Tag Archives: American

Music Identity Crisis in the Americas

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In Douglas Shadle’s Orchestrating the Nation, he opens up the discussion on unpacking what the national musical identity of the United States actually is. He argues along with multiple perspectives that the definition of the US musical identity changes through time. He makes a point to include a perspective stating that when talking about minority groups in the United States such as “other American residents–indigenous peoples and those of African heritage, for example–also played little role in these discussions until the end of the century, and only then primarily as objects under discussion, not participating subjects within it” <6> (Shadle, 8). Even today, this furthers the question, “were they American at all” (8)?

This gets us into the conversation of what is considered “American music”. In the nineteenth century some would say that folk songs were considered just that, “cultivated” music, as long as it was imbued with a national or folk “character” (Shadle, 6). Could this count as “true” American musical style? The concept of nationalism plays a huge role and question whether Aaron Copland or Charles Ives created an “ideal American sound” (7). Bernd Sponheuer, a German musicologist, argued that “national identity is not “an empirically demonstrable musical trait derived from style criticism.” Rather, it is constructed” (8). Critic Virgil Thomson addressed such concerns “that to write American music, one must simply be American and “then write any kind of music you wish” (8).

The topic of immigrant musicians specifically from Europe are said to have made a large impact on the music in America, but what of the many other immigrant groups that inhabit America today? Are they only considered American if they are named citizens of the United States of America or does the number of years of living in America mean nothing, even if they have been living here for practically their entire lives? Does the color of their skin erase their entire identity? Shadle reminds us, “should they assimilate into the culture of the English-speaking ruling class (8)?”

Cepeda ‘s book dives into the impact that talented Columbian artists such as “Shakira, Andrea Echeverri of Aterciopelados, and Carlos Vives” have had in the United States, Latin America, and its national identity, then “Cepeda argues that music is a powerful arbitrator of memory and transnational identity” <1>(Cepeda). Harrison’s article discusses the revelation of “how an evocation of place functions in the practice of religious life within commercial southern (white) gospel music and fundamentalist Protestantism” <2>(Harrison).

Meanwhile, Hess’s perspective on the “Latin American opinion on Copland’s cultural diplomacy” challenges the US perspective” <3>(Hess) going into the crisis of modernism in Argentina and Copland’s vision of Latin American music which is “one rooted in essentialism and folkloric nationalism and which ultimately prevailed in the United States throughout the late twentieth century” (Hess)<3>. A different perspective is seen through the Brazilian lens on the “music and cartoons in Brazil : complementarity in the representation of national identity” (l’Hoeste)<4>. Lastly, Knights is a melting pot for the different places in Americas and around the world fusion of music for national identity and its critiques (Knights)<5>. All encompassing I want to leave you with a full circle moment with Shandle’s reminder that “listeners constructed the nation from the inside out” (Shadle, 9).

  1. Cepeda, Maria. Musical ImagiNation: U.S-Colombian Identity and the Latin Music Boom. NYU Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.18574/9780814772904. <1>
  2. Harrison, Douglas. “From Arkansas with Love: Evangelical Crisis Management and Southern (White) Gospel Music.” Southern Spaces, 2014, np–np. https://doi.org/10.18737/M7WC8F.<2>
  3. Hess, Carol A. “Copland in Argentina: Pan Americanist Politics, Folklore, and the Crisis in Modern Music.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 66, no. 1 (2013): 191–250. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2013.66.1.191.<3>
  4. l’Hoeste, Hector D. Fernandez, Pablo Vila, and Hector D. Fernandez l’Hoeste. Sound, Image, and National Imaginary in the Construction of Latin/o American Identities. Edited by Hector D. Fernandez l’Hoeste and Pablo Vila. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2018.<4>
  5. Knights, Vanessa. Music, National Identity and the Politics of Location: Between the Global and the Local. 1st ed. United Kingdom: Routledge, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315596914.<5>
  6. Shadle, Douglas. 2015. Orchestrating the Nation. Oxford University Press.<6>

Pete Seeger and Social Change

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Pete Seeger performing on stage with a banjo in Yorktown, NY.1

Pete Seeger was an American singer, songwriter, folk song collector, and social activist. After his death in 2014, most people today credit Pete Seeger as “one of the most important American musical voices of the 20th century.”2 This reputation that Seeger maintains was not always the case. At one point during his 70 year career, Seeger was a member of the communist party in the United States and was convicted for contempt of Congress after defying the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s.3 He managed to completely revise his reputation during his career and he “lends support to the argument that reputations are radically malleable, even when the figure has not changed dramatically.”

