andrew Law
Andrew Law was an American composer, preacher and singing teacher. He was born in Milford, Connecticut. Law wrote mostly simple hymn tunes, and arranged tunes of other composers. His works include Select Harmony and a Collection of Best Tunes and Anthems...
, Daniel Read
Daniel Read
Daniel Read was an American composer of the First New England School, and one of the primary figures in early American classical music.-Life and work:...
, Jacob Kimball, Jeremiah Ingalls
Jeremiah Ingalls
Jeremiah Ingalls was born Andover, Massachusetts March 1, 1764 and died in Hancock, Vermont, April 6, 1838. He was one of the first American composers, and is considered among the First New England School.-Biography:...
, John Wyeth, James Lyon
James Lyon (composer)
- Life :James Lyon was born in Newark, New Jersey on July 1, 1735. It is known that his father was Zopher Lyon, but that he was orphaned at an early age. In 1750, Isaac Lyon and John Crane became James' guardians, until the age of twenty-one. Lyon then attended college at Nassau Hall, and...
, Oliver Holden
Oliver Holden
Oliver Holden was an American composer and compiler of hymns.Born in Shirley, Massachusetts, he served a year as a marine, for which he received a small annual pension. He lived most of his life in Charles Town, Boston, Massachusetts, after he moved with his parents in 1786. He was known to be a...
, Justin Morgan
Justin Morgan
Justin Morgan was a U.S. horse breeder and composer.He was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and by 1788 had settled in Vermont. In addition to being a horse breeder and farmer, he was a teacher of singing; in that capacity he traveled considerably throughout the northeastern states...
and Timothy Swan
Timothy Swan
Timothy Swan was a composer and hatmaker born in Worcester, Massachusetts. The son of goldsmith William Swan, Swan lived in small towns along the Connecticut River in Connecticut and Massachusetts for most of his life. Swan’s compositional output consisted mostly of psalm and hymn settings,...
.
The First New England School is usually considered the first uniquely American invention in music. The most characteristic feature was that the voices, male and female respectively, doubled their parts in any octave in order to fill out the harmony; this generated a texture of close-position chords that was unknown in European traditions.
William Billings was of special importance and popularity. A native of Boston, Billings was a tanner by trade, and was mainly self-taught in music. He did not always follow the standard rules of composition in his works, and has thus been called the "first American composer to emphasize strongly a creative independence and to flaunt his personal idiosyncrasies in both his music and (especially) his published writings". He taught a famous singing school in Stoughton, Massachusetts in 1774. A few of the singers later formed the Stoughton Musical Society
Stoughton Musical Society
Organized in 1786, this is currently America's oldest choral society. Over the past two centuries it has had many distinguished accomplishments. In 1908, when incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the name was changed to Old Stoughton Musical Society...
, a choral organization consisting of 25 men.
Supply Belcher, born in Stoughton, Massachusetts
Stoughton, Massachusetts
Stoughton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 26,962 at the 2010 census. The town is located approximately from Boston, from Providence, and from Cape Cod.-History:...
, though later based out of Farmington, Maine, is also especially well-known. His only published tunebook was 1794's The Harmony of Maine, which included anthems, fuging pieces, psalms and hymns, a number of which were secular. His songs were distinctively folky and down-to-earth. His contemporary Daniel Read
Daniel Read
Daniel Read was an American composer of the First New England School, and one of the primary figures in early American classical music.-Life and work:...
, a Massachusetts-born musician who later moved to New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
, was a popular musician who supported himself almost entirely off the sale of tunebooks. His first publication was entitled The American Singing Book; or, a New and Easy Guide to the Art of Psalmody Devised for the Use of Singing Schools in America. The title's use of psalmody is here referring to singing societies which were spreading across the country, and is used without religious connotations.
Billings, Belcher and Read were the beginning of a chain of tunebook compilers that grew increasingly secular, as the art of psalmody lost its religious importance. Other Massachusetts-born compilers followed in their footsteps, beginning with Jeremiah Ingalls
Jeremiah Ingalls
Jeremiah Ingalls was born Andover, Massachusetts March 1, 1764 and died in Hancock, Vermont, April 6, 1838. He was one of the first American composers, and is considered among the First New England School.-Biography:...
of Newbury, Vermont
Newbury (village), Vermont
Newbury is an incorporated village in the town of Newbury in Orange County, Vermont, United States. The population was 396 at the 2000 census.-History:...
