# What's "American music"?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

A recent story: "But there's no doubt that when we listen to George Gershwin and Aaron Copland there's something more to their music, stylistically, than the traditional sound of "classical." They are very distinctly American classical. What is behind this sound?"

http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article01251301.aspx

Your thoughts?


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

"The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish."
Virgil Thomson

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/69154.Virgil_Thomson


----------



## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

It's the influence of Jazz & Blues (African/American) and possibly Bluegrass/Country (European folk mixture) in Classical music. Their newer works may be influenced by native Americans or (Asian) Indians.


----------



## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Leonard Bernstein did a great Young People's concert to answer this question.






Link to Part 2: 




Link to Part 3: 




Link to Part 4:


----------



## Guest (Jan 28, 2013)

Here's another quote from this piece:

"To organize classical pieces by their period — baroque versus romantic, for example — simply by listening is difficult. It requires a good familiarity with classical. Listening to a piece and then guessing which country it is from, then, is even more difficult. And because most countries have centuries worth of classical compositions, listening to and identifying pieces from a specific European country often becomes more an exercise in memorization than an awareness of stylistic patterns."


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Dvorak wrote the best American music.


----------



## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

Cowboy music!













Just joking!


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Music made by people who are American XD Not so hard right?


----------



## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Look no further


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

There's a lot of American art music that doesn't sound uniquely American, although there's a bunch that does. I'm just not sure it's definable. I do know that in terms of the popular song -- from Stephen Foster through Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, etc. America did something that was absolutely unique, and the jazz and African-American influences became part of it. "American" music only became American sounding when composers stopped trying to imitate European models.


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

For my more serious response, I have noticed a tendency toward clip-cloppy woodblock sounds in some American art music, as if it is emulating a Western movie soundtrack which in turn emulates the sound of horse hooves. And if we're talking about common practice American, there is also the wide harmonies denoting the big skies of the "old" West -- which is not so old actually, and lots of leaping octave, fourth and fifth intervals common to folk music. 

Anyway that just one frequent tendency, not a definition by any means.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Deleted because of bad grammar and errors. See below.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*What Is American Music?*

A few years ago I heard a fascinating explanation on what makes American music. On December 8, 2010 there was an interview on the Charlie Rose Show with Elliot Carter, Daniel Barenboim and James Levine. The interview was about Carter's new piece, _Interventions_. During the discussions, Barenboim, gave a unique definition on what constitutes American music as oppose to French or German. In a nutshell he said it is related to the sound of a language that a composer grows up with. It was such a great interview that I purchased the episode from Amazon (They only charged $1.99). I really can not transcribe everything that Barenboim said. I can not find a free copy of the entire interview on the Internet.

I think the terms of TC site would not allow me to provide a link if someone wants to purchase it. If one does a search of "Rose Elliot Carter Interview" one can find it.


----------



## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

"What Is American Music?"

It is the name of my favorite Violent Femmes song.


----------



## oogabooha (Nov 22, 2011)

"American Music" can be applied to any composer who composes any type of music from any era, as long as they are an American composer.

however, if what you meant is to ask what is the "American sound" that makes things distinctly American, then that is another story. The "American" sound goes back to our folk music (which usually nationalistic music does for any country). If you go back, you will find that the music back then (before jazz) is _very much_ like the popular music that is presented in the country today. This is because that--although we have diverted away from certain musical styles etc.--our culture and dialect are still very similar. I believe there is a component of American dialect and execution that "sounds" American and is still with us in our subconscious, whether you like it or not. What characterizes this? Well, our southern roots of slurring words and phrasing sentences seems to be a root for why our phrasing in general sounds American. I believe Bernstein touched upon this while talking about Hungarian music in a Young People's Concert. That being said, it also has to do with the arranging. Americans seem to be very direct and to-the-point, as our culture of steel-stringed folk music entails. In a general sense our arranging and way of communication is to the point.

The reason why you may not think this is what our classical music sounds like is because (until the early 1900s) a majority of composers were simply imports from Europe. Sure, they were "American" (meaning they were born/raised in America), but the way they studied and lived was essentially European. However, there are still subconscious traces of American culture and representation hidden throughout those composers as well.

The truly defining American movement turned out to be jazz, which then lent itself to the entirety of American music, and then came Americana, etc...but no matter what type of American music you seem to look at, there have always been traces of classic folk music. There seems to be an American sentimental stance on the way we speak and the way we work. This has had its times of being distinctly Manhattan (Rhapsody in Blue is a perfect but redundant example of a piece that captures an American voice), or being Louisiana (Neutral Milk Hotel comes to mind), or just feeling like the way Americans act (I feel that a lot of Elliot Carter can be attributed to this, but also Schuman).

To paraphrase, David Foster Wallace once said (about the avant-garde) that when you know something is sincere, you feel it on the ends of your nerves. Yes, there are many American composers who are simply known as American because of their place of birth, but I like to think that there is something completely nationalistic about the music, and that is embedded in our culture, dialect, and history, whether you're listening to early Black Flag, Johnny Cash, Steve Reich, N.W.A., Elliot Carter, Schuman, Gershwin, or Merritt.


----------

