MUS 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Fisk Jubilee Singers, Sacred Harp, Amy Beach
MUS10 Lecture 8 – American Music and Jazz
American Music
• Music in the land of the plenty (United States)
• William Billings (1746-1800)
o Singing-school movement
o Multi-voiced compositions
o Cadences on fifths (archaic technique, not much chromaticism)
o Fasola shape-ote otatio: rudietary graphi usi otatio
▪ Different shapes indicated whether half steps or whole steps
▪ Easier for untrained singers to understand
o Major works included
▪ The New-England Psalm-Singer (1770)
▪ The Singing Master’s Assistant (1778)
▪ The Continental Harmony (1794)
▪ The Sacred Harp (1844)
• Music of the slaves
o Slaves were generally barred from learning how to read and learn music
▪ No written music, music had an oral tradition
▪ Music often performed in social ways such as with dancing
o Heterophony: more advanced homophony
o Pentatonicism: five note scales
o Fisk Jubilee Singers: sang spirituals in four-part harmony
• Amy Beach (1867-1944)
o One of the first American women composers
o Wealthy background and trained in piano and harmony
▪ But married at 18 so could not perform as much
o Major works included
▪ Gaelic Symphony (1894)
▪ Violin Sonata (1896)
▪ Piano Concerto (1899)
• Charles Ives (1874-1954)
o First American composer of international significance
o Did not depend just on music but also had insurance business
o Composed 4 symphonies
▪ The Unanswered Question (1906)
▪ Central Park in the Dark (1906)
▪ Three Places in New England (1910)
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