. Their songs were generally fugue
Fugue
In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
s, and were disapproved of by religious authorities. Andrew Law
Andrew Law
Andrew Law was an American composer, preacher and singing teacher. He was born in Milford, Connecticut. Law wrote mostly simple hymn tunes, and arranged tunes of other composers. His works include Select Harmony and a Collection of Best Tunes and Anthems...
was an important compiler as well; he felt that American music should be more like European, and is best known for organizing singing schools and tunebooks. In addition, he composed several songs of note, and invented a kind of musical notation
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
called shape note
Shape note
Shape notes are a music notation designed to facilitate congregational and community singing. The notation, introduced in 1801, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools...
.
Shakers
The Shakers, or United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Coming, were a religion founded in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England by Ann Lee
Ann Lee
Mother Ann Lee was the leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, or Shakers....
(Mother Ann). Lee had been born poor, and worked as a child in a cotton factory before her parents married her to a blacksmith. After giving birth to four children, all of whom died in infancy, Mother Ann came to view sexual intercourse as evil. Celibacy
Celibacy
Celibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
became an integral part of her religion; she was jailed for disturbing the Sabbath in 1772. Two years later, Shakers started moving to North America, settling in New England as far south as New York. Though their strange customs and British mannerisms caused some hostility by the colonists, as the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
was brewing, the Shakers grew in number and eventually spread as far south as Kentucky. Though Mother Ann died in 1784, the rituals she designed, which she claimed to have seen in visions, included passionate dances that were part of a battle between the holy Shakers and the devil and the flesh. Their best known dance song is Simple Gifts
Simple Gifts
"Simple Gifts" is a Shaker song written and composed in 1848 by Elder Joseph Brackett.It has endured many inaccurate descriptions. Though often classified as an anonymous Shaker hymn or as a work song, it is better classified as a dance song.-Lyrics:...
, used by Aaron Copland in his ballet score Appalachian Spring
Appalachian Spring
Appalachian Spring is a modern score composed by Aaron Copland that premiered in 1944 and has achieved widespread and enduring popularity as an orchestral suite...
.
European professionals
In 1766, Charlestown, South Carolina became the home of the St. Cecilia SocietySt. Cecilia Society
The St. Cecilia Society of Charleston, South Carolina, named for the traditional patron saint of music, was formed in 1766 as a private subscription concert organization. Over the next fifty-four years, its annual concert series formed the most sophisticated musical phenomenon in North America...
, the first musical society in North America. At the time, Charleston was a cultural center, attracting a number of musicians from Europe. In the decades after the Revolution, more northern cities like Philadelphia, New York and Boston largely took Charleston's place. Philadelphia, home of the esteemed Alexander Reinagle
Alexander Reinagle
Alexander Robert Reinagle was an English-born American composer, organist, and theater musician...
, John Christopher Moller
John Christopher Moller
John Christopher Moller was one of the first American composers, as well as one of the first music publishers in the United States.John Christopher Moller was also an organist, concert manager, pianist, harpsichordist, and violinist...
, Rayner Taylor and Susannah Haswell Rowson
Susanna Rowson
Susanna Rowson, née Haswell was a British-American novelist, poet, playwright, religious writer, stage actress and educator....
, was especially renowned for musical development. Reinagle became the most influential figure in Philadelphia's musical life, organizing a number of concerts, organizations and musical events.
The English singer Benjamin Carr
Benjamin Carr
Benjamin Carr was an American composer, singer, teacher, and music publisher. Born in London, he studied organ with Charles Wesley and composition with Samuel Arnold. In 1793 he traveled to Philadelphia with a stage company, and a year later went with the same company to New York, where he...
was especially notable. He arrived in New York in 1793, along with his brother and father. They soon became prominent music publishers and vendors, owning stores in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Carr himself was a composer, organist, pianist and a publisher and editor. They published, in Philadelphia, "The President's March" in 1793; written by Philip Phile
Philip Phile
Philip Phile was an American composer and violinist. His year of birth is uncertain, but believed to be approximately 1734. His works include a lost Violin Concerto , but he is best known for " The President's March", written and performed at the inauguration of President George Washington.He died...
