America’s Musical Landscape
6th edition
Part 1:
Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Early Folk Music

Folk Music = Simple songs and instrumental pieces whose
origin has been lost or forgotten

Or music composed in an informal style traditional in certain
cultures

Unpretentious, easy to remember and to perform, folk music
appeals to inexperienced listeners and sophisticated
musicians alike

Folk music of the United States springs from many ethnic and
cultural sources

English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, other European
influences, Africa—especially West Africa
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
2
Early Folk Music: Spanish
Traditions




Spanish traditions date from 1565, when the Spanish founded St.
Augustine, Florida--The oldest European settlement in the United
States
Today in the Southwest, Spanish folk songs and and hymns
(religious songs) are heard, reflecting origins in seventeenthcentury Spain or more recent Mexico
Alabados = Spanish hymns (religious songs of praise)
 Sung without measure, the rhythm conforming to that of the
words
Corridos = Storytelling songs or ballads
 Songs relating the unofficial history of Mexican or MexicanAmerican communities and their heroes
 Often informed people of newsworthy events
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
3
Listening Example 4
El corrido de Gregorio Cortez
Anonymous
Listening guide page 30
The story concerns a young
Mexican falsely accused of
horse stealing. When captured,
in self defense he shot and
killed the arresting sheriff, who
had fatally wounded the young
man’s brother.
Genre: Corrido (norteño ballad)
Timbre: Male duet, singing in simple harmony, accompanied by
accordion and guitar
Meter: Triple. Notice the oom-pah-pah rhythm of a waltz
Texture: Homophonic (chordal)
The Texas-Mexican border performance style called norteño often
includes accordion
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
4
Early Folk Music: British
Traditions


Early English settlers in the New World brought few musical
instruments with them

Violins and other stringed instruments became available; people
played British fiddle tunes and dances from their childhood

Many traditional songs acquired new words and altered
melodies reflecting American dialects, New World experience
These folk music traditions survive today in rural and mountain
areas, where the style of singing and playing instruments is close to
that of seventeenth-century Britain

Lullabies, nonsense songs, work songs, singing games
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
5
British Traditions: Folk Ballads

Most common of all folk songs are ballads

Ballad = A story told in song

Sung from memory by solo voice, with or without
accompaniment

Strophic in form, often with many stanzas

Ballad song texts evolved over long time periods
 Singers often add, alter, or delete stanzas, lending a
song local or timely relevance, expressing creativity
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
6
Listening Example 5
Barbara Allen
Anonymous
Listening guide page 32
A favorite of George Washington,
this example of a ballad is
sometimes called “Barbry Ellen”
or another similar name, and
probably originated in Scotland
The story is of the young “Sweet
William,” who is dying for love of
“hard-hearted Barbara Allen,”
who of course loves him and is
remorseful for having repelled
his advances
Form: Strophic, with several four-line stanzas
Melody: Based upon a pentatonic scale, which is a fivenote scale within the range of an octave—Barbara Allen
uses only the tones of the five black notes of a keyboard
Rhythm: Irregular, but a steady underlying pulse with a
general sense of triple meter
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
7
Early American Folk Music

Early emigrants reflected the
influence of the British broadside…

A topical ballad, printed on a big sheet
suitable for display, or in a newspaper

Americans altered traditional ballads to
fit their new experiences


Setting original words to old tunes
Broadsides included historical or
topical events, moral instruction,
political commentary, sometimes satire
John Dickinson’s “Liberty Song”
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
8
Early American Folk Music

Songs and instrumental music:






Frontier people sang about freedom,
equality, danger, beauty of nature
Ballads about the Erie Canal (1825),
the California gold rush (1849)
Slaves had their own music
Miners, farmers, railroad workers
even outlaws had folk music
Lullabies, play party songs
Chanteys were sailors’ work songs;
popular in New England
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
The Pemigewasset Coach
Painted by
Enoch W. Perry, Jr. (1831-1915)
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
9
Listening Example 6
Shenandoah
Anonymous
Performed by Pete Seeger
Listening guide page 35
Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter.
Wa-ay, you rollin’ river.
Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter,
Away, we’re bound away
‘Cross the wide Missoura.
Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you.
Wa-ay, you rollin’ river.
Oh, Shenandoah, I’ll not deceive you.
Away, we’re bound away
‘Cross the wide Missoura.
For seven years I’ve been a rover.
Wa-ay, you rollin’ river.
For seven years I’ve been a rover.
Away, we’re bound away
‘Cross the wide Missoura.
Form: Strophic, with refrain at end of each verse
Meter: Quadruple
Tempo: Slow
Accompaniment: Sparse strumming by guitar
This song originated in the areas of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers,
traveling down the Mississippi to the ocean, where sailors adopted its
rolling melody; Shenandoah was an Indian chief living on the Missouri
River
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
10
African Traditions

Early seventeenth century
 The first Africans were forcibly brought to America in European
slave ships

