Music Cultures In The United States

Music Cultures in the United States is a basic textbook for an Introduction to American Music course. Taking a new, fresh approach to the study of American music, it is divided into three parts. In the first part, historical, social, and cultural issues are discussed, including how music history is studied; issues of musical and social identity; and institutions and processes affecting music in the U.S. The heart of the book is devoted to American musical cultures: American Indian; European; African American; Latin American; and Asian American. Each cultural section has a basic introductory article, followed by case studies of specific musical cultures. Finally, global musics are addressed, including Classical Musics and Popular Musics, as they have been performed in the U.S.. Each article is written by an expert in the field, offering in-depth, knowledgeable, yet accessible writing for the student. The accompanying CD offers musical examples tied to each article. Pedagogic material includes chapter overviews, questions for study, and a chronoloogy of key musical events in American music and definitions in the margins.

'Music in the United States' is a basic textbook for any introduction to American music course. Each American music culture is covered with an introductory article and case studies of the featured culture.

Music Cultures in the United States is a basic textbook for an Introduction to American Music course. Taking a new, fresh approach to the study of American music, it is divided into three parts. In the first part, historical, social, and cultural issues are discussed, including how music history is studied; issues of musical and social identity; and institutions and processes affecting music in the U.S. The heart of the book is devoted to American musical cultures: American Indian; European; African American; Latin American; and Asian American. Each cultural section has a basic introductory article, followed by case studies of specific musical cultures. Finally, global musics are addressed, including Classical Musics and Popular Musics, as they have been performed in the U.S.. Each article is written by an expert in the field, offering in-depth, knowledgeable, yet accessible writing for the student. The accompanying CD offers musical examples tied to each article. Pedagogic material includes chapter overviews, questions for study, and a chronoloogy of key musical events in American music and definitions in the margins.

Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Project is a national project to locate, identify, preserve and make accessible the literary contributions of U.S. Hispanics from colonial times through 1960 in what today comprises the fifty states of the United States.

Folding a River, a collection of elegies, shows a pleasing range of free-verse forms that develop themes sustained throughout: loss, exile, myth, landscape. Kawita Kandpal’s poems are explorations of East–West cultures, taking her into an emo-mythic place not to be found on any map. Kandpal’s mood in Folding a River is melancholy, articulated with intelligence and grace, and her phrasing can rise to the level of proverb: “This time next year you will have evolved into an idea.” In its personal evocations of geographical and linguistic exile from the subcontinent, centered on a lost father, her work recalls that of Li-Young Lee, yet with a feminine perspective often haunting in its own right: “tenderly / taking back the mistakes of men.”

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: All American music reflects the landscape from which it springs and as that landscape changes, chewed up by the developments and industry and environmental disasters, as the air we heave in and out of our lungs is filled with new particles, as the water we drink gets its fluoride levels regulated and mineral content tweaked, it makes perfect sense that American music becomes slicker, more machinated, less like reality. We are all subject to our environs, fashioned and chiseled and sanded into shapes We have highways for arteries and clouds for brains and sticks for bones, The sounds we make are Americana. As one of the first musical expressions of the United States, country music represents the values and ideals on which the nation was founded. Country music can be seen as the epitome of the American Dream. It has its origins in the 19th century, when cowboys were working in the fields and riding through the lonely prairie, an image that has been romanticized by numerous Hollywood movies. This thesis focuses on country music as a genre as well as the identity which it represents and by which audience and performers are linked. Country music can be regarded as the music of Southern working class Americans. Since before the Civil War, the South has always been looked down upon as being primitive, simple-minded, and extremely religious. Having its roots in the South, country music has had to face substantial criticism in terms of unsophistication and over-sentimentalization. Due to a shift in national economic power, the United States have become increasingly Southernized, both culturally and musically. Southern culture and identity have become desirable. This phenomenon allowed country music to shed its dubious reputation and gain popularity across the country. This paper will shine a light on the American South as a cultural region that has more to offer than what meets the eye. Southern working class culture and its core values are going to be described and put in context with country music as a form of cultural expression. Central themes in American country music are family, love, heartbreak, work, friends, religion, and patriotism. Characteristic for the country music genre are its narrative structures, which by telling a story, enhance its ability to form a collective identity as well as a connection between the narrator, the performer, and the audience. However, country musicians are not solely messengers of the [...]

The Music of Multicultural America explores the intersection of performance, identity, and community in a wide range of musical expressions. Fifteen essays explore traditions that range from the Klezmer revival in New York, to Arab music in Detroit, to West Indian steelbands in Brooklyn, to Kathak music and dance in California, to Irish music in Boston, to powwows in the midwestern plains, to Hispanic and native musics of the Southwest borderlands. Many chapters demonstrate the processes involved in supporting, promoting, and reviving community music. Others highlight the ways in which such American institutions as city festivals or state and national folklife agencies come into play. Thirteen themes and processes outlined in the introduction unify the collection's fifteen case studies and suggest organizing frameworks for student projects. Due to the diversity of music profiled in the book--Mexican mariachi, African American gospel, Asian West Coast jazz, women's punk, French-American Cajun, and Anglo-American sacred harp--and to the methodology of fieldwork, ethnography, and academic activism described by the authors, the book is perfect for courses in ethnomusicology, world music, anthropology, folklore, and American studies. Audio and visual materials that support each chapter are freely available on the ATMuse website, supported by the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University.

Rock and roll music evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and 1950s, as a combination of African American blues, country, pop, and gospel music produced a new musical genre. Even as it captured the ears of the nation, rock and roll was the subject of controversy and contention. The music intertwined with the social, political, and economic changes reshaping America and contributed to the rise of the youth culture that remains a potent cultural force today. A comprehensive understanding of post-World War II U.S. history would be incomplete without a basic knowledge of this cultural phenomenon and its widespread impact. In this short book, bolstered by primary source documents, Mitchell K. Hall explores the change in musical style represented by rock and roll, changes in technology and business practices, regional and racial implications of this new music, and the global influences of the music. The Emergence of Rock and Roll explains the huge influence that one cultural moment can have in the history of a nation.