, "The President's March" is one of the most enduring of American patriotic songs. The march was soon politicized, adopted by the Federalists as a rallying song.
The British James Hewitt
James Hewitt
James Hewitt is a former British household cavalry officer in the British Army. He had an affair with Diana, Princess of Wales for five years, receiving extensive media coverage after revealing details of the affair.-Early life:...
was one of the most distinguished musicians of early American history. He was already renowned in London before moving across the Atlantic, accompanied by Belgian composer and violinist Jean Gehot. Hewitt became established in New York, organizing concerts and other musical events. His opera Tammany; or, The Indian Chief became controversial after its first performance. It was the first American opera to deal with Native Americans, and was sponsored by the New York Tammany Society, an anti-Federalist
Anti-Federalism
Anti-Federalism refers to a movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the Constitution of 1787. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Confederation, gave state governments more authority...
organization. Hewitt was the target of much invective from Federalists as a result.
The English organist, choirmaster and composer William Selby
William Selby
William Selby was an early American composer, organist and choirmaster. Born in England, he emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts. In 1774 he became the organist at Trinity Church, Newport...
was a major figure in Boston's musical life, along with the Dutch organist, violinist and composer Peter Albrecht van Hagen and German oboist Johann Christian Gottlieb Graupner.
Gentleman amateur composers
The great urban centers of the mid-Atlantic included cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore, and it was there that European classical traditions were best represented. Philip PhilePhilip Phile
Philip Phile was an American composer and violinist. His year of birth is uncertain, but believed to be approximately 1734. His works include a lost Violin Concerto , but he is best known for " The President's March", written and performed at the inauguration of President George Washington.He died...
, Johann Friedrich Peter
Johann Friedrich Peter
Johann Friedrich Peter was an American composer of German origin. He emigrated to the United States in 1770, and for a time served as an organist and violinist with Unity of the Brethren congregations in North Carolina and Pennsylvania...
and Alexander Reinagle
Alexander Reinagle
Alexander Robert Reinagle was an English-born American composer, organist, and theater musician...
were prominent composers of the era, though Francis Hopkinson
Francis Hopkinson
Francis Hopkinson , an American author, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence as a delegate from New Jersey. He later served as a federal judge in Pennsylvania...
, a signer of the Declaration of Independence
Declaration of independence
A declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...
from Philadelphia, remains the best-known. One of his compositions, "My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free", is well-remembered as the first art song from the United States (though this is disputed); it is, however, lacking in originality and innovation to set it apart from European compositions.
At the time, professional musicians were looked-down upon and considered coarse. Gentlemen performers played often, mostly for other aristocratic audiences, and without pay. As the United States developed, the south became the land of deep socioeconomic divisions. Land ownership and the possession of chattel slavery became an integral component of a gentleman's livelihood, while in the north, the idea of a landed aristocracy never carried as much weight.
Lowell Mason
Perhaps the most influential early composer was Lowell MasonLowell Mason
Lowell Mason was a leading figure in American church music, the composer of over 1600 hymn tunes, many of which are often sung today. His most well-known tunes include Mary Had A Little Lamb and the arrangement of Joy to the World...
. A native of Boston, Mason campaigned against the use of shape-note notation, and for the education in standard notation. He worked with local institutions to release collections of hymns and maintain his stature. Opposed to the shape-note tradition, Mason pushed American music towards a European model.
Rural Pennsylvanian music
Rural Pennsylvania in the colonial era was home to religious minorities like the Quakers, as well as important MoraviaMoravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
n and Lutheran communities. While the Quakers had few musical traditions, Protestant churches frequently made extensive use of music in worship J. F. Peter emerged from the Moravian tradition, while Conrad Beissel
Conrad Beissel
Johann Conrad Beissel was the German-born religious leader who in 1732 founded the Ephrata Community in Pennsylvania.-Background:...
(founder of the Ephrata Cloister
Ephrata Cloister
The Ephrata Cloister or Ephrata Community was a religious community, established in 1732 by Johann Conrad Beissel at Ephrata, in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania...
) innovated his own system of harmonic theory. The Lutheran traditions of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Buxtehude
Buxtehude
Buxtehude is a town on the Este River in Northern Germany in the district of Stade and part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region . Buxtehude is a steadily growing medium-sized town and the second largest in the district of Stade. It lies on the southern borders of the Altes Land within easy reach of...
, Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most...
and Walther were propagated in Pennsylvania, and the city of Bethlehem
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...
remains a center of Lutheran musical traditions today.
Mennonites
The Mennonites, followers of Menno SimonsMenno Simons
Menno Simons was an Anabaptist religious leader from the Friesland region of the Low Countries. Simons was a contemporary of the Protestant Reformers and his followers became known as Mennonites...
, settled in Germantown
Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Germantown is a neighborhood in the northwest section of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, about 7–8 miles northwest from the center of the city...
after emigrating from the German Palatinate and Switzerland between 1683 and 1748. They were led by Willem Rittinghuysen (grandfather of astronomer and mathematician David Rittenhouse
David Rittenhouse
David Rittenhouse was a renowned American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman and public official...
). The Mennonites used a hymnbook from Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen is a city in northern Switzerland and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimated population of 34,587 ....
, reprinted in Germantown in 1742 as Der Ausbund Das ist etliche schöne christliche Lieder
Ausbund
The Ausbund is the oldest Anabaptist hymnal and one of the oldest Christian song books in continuous use. It is used today by North American Amish congregations.-History:...
.
Ephrata Cloister
The Ephrata Cloister (Community of the Solitary) was founded in what is now Lancaster CountyLancaster County, Pennsylvania
Lancaster County, known as the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county located in the southeastern part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of 2010 the population was 519,445. Lancaster County forms the Lancaster Metropolitan Statistical Area, the...
on the Cocalico River in 1720. This was a group of Seventh Day Baptist
Seventh Day Baptist
Seventh Day Baptists are Christian Baptists who observe Sabbath on the seventh-day of the week in accord with their understanding of the Biblical Sabbath for the Judeo-Christian tradition...
s led by Peter Miller
Peter Miller
Peter Miller is an Australian rules footballer who played for the Fremantle Dockers in 1995. He was a predraft selection from East Perth in the WAFL in the 1994 AFL Draft and played mainly as a rover....
and Conrad Beissel
Conrad Beissel
Johann Conrad Beissel was the German-born religious leader who in 1732 founded the Ephrata Community in Pennsylvania.-Background:...
, who believed in using music as an integral part of worship. Beissel codified the Ephrata Cloister's unique tradition in his Beissel's Dissertation on Harmony; here, he divided notes into two types. These were masters, or notes belonging to the common chord, and servants, or all other notes. Accented syllables in Beissel's works always fell on master notes, leaving servant notes for unaccented syllables. The Ephrata Cloister's hymnbook was large, consisting of more than 1,000 hymns, many of which were accompanied by instruments including the violin. Many of these hymns were published in the 1740s and 50s.
Moravian Church
Founded in 1457, the Moravian Church originally spread across MoraviaMoravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
before persecution forced the remaining faithful to Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
, where they lived under the protection of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Zinzendorf wrote hymns, and led the Moravians to America, where they began missionary work in Georgia but with little success. They moved on to Pennsylvania, and founded the town of Bethlehem
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...
on the banks of the Lehigh River
Lehigh River
The Lehigh River, a tributary of the Delaware River, is a river located in eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. Part of the Lehigh, along with a number of its tributaries, is designated a Pennsylvania Scenic River by the state's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources...
. A group then left for Salem, North Carolina (now a part of Winston-Salem
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina, with a 2010 population of 229,617. Winston-Salem is the county seat and largest city of Forsyth County and the fourth-largest city in the state. Winston-Salem is the second largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region and is home to...
).
Both in Salem and Bethlehem, Moravians continued to use music in their ceremonies. Instruments included organs and trombones, and voices were usually in choirs. Players generally played on rooftops for most any occasion, ensuring that they could be heard for great distances. A legend has arisen claiming that a group of Native American warriors approachied a Moravian settlement during the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
, but left after hearing a trombone choir because they believed it to be the voice of their Great Spirit. Moravians were devoted to missionary work, especially among African slaves and Native Americans; in 1763, they published a collection of hymns in the Delaware language.
