“Bo Weevil,” a minstrel tune by African-American musician Pink Anderson which served as a comic book tackle the impudence of an insect File dimension: 3.76 GB
Anthony Seeger – America’s Musical Heritage
Hymns, spirituals, protest songs, marketing campaign themes—music has all the time performed a strong position in American life. And befitting a rustic so numerous, American music is outlined, above all else, by a artistic mixing of types and devices, and a continuing inventiveness.
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From vaudeville and jazz to nation music and blues, listening to the sounds of the American spirit is a really distinctive option to admire centuries of the nation’s historical past in all its complexity. American music, based on Professor Anthony Seeger, has been part of the religions Individuals follow, the wars they’ve fought, the areas by which they’ve lived and labored, and the communal celebrations they’ve loved. It’s an eclectic soundtrack that faucets into the core of what it means to reside in America, and it’s a soundtrack to which musicians within the twenty first century stay indebted.
In America’s Musical Heritage, learn to hear the music of America with new ears. Produced in collaboration with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings—the Grammy Award-profitable report label of the Smithsonian Establishment that includes an enormous treasury of American vernacular music—these 12 lectures discover greater than 200 years of music that can reveal a distinct facet of the American expertise. Professor Seeger traces the origins of the American music trade; the impression of devices just like the piano and the banjo; and the myriad methods music has formed American wars, dances, elections, and public demonstrations. You’ll additionally hear informative interviews and eclectic performances from scholar-musicians, and pattern unique recordings that replicate the unbelievable richness of the American musical expertise. Via the music and tales of trailblazers like Scott Joplin, the Memphis Jug Band, Woody Guthrie, and lots of others, you’ll hear an unforgettable story of American cultural innovation.
Uncover the Energy of American Music
On the coronary heart of America’s Musical Heritage is the concept music and society are consistently intertwined. Music in the USA has been formed by centuries of human interplay and musical encounters, from the traditions of Indigenous peoples and the affect of European empires that first staked their declare on North America to political struggles for the rights of girls, employees, and different disenfranchised teams.
Professor Seeger’s lectures uncover the facility of music to show us new insights into America’s previous and current.
Music and Colonialism: The territory we name the USA mixed pre-present musical heritages from each European and Indigenous communities, leading to a tapestry of sound. For instance, native music teams would play preparations of European orchestral works equivalent to Handel’s “Water Music”; the tune “Farewell France” turned an acceptable sentiment for residents of French Louisiana after Napoleon offered the area to the USA in 1803; and Indigenous peoples have been typically educated as musicians and composers within the giant cathedrals of what’s now Mexico.
Music and Conflict: Ever because the American Revolution, music has all the time been part of navy life—and civilian life, as effectively; a number of the nation’s greatest-recognized songs emerged throughout armed conflicts. Throughout the Civil Conflict, songs have been necessary to each side. The minimal wage for area musicians within the Union military was round $17 per thirty days (greater than a personal’s pay). And Southern states confused the significance of music in making an attempt to determine a brand new nation, notably by way of songs that included “I’m Going Home to Dixie,” “The Flag of Secession,” and “God Save the South.” Either side sang “Home Sweet Home.”
Music and Religion: Spiritual variety in America produced quite a few types of singing and dancing that mirrored not simply main faiths but additionally the non secular nature of particular areas and locales. Ring shouts have been a particular kind of people non secular by which worshippers moved round a hoop, accompanied by singing, handclapping, and stamping. These ring shouts are nonetheless carried out in some small rural church buildings within the South, in addition to on the small islands alongside the coast between Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia.
Music and Hope: It’s unattainable to disregard the centuries of oppression and disenfranchisement that stay part of the American story. Even nonetheless, music was typically a supply of hope and inspiration for minority teams. African-American non secular music was a wellspring for music of political wrestle in the USA. Sure gospel songs and spirituals like “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and “We Shall Not Be Moved” regularly reworked over time into anthems for authorized and social change by way of lawful intervention.
Survey Unforgettable Kinds and Songs
At its core, America’s Musical Heritage is a superb appreciation of how distinctly American types of music got here to life and captured the ears, hearts, and our bodies of hundreds of thousands of listeners. All through Professor Seeger’s lectures, you’ll uncover how music in America developed not in a linear vogue, however reasonably by way of the adoption and reinvention of earlier varieties and regional genres.
A few of the many musical types you’ll survey on this course embrace:
Brass Bands, which within the publish-Civil Conflict years served as a badge of honor for cities and cities throughout the nation;
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Powwows, which have been public music occasions held by the Indigenous peoples of the USA and Canada, and which may final anyplace from someday to a whole week;
Nation Music, whose performers typically put on cowboy hats impressed by standard movies that includes singing cowboys, typically known as “horse operas”;
Ragtime, which synthesized African syncopation with European classical construction and concord, and which frequently included parts of marches and church hymns; and
Jazz, which introduced new alternatives, consideration, and status to performers with its emphatic give attention to musical improvisation and interpretation.
You’ll additionally study the key histories of songs you could be accustomed to—in addition to ones you’ve by no means heard earlier than, together with:
“The President’s March,” initially written to honor President-elect George Washington in 1789 and reworked in 1789 into the tune, “Hail, Columbia!,” which might grow to be the casual nationwide anthem of the USA for a lot of the 1800s;
“Amazing Grace,” a strong instance of the form of plain, direct hymns that tugged the hearts of Individuals looking for non secular steerage, and which turned very fashionable within the closing years of the Second Nice Awakening;
“Bo Weevil,” a minstrel tune by African-American musician Pink Anderson which served as a comic book tackle the impudence of an insect pest that broken the lives of Southern cotton farmers; and
“We Shall Overcome,” an anthem typically criticized for being too easy and optimistic, however which however turned adopted all over the world by disenfranchised teams.
New Musical Avenues to Discover
Each musical choice in America’s Musical Heritage comes from the gathering of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and consists of the expertise of effectively-recognized artists and lesser-recognized professionals alike. On the finish of each lecture, you’ll discover a checklist of music performed through the lecture, in addition to playlists of further listening strategies.
In almost each lecture, Professor Seeger is joined by different musicians, students, and specialists who reveal musical devices (such because the banjo and piano) and assist additional clarify the richness of American musical genres.
“Your musical heritage is shaped by the music of the communities you identify with,” says Professor Seeger. “I hope you’ll come to appreciate your heritage—and that of others who live in the United States—more than ever before.”
With America’s Musical Heritage, Professor Seeger has crafted a wealthy and rewarding course that gives new methods so that you can expertise each music and American social historical past. You’ll uncover new tunes to hum, new rhythms to faucet your ft to, and new musical avenues to discover by yourself.
