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Print Price: $56.50

Format:
Paperback
640 pp.
40 halftones, 25 line illus., 6 1/8" x 9 1/4"

ISBN-13:
9780195139884

Publication date:
July 2008

Imprint: OUP US

Music in the USA

A Documentary Companion

Judith Tick
Assistant Editor Paul Beaudoin

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

Readership : The primary audience for this book is students in college courses in American music or in American culture, American media, and American history. The book will be of great interest to scholars in these areas as well, and will be a longstanding reference. The book will appeal to the general audience as well.

Preface
Introduction
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Figures and Graphics
1540-1770
1. Early Encounters between Indigenous Peoples and European Explorers, 1540-1642 (Castañeda, Drake, de Meras, Smith, Wood)
2. From the Preface to the Bay Psalm Book (1640)
3. Four Translations of Psalm 100 (Tehilim, Bay Psalm Book, 1640 and 1698, Watts)
4. From the Diaries of Samuel Sewall
5. The Ministers Rally for Musical Literacy, 1720-21 (Mather, Walter, Symmes)
6. Benjamin Franklin Advises His Brother on How to Write a Ballad and How Not to Write like Handel (ca. 1764)
7. Advertisements and Notices from Colonial Newspapers, 1716-1774
8. Social Music for the Elite in Colonial Williamsburg in the 1750s/1770-1830
9. "Christopher Crotchet, Singing Master from Quavertown"
10. Singing the Revolution (Adams, Dickinson, Greeley)
11. Elisha Bostwick Hears a Scots Prisoner Sing "Gypsie Laddie" in 1777
12. A Sidebar into Ballad Scholarship ca.1880-1970: The Wanderings of "The Gypsy Laddie" (Child, Sharp, Coffin, Bronson)
13. William Billings and the New Psalmody, 1770-1794 (Billings, Gould)
14. Daniel Read on Pirating and "Scientific Music," ca. 1790-1830
15. Padre Narciso Durán Describes Musical Training at the Mission San Jose, 1813-1815
16. Moravian Musical Life at Bethlehem in the 1800s (Henry, Till, Bowne)
17. Reverend Burkitt Brings Camp Meeting Hymns from Kentucky to North Carolina in 1803
18. John Fanning Watson and The Errors in Methodist Worship (1819)
19. Reverend James B. Finley and Mononcue Sing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" in 1823
20. Turn-of-the Century Theater Songs from Reinagle, Rowson, and Carr: "America, Commerce, and Freedom" and "The Little Sailor Boy"/1830-1870
21. Thomas D. Rice Acts Out "Jim Crow" and "Cuff," in the 1830s
22. William M. Whitlock, Banjo Player for the Virginia Minstrels in the 1850s
23. Edwin P. Christy, Stephen Foster, and "Ethiopian Minstrelsy"
24. Stephen Foster's Legacy, ca. 1845-1960 (Foster, Gordon, Robb, Simpson, Willis, Galli-Curci, Kuller and Webster, Charles)
25. The Fasola Folk, The Southern Harmony and The Sacred Harp, ca. 1830-1860 (Walker, White, and King )
26. A Sidebar into the Discovery of Shape-Note Music by a National Audience (Jackson, the 1991 Edition)
27. The Boston Public Schools Set a National Precedent in Music Education in 1837
28. Music Education for American Girls in the 1850s
29. Lorenzo Da Ponte Recruits an Italian Opera Company for New York (1831)
30. Early Expressions of Cultural Nationalism in the 1850s (Hopkins, Fry, Putnam's Monthly)/31. John S. Dwight Remembers How He and His Circle "Were But Babes in Music"
32. George Templeton Strong Hears the American Premiere of Beethoven's Fifth in 1841
33. German Americans Adapting and Contributing to Musical Life in the Mid 1800s
34. Emil Klauprecht's German-American novel, Cincinnati, oder die Geheimnisse des Westens, 1854
35. P. T. Barnum and the Jenny Lind Fever in 1850
36. Miska Hauser, Hungarian Violinist, Pans For Musical Gold in 1853
37. From the Journals of Louis Moreau Gottschalk
38. The 'Four-Part Blend' of the Hutchinson Family
39. Walt Whitman's Conversion to Opera in the 1850s
40. Clara Kellogg and the Memoirs of an American Prima Donna in the 1860s and '70s
41. Frederick Douglass from My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855
42. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Two Scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852
43. From Slave Songs of the United States, 1867
44. A Sidebar into Memory: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
45. George F. Root Recalls How He Wrote a Classic Union Song
46. A Confederate Girl's Diary during the Civil War
47. Soldier-Musicians from the North and the South Recall Duties on the Front
48. Patrick S. Gilmore and the Golden Age of Bands (Newspaper review, Herbert)
49. Ella Sheppard Moore, a Fisk Jubilee Singer in the 1870s
50. Theodore Thomas and His Musical Manifest Destiny (Rose Fay Thomas, Theodore Thomas)/1880-1920
51. John Philip Sousa -Excerpts from his Autobiography
52. Why is a Good March like a Marble Statue? (Pryor, Fennell)
53. Willa Cather Mourns the Passing of the Small-Town Opera House
54. Henry Lee Higginson and the Founding of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881
55. American Classical Music Goes to the Paris World's Fair, 1889
56. George Chadwick's Ideals for Composing Classical Concert Music in the 1890s
57. Late 19th-Century Cultural Nationalism: The Paradigm of Dvorák (Creelman, Paine, Burleigh)
58. Henry Krehbiel Explains a Critic's Craft and a Listener's Duty in 1896
59. Amy Fay Tackles the "Woman Question" in 1900
60. Amy Beach, Composer, on "Why I Chose My Profession" (1914)
61. Edward MacDowell, Poet-Musician, Remembered (Currier, Gilman)
62. Paul Rosenfeld's Manifesto for American Composers, 1916
63. From the Writings of Charles Ives/64, Frederic Louis Ritter Looks for "the People's Song" (1884)
65. Emma Bell Miles on "Some Real American Music" (1905)
66. Frances Densmore and the Documentation of American Indian Songs and Poetry
67. A Sidebar into National Cultural Policy: The Federal Cylinder Project (1979)
68. Charles K. Harris on Writing for Tin Pan Alley
69. Scott Joplin, Ragtime Visionary (Scott Joplin, Lottie Joplin)
70. A Sidebar into the Ragtime Revival of the 1970s: William Bolcom reviews The Collected Works of Scott Joplin
71. James Reese Europe Credits "Men of His Blood with Introducing Modern Dances" in the 1910s
72. Irving Berlin on "Love-Interest" As a Commodity in Popular Songs (1915)
73. Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton Describes New Orleans and Its Jazz Scene, 1920-1950
74. Bessie Smith, Artist and Blues Singer (Press notice, Bailey, Schuller)
75. Thomas Andrew Dorsey "Brings the People Up" and Carries Himself Along
76. Louis Armstrong in His Own Words
77. Gilbert Seldes Waves the Flag of Pop
78. Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer
79. Carl Stalling: Master of Cartoon Music: An Interview
80. A Sidebar into Postmodernism: John Zorn Turns Carl Stalling into a Prophet
81. Alec Wilder Writes Lovingly about Jerome Kern
82. George Gershwin Surveys "Fifty Years of American Music"
83. William Grant Still, Pioneering African American Composer (Still, Locke, Still)
84. The Inimitable Henry Cowell as described by the Irrepressible Nicolas Slonimsky
85. Ruth Crawford on "Dissonant Music"
86. "River Sirens, Lion Roars, All Music to Varèse"
87. Leopold Stokowski and "Debatable Music"
88. Henry Leland Clark on the Composer's Collective
89. Marc Blitzstein In and Out of the Treetops of The Cradle Will Rock
90. Samuel Barber and the Controversy around the Premiere of Adagio for Strings (Downes, Pettis, Menotti, Harris)
92. Arthur Berger Divides Aaron Copland into Two Styles
93. Aaron Copland on the "The Personality of Stravinsky"
94. Roger Sessions Describes the American Period of Arnold Schoenberg (Sessions, Schoenberg, Sessions)
95. Uncle Dave Macon, Banjo Trickster at the Grand Ole Opry
96. The Bristol Sessions and Country Music
97. A Sidebar into the Folk Revival: Harry Smith's Canon of "Old-Time" Recordings
98. Zora Neale Hurston on "Spirituals and Neo-Spirituals"
99. Emma Dusenbury, Source Singer, Describes her Hard Times (1941)