Moravians also had a tradition of secular art music that included the famed composer Johann Friedrich Peter
Johann Friedrich Peter
Johann Friedrich Peter was an American composer of German origin. He emigrated to the United States in 1770, and for a time served as an organist and violinist with Unity of the Brethren congregations in North Carolina and Pennsylvania...
, who was a German born in Holland who emigrated to Bethlehem in 1770. He brought with him copies of compositions by Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach , the ninth son of Johann Sebastian Bach, sometimes referred to as the "Bückeburg Bach"...
, Johann Stamitz
Johann Stamitz
Jan Václav Antonín Stamic was a Czech composer and violinist. Johann was the father of Carl Stamitz and Anton Stamitz, also composers...
and C. F. Abel. After living in Bethlehem for a time, Peter moved to Salem, where he founded the Collegium Musicum
Collegium Musicum
The Collegium Musicum was one of several types of musical societies that arose in German and German-Swiss cities and towns during the Reformation and thrived into the mid-18th century...
(in 1786) and collected hundreds of symphonies, anthems and oratorios. It was during this period that Peter also composed a number of well-respected instrumental pieces for twio violins, two violas and a cello; he also composed sacred anthem
Anthem
The term anthem means either a specific form of Anglican church music , or more generally, a song of celebration, usually acting as a symbol for a distinct group of people, as in the term "national anthem" or "sports anthem".-Etymology:The word is derived from the Greek via Old English , a word...
s like "It Is a Precious Thing" and aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
s like "The Lord Is in His Holy Temple".
The Moravian Church continued to produce a number of renowned composers into the 19th century, including John Antes
John Antes
John Antes was an American composer of a second generation German Moravian family was born in Upper Frederick Township, Pennsylvania, and died in Bristol, England. He became somewhat of a Renaissance Man and had careers as a violin maker, watchmaker, inventor, missionary, theoretician, businessman...
as well as Francis F. Hagen, Johann Christian Bechler, Edward W. Leinbach, Simon Peter, David Moritz Michael
David Moritz Michael
David Moritz Michael was a composer.Born and educated in Germany, David Moritz Michael became a member of the Moravian Church when he was thirty years old. He taught in the Moravian school at Niesky and, in 1795, he emigrated to Pennsylvania...
, Georg Gottfried Müller, Peter Wolle, Jeremiah Dencke
Jeremiah Dencke
Jeremiah Dencke was born October 2, 1725 in Langenbielau, Silesia and died May 28, 1795 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He emigrated to the American colonies in 1761...
and Johannes Herbst. Herbst was also a noted collector, whose archives, left to the Salem church after his death, were made public in 1977; these included more than 11,000 pages of content. Salem has gradually become the center for Moravian musical innovation, partially due to the presence of the Moravian Music Foundation.
Pietists
In 1694, Johannes KelpiusJohannes Kelpius
Johannes Kelpius , a German Pietist, mystic, musician, and writer, interested in the occult, botany, and astronomy, came to believe with his followers in the "Society of the Woman in the Wilderness" that the end of the world would occur in 1694...
brought a group of German Pietists
Pietism
Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...
to the banks of the Wissahickon Creek
Wissahickon Creek
Wissahickon Creek is a stream in southeastern Pennsylvania. Rising in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, it runs about 23 miles passing through and dividing Northwest Philadelphia before emptying into the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia...
in southeastern Pennsylvania. These became known as the Hermits or Mystics of the Wissahickon; this 1871 map of Wissahickon Creek notes a Kelpius spring and Hermits Glen. Kelpius was a musician, and he and his followers brought with them instruments that became an integral part of church life. Kelpius was also a composer, and is sometimes called the first Pennsylvanian composer, based on his unproven authorship of several hymns in The Lamenting Voice of the Hidden Love. It is likely that he wrote the text, though the tunes are mostly based on German songs; the English translations in the collection are attributed to Christopher Witt, an Englishman who immigrated and joined the mystics, also building them a pipe organ, said to be the first privately-owned organ in North America.
In 1703, Justus Falckner
Justus Falckner
Justus Falckner was a Lutheran minister and the first Lutheran pastor to be ordained within the United States. He is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on November 24 together with Jehu Jones and William Passavant.-Background:Falckner was the fourth son of Daniel...
was ordained as pastor of the Gloria Dei Church; Falckner evidently believed that music was a very important element of missionary work, writing to Germany to ask for an organ, which he said would attract more Native American converts. Falckner was a Lutheran who wrote hymns such as "Rise, Ye Children of Salvation".