Many slaveholders harshly discouraged references to African gods
and religions in any traditional song or dance

Slaves in New England, treated with more leniency than southern
slaves, would entertain themselves and their masters
 Singing, dancing, playing musical instruments

The first generation of slaves born in America began to develop
their own music, American music rooted in African customs and
sounds
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
11
African Traditions: Field Hollers

Slaves working on plantations
poured all the anguish of their new,
tragic experience into field hollers,
which were…

Loud, rhythmically flexible,
emotionally expressive chants or
cries sung by a solitary voice

Slaves working in a field
Some had words but most used
neutral syllables, enabling contact
with fellow workers over distances
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
12
African Traditions: Ring Shouts

Another African tradition translated to an African American
experience was the religious shout or ring shout

Performed at religious services or camp meetings

The “shouters” formed a ring and shuffled energetically to
the singing of the spiritual, gradually quickening their
pace, barely lifting their feet, falling from exhaustion
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
13
Listening Example 7
Field Holler
Listening guide page 38
The field holler enabled the
slaves to establish
wordless but heartwarming
contact with fellow workers
who, hearing the poignant
cries, could respond with
expressive hollers of their
own.
Timbre: Solo male voice
Rhythm: Free, flexible
Melody: Simple, narrow, mournful phrase on three tones, repeated
Text: Neutral syllables, easy to sing and to hear over distances
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
14
Listening Example 8
Father’s Field Call
Listening guide page 38
Notice the sound of the high
falsetto range, lying above
the normal, full, chest voice
Falsetto enhanced the
ability to call over long
distances
Timbre: Solo male voice in falsetto range
Rhythm: Free, flexible
Melody: Begins with upward leap, succeeded by a naturally falling
inflection, reminiscent of the familiar “Yoo-hoo”
Text: Wordless
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
15
African Traditions: Work Songs

Work Songs accompanied tasks such as rowing, hoeing,
chopping trees

Slaves made up, or improvised work songs

Work songs often set the pace and synchronized movements of
forced laborers

Strophic in form

Call-and-response = Leading lines of each verse were sung by
a single voice, alternating with a repeated phrase or refrain sung
by the group
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
16
Listening Example 9
Hammer, Ring (excerpt)
Chorus
Won’t you ring, old hammer?
Hammer, ring!
Won’t you ring, old hammer?
Hammer, ring!
Performed by Jesse Bradley and
group at State Penitentiary,
Huntsville, Texas, 1934
Listening guide page 39
Form: Strophic, call-and-response
Meter: Duple
Hammer songs accompanied men driving the spikes fastening long
steel rails to wooden railroad ties; relentless rhythm, driving energy
reinforce and support the regular rhythm of the hammering men
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
17
African Traditions:
Freedom Songs

During the first half of the nineteenth century, a movement known
as the Underground Railroad assisted slaves seeking escape to
free states, Canada, or elsewhere

A network of abolitionists, religious groups, and other sympathizers
provided fleeing individuals transportation, supplies and safe
houses along secret routes

A tragically small, yet significant, number of slaves successfully
reached freedom

Freedom songs encouraged members of the Underground Railroad
and escapees on their perilous mission
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
18
African Traditions:
Musical Instruments

In Africa, drums accompanied work songs, providing two or three
underlying complex rhythmic patterns

Many slaves brought small drums and simple string instruments to
America

Slaveholders banned the use of African drums, fearing drums
would incite revolt
 Slaves made percussive instruments from empty oil drums,
metal washbasins, more
 Slaves clapped, body-slapped, stamped rhythms
 Rattles or bits of shell or bone enhanced rhythms

Banjos were created by using a hollowed-out gourd or calabash
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
19
Listening Example 10
No More Auction Block for Me
Anonymous
Performed by Odetta with mixed chorus
Listening guide page 40
This song from the early
1800’s inspired two anthems
of the twentieth-century civil
rights movement: “We Shall
Overcome” and Bob Dylan’s
“Blowin’ in the Wind”
anthems of the civil rights
movement
Melody: almost identical to a traditional West African song
Texture: Homophonic
Form: Strophic
This haunting freedom song expresses the determination of slaves to
escape the humiliation of being sold at auction
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
20
What of African Music Survives
Today?

Today’s African American musics are deeply rooted in African
traditions that arrived in the New World with the first slaves

Call-and-response became a basic characteristic of African
American vocal and instrumental music

Improvisation is basic within jazz, and colors much other music


Much African American music is still based on the “bent” or
flexible tones of the blues scale, unheard in this country until the
first West Africans arrived
The emphasis in African American music on rhythm over
melody, and the complexity of African rhythms compared with
those of Western (European) music is apparent
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
21
Image Credits

Slide 8: John Dickinson’s Liberty Song
Public domain

Slide 9: “The Pemigewasset Coach,” painted by
Enoch W. Perry Jr., Photograph © Corel

Slide 12: Slaves working in a field, Library of
Congress (LC-USZ62-115201)
© 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 2: Early Folk Music
22