At the beginning of his career in the 1940s, Seeger would often perform at leftist rallies and became well known amongst communist groups. After Seeger began to have accusations of his leftist beliefs, those who were against him had a great effect on his reputation because those who defended Seeger also became the target of attacks. By 1953, Seeger’s record label had dropped him and, his current negative reputation “caused Seeger to be banned from many mainstream venues either because there were outspoken anti-Communists to oppose him or because venues wished to avoid potential controversy.”4

Seeger’s reputation began to change in the 1960s with the resurgence of folk music and emerging social movements. Eventually, the movements Seeger participated in began to gain social favor. While Seeger was shunned from many mainstream performance venues, he performed at colleges instead for a “younger generation that was ready to adopt figures who would challenge the status quo.”5 His music reflected many social concerns of the younger generation and he sang about “the labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s, and for environmental and antiwar causes in the 1970s and beyond.”6 One of his most notable songs is “We Shall Overcome,” which was adapted from old spirituals and became a civil rights anthem.

During the time he was actively releasing music and fighting for these causes which he believed in, he was still ignored and not taken seriously by many in the older generations because they were not taking him seriously. They believed he was “free to sing whatever he likes because this saintly old man can hardly be ‘seriously’ proposing rebellion.”7 They were wrong. This disagreement still happens very frequently in today’s society as well, both in music and other social platforms. There are many in today’s present society that overlook the voices of younger generations and assume no harm can be done or change cannot be made. Many cultures of people are constantly underestimated by those with white superiority who believe they are untouchable until it’s too late to realize they are not.

Bibliography

Bromberg, Minna, and Gary Alan Fine. “Resurrecting the Red: Pete Seeger and the Purification of Difficult Reputations.” Social Forces 80, no. 4 (2002): 1135–55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3086503.

Kavallines, James. [Pete Seeger, full-length portrait, performing on stage at Yorktown Heights High School, Yorktown, N.Y.] / World Journal Tribune photo by James Kavallines. Photograph. Washington, D. C. , February 2, 1967. Library of Congress.

Pareles, Jon. “Pete Seeger, Champion of Folk Music and Social Change, Dies at 94.” The New York Times, January 28, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/arts/music/pete-seeger-songwriter-and-champion-of-folk-music-dies-at-94.html.

Robb, Alice. “The History of Pete Seeger’s Reputation Is the History of the Past 70 Years.” The New Republic, September 26, 2023. https://newrepublic.com/article/116379/pete-seegers-reputation-shows-history-past-70-years.

1James Kavallines, [Pete Seeger, Full-Length Portrait, Performing on Stage at Yorktown Heights High School, Yorktown, N.Y.] / World Journal Tribune Photo by James Kavallines., photograph (Washington, D. C. , February 2, 1967), Library of Congress.

2Alice Robb, “The History of Pete Seeger’s Reputation Is the History of the Past 70 Years,” The New Republic, September 26, 2023, https://newrepublic.com/article/116379/pete-seegers-reputation-shows-history-past-70-years.

3Jon Pareles, “Pete Seeger, Champion of Folk Music and Social Change, Dies at 94,” The New York Times, January 28, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/arts/music/pete-seeger-songwriter-and-champion-of-folk-music-dies-at-94.html.

4 Minna Bromberg, and Gary Alan Fine. “Resurrecting the Red: Pete Seeger and the Purification of Difficult Reputations.” Social Forces 80, no. 4 (2002): 1135–55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3086503.

5Minna Bromberg, and Gary Alan Fine. “Resurrecting the Red: Pete Seeger and the Purification of Difficult Reputations.” Social Forces 80, no. 4 (2002): 1135–55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3086503.

6Jon Pareles, “Pete Seeger, Champion of Folk Music and Social Change, Dies at 94,” The New York Times, January 28, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/arts/music/pete-seeger-songwriter-and-champion-of-folk-music-dies-at-94.html.