Harmony Society
In 1803 and 1804, a group of Christian pietistsPietism
Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...
led by George Rapp
George Rapp
Johann Georg Rapp was the founder of the religious sect called Harmonists, Harmonites, Rappites, or the Harmony Society....
arrived from Württemberg, Germany, settled in Harmony, Pennsylvania
Harmony, Pennsylvania
Harmony is a borough in Butler County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 937 at the 2000 census. It is located about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.-Geography:...
, and formed the Harmony Society
Harmony Society
The Harmony Society was a Christian theosophy and pietist society founded in Iptingen, Germany, in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the Lutheran Church and the government in Württemberg, the Harmony Society moved to the United States on October 7, 1803, initially purchasing of land in Butler...
in 1805. The group lived communally
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
, were pacifistic
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
, advocated celibacy
Celibacy
Celibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
, and music was a big part of their lives. The Harmonites (or Harmonists) wrote their own music and even had an orchestra. The Society lasted until 1906, but their final settlement, Old Economy Village
Old Economy Village
Old Economy Village is a historic settlement in Ambridge, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States. Administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, it lies on the banks of the Ohio River and is surrounded by downtown Ambridge...
(now Ambridge, Pennsylvania
Ambridge, Pennsylvania
Ambridge is a borough in Beaver County in Western Pennsylvania, incorporated in 1905 and named after the American Bridge Company. Ambridge is located 16 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, alongside the Ohio River. In 1910, 5,205 people lived in Ambridge; in 1920, 12,730 people lived there, and in...
) contains archives with sheet music that is still performed at special community events.
African Americans
Brought to the United States as early as 1619, African slaves were from a variety of tribes from West AfricaWest Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
, including the Ashanti, Yoruba
Yoruba people
The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...
, Bini, Congo
Kingdom of Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo was an African kingdom located in west central Africa in what are now northern Angola, Cabinda, the Republic of the Congo, and the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
and Dahomean
Dahomey
Dahomey was a country in west Africa in what is now the Republic of Benin. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a powerful west African state that was founded in the seventeenth century and survived until 1894. From 1894 until 1960 Dahomey was a part of French West Africa. The independent Republic of Dahomey...
tribes. They spoke hundreds of languages; some came from rival tribes, or isolated communities with little connection to anyone else until the arrival of the slave traders. Some of the larger groups had extensive contact with the Muslim
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
s of North Africa and the distant cultures of East
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
and Southern Africa
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. Within the region are numerous territories, including the Republic of South Africa ; nowadays, the simpler term South Africa is generally reserved for the country in English.-UN...
.
Slaves brought with them work song
Work song
A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a specific form of work, either sung while conducting a task or a song linked to a task or trade which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song....
s, religious music and dance, and a wide variety of instruments, including kalimba, xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
, flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s and rattle
Rattle (percussion)
A rattle is a percussion instrument. It consists of a hollow body filled with small uniform solid objects, like sand or nuts. Rhythmical shaking of this instrument produces repetitive, rather dry timbre noises. In some kinds of music, a rattle assumes the role of the metronome, as an alternative to...
s. Perhaps the most important characteristic, however, was the call-and-response vocal style, in which a singer and the audience trade lines back-and-forth. This practice lent itself well to the burgeoning New England hymn tradition, and the two fields began commingling early in the nation's history. Another unusual characteristic of much African music is that, rather than begin and end a tune or phrase on a pure note as in Western music, African singers would slide onto or below the note.
The most distinctive component of African music, however, is the focus on the rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
. In this respect, African folk styles are far more complex than anything developed anywhere else in the world. African music is usually polyrhythm
Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms.Polyrhythm in general is a nonspecific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney Polyrhythms can be distinguished from...
ic, made by a wide variety of percussion instrument
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
s, both pitched and unpitched, using numerous kinds of natural materials. Polythythms were imported along with slaves to the New World, where it has found its way to genres ranging from African American gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
to pop-swing and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
.