100. John and Alan Lomax Propose a "Canon for American Folk Song" (1947)
101. Woody Guthrie Praises the "Spunkfire" Attitude of a Folk Song (1948)
102. Fred Astaire Dances like a Twentieth-Century American (Williams)
103. The Innovations of Oklahoma! (de Mille, Engel)
104. Duke Ellington on Swing as a Way of Life
105. Malcolm X Recalls the Years of Swing
106. The Many Faces of Billie Holiday (Holiday, Wilson, Bennett)
107. Ralph Ellison and the Birth of Bebop at Minton's, 1950-1975
108. Ella Fitzgerald On Stage (Peterson)
109. Leonard Bernstein Finds His Way to the American Musical
110. Stephen Sondheim on Writing "Theater Lyrics"
111. Muddy Waters Explains "Why It Doesn't Pay to Run from Trouble"
112. Elvis Presley in the Eye of Musical Twister (newspaper reviews, Gould, Lewis)
113. Chuck Berry in His Own Words
114. Greil Marcus and the New Rock Criticism in the 1970s
115. The Five String Banjo: Hints from the 1960s Speed-Master, Earl Scruggs
116. Pete Seeger, a TCUSAPSS, "Sings Out!"
117. Bob Dylan Turns Liner Notes into Poetry
118. Janis Joplin Grabs Pieces of Our Hearts (Joplin, Graham)
119. "Handcrafting the Grooves" in the Studio: Aretha Franklin at Muscle Shoals (Wexler)
120. Jimi Hendrix, Virtuoso of Electricity (Hendrix, Bloomfield)
121. Amiri Baraka Theorizes a Black Nationalist Aesthetic
122. Charles Reich on The Music of "Consciousness III"
123. McCoy Tyner on "The Jubilant Experience of John Coltrane's Classic Quartet
124. Miles Davis - Excerpts from his Autobiography
125. A Vietnam Vet Remembers Rocking and Rolling in the Mud of War (Rodriguez, Beaudoin and Rodriguez)
126. George Crumb and Black Angels--"A Quartet in Time of War"
127. Milton Babbitt on Electronic Music (Brody and Miller, Babbitt)
128. Edward T. Cone Satirizes Music Theory's New Vocabulary in the 1960s
129. Mario Davidovsky, An Introduction (Chasalow)
130. Elliot Carter on the 'Different Time Worlds' in String Quartets No. 1 and 2
131. John Cage, Words and Music For Changes (Cage, Anderson)
132. Harold Schonberg on "Art and Bunk, Matter and Anti Matter"
133. Pauline Oliveros, Composer and Teacher
134. Steve Reich on "Music as a Gradual Process," 1975-2000
135. Star Wars meets Wagner (Williams, Tomlinson)
136. Tom Johnson--What is Minimalism Really About?
137. Morton Feldman and His West German Fan Base (Feldman, Post)
138. Philip Glass and the Roots of Reform Opera
139. Laurie Anderson, Performance Artist (Anderson, Gordon)
140. Meredith Monk and the Revelation of Voice
141. Recapturing the Soul of the American Orchestra (Duffy, Tower)
142. Two Economists Measure the Impact of Blind Auditions between 1960 and 2000
143. John Harbison on Modes of Composing
144. Wynton Marsalis on Learning from the Past for the Sake of the Present
145. John Adams, an American Master
146. The Incorporation of the American Folklife Center
147. Daniel Boorstin's Welcoming Remarks at the Conference on Ethnic Recordings in America (1977)
148. Willie Colon on "Conscious Salsa"
149. The Accordion Travels Through "Roots Music" (Savoy)
150. Santiago Jiménez, a Patriarch of Conjunto
151. Gloria Anzaldúa on "Vistas" y corridos: My Native Tongue
152. Contemporary Native American Music and the Pine Ridge Reservation (Porcupine Singers, Frazier)
153. MTV and the Music Video (MoMA Exhibition of 1985, Hoberman)
154. Turning Points in the Career of Michael Jackson (Jackson, Jones)
155. Sally Banes Explains Why Breaking is Hard to Do
156. Two Members of Public Enemy Discuss Sampling and Copyright Law
157. DJ Q-bert, Master of Turntable Music (Chin)
158. A Press Release from the Country Music Association (1997)
159. Ephemeral Music: Napster's Congressional Testimony (2000)

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

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Special Features

contains articles never before printed, and some never before printed since their original publication
uniquely connects theory and practice of American music
juxtaposes multiple points of view to provoke discussion