Music Genres and Generational Reactions

By sjwallin
  • 1564

    Protestant Settlers in America

    French Huguenots English Pilgrims (1620) and Puritans (1607).
    Psalmody: monophonic and without instruments
  • Period: to

    Colonial America & European Baroque Period

  • The Ainsworth Psalter

    Demonstrated a “medieval Catholic” way of treating psalmody: be able to sing multiple Bible verses with just a few melodies. The melodies only exist to serve as a vehicle for contemplating the words of Scripture.

  • The Bay Psalm Book & Lining-Out

    First full-length book printed in the English-speaking American colonies.
    The content of the music was further simplified.
    The technique of Lining-Out began.

  • Secular American Ballads

    Based on British song. By the early 1700s, ballads were published on broadsides.

  • American Singing Schools are established

    A result of the Lining-Out vs. Old Way Singing controversy: “Regular Singing” style is born. Presented music as an art requiring a technical background. These schools were devoted to rudimentary singing and note-reading skills.
  • Period: to

    First Great Awakening

    White protestants began to see blacks as potential Christians, allowing blacks to be taught Christian singing.

  • First church choirs in America are formed.

    As a result of singing schools, people wanted more interesting music to sing.
  • Period: to

    America & European Classical Period

  • Period: to

    Settlers start moving west and south

    Americans start settling undiscovered territories and establishing new towns.

  • The New-England Psalm-Singer by W. Billings

    A collection of over 100 original songs that struck a uniquely American chord, featuring songs named after American towns and churches as well as patriotic and anti-British themes of freedom and liberty.
  • Period: to

    American Revolutionary War

  • In the wake of war...

    Americans were less inclined to find spiritual guidance in Puritanism. Thus the performance of sacred American tunes became popular outside of church as well as inside.

  • Native American Parlor Songs:

    “The Death Song of the Cherokee Indians” is published and becomes popular.
  • Period: to

    Second Great Awakening

    Birth of camp-style revivials, during which black attendees were given space to sing, praise, and worship in their own way. It was a rare social event where whites and blacks interacted as partners, where whites accepted the customs of black expression.

  • Shape Note Notation is born

    Shape notes simplified notation and became especially popular in the American south. It created an equality between city-dwellers and uneducated rural folks.

  • White fasincation with black slave music...

    …gives rise to blackface minstrel shows.
  • Period: to

    19th Cent. Popular American Secular Music

    Minstrel songs, patriotic songs, separation songs, nostalgia songs, social reform songs. Post-Civil War songs sheet music included nostalgia songs, drinking songs, and western songs.

  • “A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns"

    First American psalter assembled by a black author for a black congregation. Included sections of call-and-response.
  • Period: to

    American Civil War & European Romantic Period

  • “The Sacred Harp"

    One of the best-selling tune books in American publishing history. Used shape note notation. Included traditional sacred songs as well as new hymns constructed from secular tunes. The arrangements are very raw and unpolished sounding--using lots of parallel fifths (very un-European), multiple text repetitions, and thick homophonic textures.

  • Massive move westward

    Almost half the American population began settling the west by this point!
  • Period: to

    American Industrialization

    The US became the world’s leading industrialized nation.

  • “Slave Songs of the United States"

    The first anthology of black spirituals collected in an effort of preservation. The work of these three authors led them to witness another black plantation worship tradition: the ring shout.

  • Fisk Jubilee Singers

    Their story...

  • Seward’s arrangement of a Black Spiritual: “Go Down Moses"

    Based on the singing of freed slaves given sanctuary at Fort Monroe in 1861, but “watered down” to be accessible to white listeners.

  • The Cakewalk

    Became a popular song of Black Culture.

  • Tin Pan Alley

    Beginning of mass production and aggressive sales of new sheet music.

  • Labor Songs start being published

  • Ragtime becomes popular...

    …among both whites and blacks through sheet music, gramophone recordings, and player-piano piano-rolls.

  • Jazz develops...

    …around 1900 in New Orleans: a blend of ragtime, jazz, West African and French Baroque styles. Wasn’t called “jazz” until 1915.

  • Blues develops...

    …as a black response to intensifying segregation laws in the south. W.C. Handy penned the first notated blues songs in 1914.

  • Radio explodes in popularity

    Thanks to the successful broadcast of the 1920 presidentaiul election from radio KDKA in Pittsburgh, 340,000 people purchased a new radio throughout the following year.

  • Mamie Smith records “Crazy Blues"

    The first recording of a blues song sung by a balck singer. It was hugely successful and started the scramble of record companies to make “race records” and female-led blues recordings.

  • White Gospel and Black Gospel develop

    White gospel thrived in rural areas and integrated aspects of rural country music. Black gospel thrived in cities and integrated elements of blues and jazz.

  • White Jazz + Country-Western

    White bandleaders led groups playing polished arrangements of blues rhythms and minimal improvisation. Meanwhile, country and western flourished, founding the Grand Ole Opry.

  • Microphones are commerically widespread...

    …giving a big boost to the recording industry and changing singing styles.