The Core Repertory Of Early American Psalmody

The Wilderness, the Nation, and the Electronic Era: American Christianity and Religious Communication 1620-2000: An Annotated Bibliography contains over 2,400 annotations of books, book chapters, essays, periodical articles, and selected dissertations dealing with the various means and technologies of Christian communication used by clergy, churches, denominations, benevolent associations, printers, booksellers, publishing houses, and individuals and movements in their efforts to disseminate news, knowledge, and information about religious beliefs and life in the United States from colonial times to the present. Providing access to the critical and interpretive literature about religious communication is significant and plays a central role in the recent trend in American historiography toward cultural history, particularly as it relates to numerous collateral disciplines: sociology, anthropology, education, speech, music, literary studies, art history, and technology. The book documents communication shifts, from oral history to print to electronic and visual media, and their adaptive uses in communication networks developed over the nation's history. This reference brings bibliographic control to a large and diverse literature not previously identified or indexed.

The Cambridge History of American Music, first published in 1998, celebrates the richness of America's musical life. It was the first study of music in the United States to be written by a team of scholars. American music is an intricate tapestry of many cultures, and the History reveals this wide array of influences from Native, European, African, Asian, and other sources. The History begins with a survey of the music of Native Americans and then explores the social, historical, and cultural events of musical life in the period until 1900. Other contributors examine the growth and influence of popular musics, including film and stage music, jazz, rock, and immigrant, folk, and regional musics. The volume also includes valuable chapters on twentieth-century art music, including the experimental, serial, and tonal traditions.

Before the American Civil War, men and women who imagined a multiracial American society (social visionaries) included Protestant sacred music in their speeches and writings. Music affirmed the humanity and equality of Indians, whites and blacks and validated blacks and Indians as Americans. In contrast to dominant voices of white racial privilege, social visionaries criticized republican hypocrisy and Christian hypocrisy. Many social visionaries wrote hymns, transcending racial lines and creating a sense of equality among singers and their audience. Singing and reading Protestant sacred music encouraged community formation that led to American human rights activism in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This fully updated second edition is a selective annotated bibliography of all relevant published resources relating to church and worship music in the United States. Over the past decade, there has been a growth of literature covering everything from traditional subject matter such as the organ works of J.S. Bach to newer areas of inquiry including folk hymnology, women and African-American composers, music as a spiritual healer, to the music of Mormon, Shaker, Moravian, and other smaller sects. With multiple indices, this book will serve as an excellent tool for librarians, researchers, and scholars sorting through the massive amount of material in the field.

Thomas Hastings (1784-1872) is generally remembered as a compiler and composer of hymn tunes and anthems, but rarely is he spoken of as a prolific writer of hymn texts. Nor do many people refer to Hastings as an author, even though he penned several books and contributed numerous articles for newspapers and journals that were primarily, but not exclusively, related to his lifelong quest to reform the music used for Protestant services of worship. All of these various aspects of Hastings career are addressed in this, the first published study of Hastings life and career. The book is designed to awaken interest in this musician's contributions and to serve as a foundation upon which future studies of nineteenth-century American sacred music can build. Of particular interest is the fact that much of the material for this biographical profile has been drawn from sources not previously investigated by scholars in the field.