7Minna Bromberg, and Gary Alan Fine. “Resurrecting the Red: Pete Seeger and the Purification of Difficult Reputations.” Social Forces 80, no. 4 (2002): 1135–55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3086503.

What Minstrelsy Means For American Identity

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In my research of black minstrel troupes, it has become obvious that American pop culture is infused with references to minstrelsy. Although this influence becomes obvious when it is pointed out, I would like to propose a claim that might not be as readily accepted. Not only is minstrelsy heavily involved in American media, the influence of the minstrel show is a pillar of American art and media. In other words, elements of minstrelsy actually contribute to what it means for a piece of media to be “American”.

The American-ness of the minstrel show and minstrel influences can be seen in the perception of the minstrel show from audiences abroad. In my own mapping of black minstrel shows, I noticed very quickly that these shows were mostly plotted in the U.S. Perhaps this article posted in the Freeman newspaper might give more insight into why that is.

This article posted in the the Freeman in Indianapolis, Indiana on February 8, 1902 titled “The Negro Performer Abroad” explains how the minstrel show was not well received abroad. The article writes: “The English and Australians, by the way, are very austere and reserved as regards the manner of entertainment of histrons, therefore that which we here consider clever, they, over there regard indifferent and treat with almost heartless disdain. Little wonder then that early Negro minstrels met a cold reception and proved a ‘frost’”. 1

This indifferent reception shows us the extent to which American media and humor differentiated from that of Europeans and Australians. In other words, this humor is strictly American. 

We can see this inclusion of minstrel influences as well in other forms of media such as animation in more sinister, more blatant ways. For example, in Ammond’s book “Birth of an industry: blackface minstrelsy and the rise of American animation” he argues that certain characters, such as Mickey Mouse, carried “all (or many) of the markers of minstrelsy while rarely referring directly to the tradition itself”. 2 For example, in this video of the first Disney animation “Steamboat Willie”, we see that Mickey is whistling a minstrel tune and also wears the distinctive white gloves worn by minstrel performers.

 

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iep9EJ9H1aU&ab_channel=amandawelling

 

These examples of the influence of minstrelsy on American media show how truly interlaced it is with American identity. The inclusion of minstrelsy can really be seen as a staple of American identity. Although this fact is incredibly troubling, by understanding its implications, we can begin to uncover and become critical about the nature of American identity itself.

Who gets to be American?

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People of color are often treated as as outsiders and struggle to be viewed as fully American, rather than a hyphenated version of it. Much of this is rooted in the fact that it was not until relatively recently that people of color in the United States were even considered citizens. Now, even those who are American citizens constantly have to prove that they are “American” enough. A key characteristic of a “normal” American that is implied but never explicitly stated is that one must be white. Without whiteness, loyalty to the United States as well as true “Americanness” is always questioned.

The assumption that one must be white to be American is visible in the history of black spirituals. In Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music by Henry Edward Krehbiel, the exclusion of black spirituals within the label of “American folk music” is highlighted. Krehibel explains how many writers acknowledge the “interesting character of the songs, but refuse them the right to be called American” (Krehibel, 1962). This denial of “American” status is continually brought up throughout Krehibel’s writing. After all, “they were created in America with American influences and by people who are Americans in the same sense that any other element in our population is American” (Krehibel, 1962). Well, all except one thing: they weren’t white.

“Travelling Scraps” from the Freedom’s Journal in 1828

 

Creating boundaries to determine who is and is not really American is evident in this article from a newspaper from the Freedom’s Journal written in 1828. This was written by a black man educated in the North about his travel experience to Maryland, a state where slavery was still widely present at the time. When describing his experience in Baltimore he states that a black man from the north can never feel at home because:

 

 

“when we come to talk of liberty – of the rights of citizenship – of his evidence in a court of justice against his fairer brethren, we cannot but perceive that there is little justice doled out to [a man of colour]”

It does not matter that this man is from the north and educated. He still will not be treated as having the same rights of citizenship as a white man. This history around citizenship and rights of black people contributes to the modern conception of who is “American”. The deeply embedded racism in slavery and later in determining citizenship status caused black people to struggle to gain American citizenship. This contributes to the reason why the default race of an American is white. This notion, however, is not only attributed to citizenship status, as even currently, people of color who are American citizens since birth still have to prove that they belong. Maintaining whiteness as the norm prevents people of color from being included in the status of “American” just as black spirituals were excluded from being considered American folk music. This exclusion helps to maintain the unjust treatment of people of color in the United States by pinning them as outsiders and not truly American.

