Music of Ethnic North America
MUSI 3721Y
University of Lethbridge, Calgary Campus
John Anderson
Ethnic Identity
• Ethnicity represents identity (ethnic or otherwise), and
sometimes it is manipulated for this purpose
• History is a picture of the past recreated by people in
the present for their own particular purposes, leaving
ethnic music to be reinterpreted by second and third
generation immigrants
Ethnic Identity
Preservation
• At one level, preservation
allows the best of the past
to survive, connecting
generations, and isolating
the differences between
groups
• On another level, it
romanticizes the past
•
So pieces that do not fit the
idealized model may not be
preserved
Boundaries and Regionalism
• Music is a banner of
ethnicity, a marker of
difference, and a way of
presenting boundaries,
separating the “us” from
the “them”
• Regionalism is a product
of mixture and change
• It is the opposite of
preservation and isolation
Mass-Mediated Ethnicity and the Commoditization
of Musical Style
• Polka has been a big
business in the Midwest
as an ethnic music for all
North Americans
• Consider the number of
regional polka styles
• It is a genre with a
remarkable history of
musical and social
adaptability, one that
juxtaposes aspects of both
unity and diversity in
ethnic music
Whoopee John Wilfahrt, “Aunt Ella’s Polka”
• Whoopee John Wilfahrt was
one of the greatest polka-band
leaders from the first half of the
twentieth century
• Based in New Ulm, Minnesota,
one of the most important
musical centers along the
“Polka Belt”
• Mixed German and Bohemian
(or Czech) polka sounds
• Used records and radio to
spread the music he made
famous playing for dances and
pubic events across the Upper
Midwest
Whoopee John Wilfahrt, “Aunt Ella’s Polka”
• The German sound is
most evident in the brass
instruments
• Especially the oom-pah
sound of the tuba
• The Bohemian sound finds
its expression in the
woodwinds, which play a
special role in the trio
section
Whoopee John Wilfahrt, “Aunt Ella’s Polka”
• Novelty techniques
• the wood blocks at the end
of the trio section
• Standard polka style
• AB Trio AB structure
• Each section is played once
and then repeated
Conjunto, “Flora Perdida”
• The instrumental styles
owe to the historical
presence of Czech, German,
and Austrian influences
• the accordion, which owes
its history to mass
production and
distribution in Central
Europe
• the specific use of the
guitar is reflective of its
Spanish and Mexican
heritage
• Dance music with strong
polka influence
• Text narrates Spanishspeaking life in America
Conjunto, “Flora Perdida”
• A tight succession of a
melodic pair
• more similar than
different
• hence A and A1
• The alternation is realized
by another set of pairs,
• that in which the
musicians play without
song and that in which
they sing
• Virtuosic performance on
the instruments
punctuates throughout
Amish Hymn: “Lebt Friedsam, Sprach
Christus” (Christ Said, Live in Peace)
• Reveals a style of singing
that combines written and
oral traditions
• The Amish sing from the
Ausbund, a collection of
hymn texts that dates from
the sixteenth century
• Found its way to North
America and remains in
print until the present
Amish Hymn: “Lebt Friedsam, Sprach
Christus” (Christ Said, Live in Peace)
• Ausbund hymns are
strophic
• They combine sacred
texts with more narrative
accounts of events and
individuals in the Amish
past
• Some hymns contain
hundreds of verses, and
because of the slow,
sustained melodic style,
they may last an hour or
longer
Amish Hymn: “Lebt Friedsam, Sprach
Christus” (Christ Said, Live in Peace)
• Melodies do not appear in
the hymnbooks
• Necessary to rely on
memory
• The leader initiates a
melodic line at the
beginning of a verse and
in the middle
• Is quickly joined by the
other members of the
congregation
Amish Hymn: “Lebt Friedsam, Sprach
Christus” (Christ Said, Live in Peace)
• Such “lining-out” mixes
textures that are unison
and heterophonic
• intentionally articulating
tones slightly out of
synchrony
• Congregational singing
therefore becomes a
means of gathering voices
for expressing communal
memory
“Paddy Works on the Railroad”
• An immigrant ballad of
stereotypical Irish
American railroad work
• “Paddy” is used to signify
many immigrants
• sometimes with prejudice
but in this case with
sympathy
• An anthem to protest the
oppression of the workingclass Irish
“Paddy Works on the Railroad”
• The text borrows stylistic
markers of broadside
ballads
• 1842-1847 the Irish
immigrant traded the Old
World for the New World in
an attempt to stave off the
starvation of the Potato
Famine
• Paddy therefore
immigrates in 1842, meets
his wife, Biddie McGee in
1843, works ceaselessly in
1845, and loses his wife in
1847, after she has given
birth to numerous children
“Paddy Works on the Railroad”
• Banjo sound creates drive
• Inspires the audience to
join him in brief refrain
• Undergoes a
transformation
• Makes it a folk song whose
issues of hard work and
struggle reflect the
conditions of the entire
American working class
Charles Mingus: “Fables of Faubus”
• The style of playing in this
example is both local and
eclectic
• It is local because ensemble
director, Mwata Bowden, is
one of the greatest living
exponents of the complex jazz
style of the Association for the
Advancement of Creative
Musicians (AACM)
• Took root in Chicago in the
1960s
• Fosters an approach to
composition and improvisation
that allowed individual
musicians their own personal
freedom with an ensemble
structure
Charles Mingus: “Fables of Faubus”
• The three sections given
over to soloists
• guitar, saxophones, and
percussion
• all treat the thematic
material distinctly, but
they share a common
approach
• Moves between
fragmenting and
reassembling the themes
and textures of Mingus’s
compositional idea
Charles Mingus: “Fables of Faubus”
• The ensemble as a whole
concentrates on
maintaining a longer and
more expansive arch
• Allows the listener to find
each time when the head
(tune) returns
• Accordingly, the
performance encourages
the musicians to remain
rooted in tradition and to
push the jazz style to their
individual limits
Blind Lemon’s Penitentiary Blues
• The migration of the blues
from the Mississippi Delta
to Chicago was one of the
most powerful metaphors
for the African American
experience in the twentieth
century
• Blues is a music of
resistance against racism
and the degradation of
poverty
• The structure of the blues
depends on aspects of both
text and musical form
Blind Lemon’s Penitentiary Blues
• The text consists usually
of three lines in an AAB
structure
• The first and second lines
generally create a sort of
question
• The third line then
resolves
• 12 bars
• I IV V
Discussion Questions
• What is ethnicity?
• How can ethnic music be used as a means of
representing identity?
• How is ethnic music accepted by second and third
generation immigrants in or society?
• In what ways may an ethnic group’s musical
boundaries be maintained?
• Why was polka the model with which many
ethnic music cultures blended?
Discussion Questions
• Why do traditional musics blend with American popular
music?
• How may we observe that many North American musical
instruments are no longer used as much?
• How is North American musical culture changing in the
technological age, and how much regard is there for the
traditional forms as there once was?
• Has music always changed in American culture, and how
so? Canadian culture?