Many slaveowners encouraged their slaves to sing as they work, believing that it improved morale and made the slaves work harder. They generally required that all tunes remain cheerful and pleasant in tone to ensure that this occurred. This music, when accompanied, used only a single drum or other object used for percussion. Since they were often without instruments, clapping
Clapping
A clap is the sound made by striking together two flat surfaces, as in the body parts of humans or animals. Humans clap with the palms of their hands, often in a constant drone to express appreciation or approval , but also in rhythm to match sounds in music and dance...
and foot-stomping became an integral part of slave music. The banjo and various kinds of drums were the most important instruments, but African slaves also used varieties of panpipes, notched gourds played with a scraper (similar to a güiro
Güiro
The güiro is a Latin-American percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side. It is played by rubbing a stick or tines along the notches to produce a ratchet-like sound. The güiro is commonly used in Latin-American music, and plays a key role...
) and rattle
Rattle (percussion)
A rattle is a percussion instrument. It consists of a hollow body filled with small uniform solid objects, like sand or nuts. Rhythmical shaking of this instrument produces repetitive, rather dry timbre noises. In some kinds of music, a rattle assumes the role of the metronome, as an alternative to...
s. The thumb piano
Thumb piano
The thumb piano is an African musical instrument, a type of plucked idiophone common throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.-Description:Each note of a kalimba, mbira, etc. is a separate idiophone, and in orchestral terms, the instrument as a whole belongs in the bar percussion family...
was also known, similar to the African mbira
Mbira
In African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...
or sanza
Sanza
Sanza is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of southern Italy.-History:It is a small town placed on a hill surrounded by lots of mountains....
. In addition, blacks soon mastered European instruments like the clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
, oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
, French horn and, most importantly, the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
. Often, prominent gentlemen had black slaves act as musicians and entertainers. Some became quite prominent, like Virginia's Sy Gilliat, who performed at state balls in Williamsburg
Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg is an independent city located on the Virginia Peninsula in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia, USA. As of the 2010 Census, the city had an estimated population of 14,068. It is bordered by James City County and York County, and is an independent city...
. His assistant after the capitol moved to Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
was known as London Brigs and was a renowned player.
Drums
African slaves in places like HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
retained the use of drums, and their percussion has formed an integral part of Afro-Caribbean
Caribbean music
The music of the Caribbean is a diverse grouping of musical genres. They are each syntheses of African, European, Indian and native influences, largely created by descendants of African slaves...
and Latin music. In the British North American colonies, however, drums were prohibited; colonial masters had feared drums would be used as communication between slaves, and that the drums use may aid uprisings and rebellions. Drums did, however, remain a prominent part of the music of the French colony of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
.
Banjo
The banjo was a feature of slave life in America, mentioned by Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, for example, in his Notes on the State of Virginia
Notes on the State of Virginia
Notes on the State of Virginia was a book written by Thomas Jefferson. He completed the first edition in 1781, and updated and enlarged the book in 1782 and 1783...
, which refers to it as a banjar, and notes that the instrument came from Africa. Other names included bangoe, banshaw, bangelo, banza, bangil and banjer. The instrument was described in West Africa as early as 1620 by Richard Jobson
Richard Jobson (explorer)
Richard Jobson was a seventeenth-century English explorer.Jobson's most noted work is The Golden Trade in which he describes his voyages to Ethiopia and the Gambia River during 1620–1621. It is also the earliest known European work to mention the game of Mancala.-External links:*...
, but was present for some time before.
In North America, the banjo was typically made by hollowing out a gourd
Gourd
A gourd is a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae. Gourd is occasionally used to describe crops like cucumbers, squash, luffas, and melons. The term 'gourd' however, can more specifically, refer to the plants of the two Cucurbitaceae genera Lagenaria and Cucurbita or also to their hollow dried out shell...
or calabash
Calabash
Lagenaria siceraria , bottle gourd, opo squash or long melon is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable, or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. For this reason, the calabash is widely known as the bottle gourd...
and attaching a long neck. The slaves then stretched a piece of animal hide, usually raccoon
Raccoon
Procyon is a genus of nocturnal mammals, comprising three species commonly known as raccoons, in the family Procyonidae. The most familiar species, the common raccoon , is often known simply as "the" raccoon, as the two other raccoon species in the genus are native only to the tropics and are...
, over the bowl and attached four strings. Jefferson claimed that the banjar with which he was familiar was tuned to E-A-d-g.