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Flashcards in American Traditions in Music Deck (12)
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1
Q

What are the two traditions of music in America?

A

1) High Art - The Opera, Symphonies, and chamber music imported from Europe
2) Lighter Music - For informal occasions at home and in public.
BOTH ARE BASICALLY DERIVATIVE FROM EUROPE

2
Q

What are parlor songs?

A

A combination of folk song and upper class operas that were intended to illicit feelings of nostalgia about the Old Country from immigrants to America.

3
Q

What is Minstrelsy?

A

When performers that were either white or black dawned blackface to act out scenes from the plantation vastly different from actual slave life. A stereotypic of that culture.

4
Q

What is the first American composer who attempts to compose in the American style?

A

Gottschalk. We get his Banjo piece which is a Piano Minstrel attempted to imitate the Banjo.

5
Q

Describe American Sacred Music during the Romantic Era.

A
  • Has to be viewed within the context of the Second Great Awakening. Camp meetings gathered whites and blacks to sing hymns and join revivals for days or weeks at a time.
  • This created the tradition of ring shout in a call and response format.
  • The Spiritual was also a huge part of this. Like Swing Low Sweet Charriot
6
Q

What is the Harlem Renaissance?

A

An attempt by African American artists to claim a high culture space of the art of their people to counteract the racism of their day.

7
Q

What is the Pentatonic scale?

A

A Five note scale.

8
Q

When is the National Conservatory of Music Founded?

A

Around 1870.

9
Q

What is the National Conservatory of Music?

A

The First American Music School. It eventually goes out of business.

10
Q

Who does the National Conservatory of Music enlist to teach American composition?

A

Dvorak. A Bohemian Composer.

11
Q

What does Dvorak think are the two key “American” styles of music?

A

Spirituals and Native American Music

12
Q

How does Dvorak’s composition style influence American music?

A
  • Dvorak is more conservative in the Romantic Era. So there is an emphasis on composing symphonies and things in line with typical forms.
  • There are Spirituals and Native American melodies inside of the pieces he composes. Influences the direction of American Music.