 

Sources:

Fort Dearborn Publishing Co. Map of the United States of America. 1901. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/3f4636795.

Henry Edward Krehbiel. Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1962.

“Travelling Scraps.” Freedom’s Journal (New York, NY), August 15, 1828.

Irving Berlin

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As the composer of such quintessentially American songs such as “God Bless America” “White Christmas” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, Irving Berlin’s music can be quickly defined as American music. In spite of his exceptional ability to capture the spirit of America, he was born in Belarus formerly the Soviet Union (although his family emigrated to the United States when he was five).

Irving Berlin composed ballads, dance numbers, novelty tunes and love songs that defined American popular song. Later in life, Berlin was credited to being a songwriter who reflected the feeling of the crowd. In saying this, Berlin could capture that common American talk and made those words and feelings into poetry and music that was simple and graceful and easy to understand and connect to.

Berlin wrote his first song “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” in 1911 later receiving great acclaim and eventually selling over one million copies of sheet music.

Screen Shot 2015-04-13 at 11.29.08 PMScreen Shot 2015-04-13 at 11.29.36 PM

Not only acclaimed for his brilliant compositional style, Berlin was also attributed to his skillful ability to write his own text. In each piece his words could relate to any listener and earned a generally high approval of any work that he did. Over five decades Irving Berlin was able to keep up with the trending styles and wrote music and lyrics for close to 1,000 songs during his lifetime.

Through the myriad of genres and audiences to which he contributed, Irving Berlin assimilated into the American culture for which he was one of the primary providers. In 1988 at Carnegie Hall, famous musicians speakers and fans gathered to commemorate Berlin’s works on his 100th birthday. Irving Berlin lived to be 101.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uV4frZIkIQ&feature=player_embedded

 

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“Irving Berlin’s Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” Irving Berlin’s Alexander’s Ragtime Band. :: Frances G. Spencer Collection of American Popular Sheet Music. Frances G. Spencer Collection of American Popular Sheet Music. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. <http://contentdm.baylor.edu/cdm/ref/collection/fa-spnc/id/18342>.

“IRVING BERLIN’S 100TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION .28.” YouTube. YouTube. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uV4frZIkIQ&feature=player_embedded>.

 

Amy Beach: musician in spite of her family

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Today many listeners of classical music are familiar with the music or at least the name of Amy Beach. A prodigy from a very young age who came to fame through her virtuosic piano performances made her lasting mark in her compositions. Her life was defined by her gender because women, especially those of Beach’s social standing, were not to support themselves. Even though her parents were distinctly aware of Amy’s talents, they stuck with the status quo plan for young women of the time: some formal schooling, lessons in the arts, and marriage.[1]

In her article published in many women’s magazines in the early 1900s she does not fault her family for so obviously holding her back when she had so much to do in music. Rather she saw her mother’s education style as a way to ease the young prodigy into music without becoming overwhelmed. Beach’s article almost exclusively focuses on the relationship between Amy and her mother, as well as her career as a performer and composer.[2]

Beach’s success as a musician almost depends on this sort of frame that women were expected to live in. There is no doubt that Beach could have done amazing things if afforded the right to a fancy musical education that men had available to them. However, her affluent family history and unique life story allowed (or forced) her to stand out among other women. I mention forced because Amy hardly had any choice in her study of music or the path it would take.[3]

Beach had the opportunity to become a self-taught musician after her little formal training because she did not have the duties of a domestic wife like many other women. After her husband’s death in 1910 she was able to take many tours of Europe and make her name even larger.

All of these facts make for a confusing picture of Amy Beach. On one hand we have a woman who is a prisoner in her time where women aren’t allowed to study music at high levels and must submit their wills to their parents and husbands. On the other hand we have Beach as a child prodigy who has led the way for other women composers after her and succeeded because of her circumstances, but could have thrived even more in a more accepting culture.

 

[1] Adrienne Fried Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian, (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1998), 298.

[2] Judith Tick ed., Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 323-327.

[3] Walter S. Jenkins, The Remarkable Mrs. Beach, American Composer, (Warren: Harmonie Park Press, 1994), 66-68.