Music Midterm

The tunes that appear in early New England psalm books had melodies that reflected the emotional and spiritual content of the Biblical psalm texts they were matched with.

Untrue, many psalms could be sung using the same tunes. It just depended on the poetic meter of the psalm.

What terms would describe a worship practice where a leader sings a hymn line first, followed by the congregation repeating it?

Lining Out and Psalmody

What is something untrue of 20th century Singing Schools?

Because of strict moral codes, women and men attended separately.

What did William Billings write?

hymns and anthems that had both sacred and political (revolutionary) textual content.

What is is NOT a characteristic of a traditional ballad?

They were widely disseminated in print

What is not a characteristic of broadside ballads?

There was no definitive version but rather many variants

Enslaved Africans were participants in what?

the secular musical life of communities in the colonial period and early Republic.

What is NOT true of military music of the late colonial period and early Republic?

Brass bands created patriotic feelings in outdoor performances.

What is NOT a reason for choral reform towards so-called “Ancient Music”?

Lining out of old psalms was reconsidered as an important way of making music in worship.

Religion as practiced at revivalist camp meetings emphasized what?

that those in attendance were part of God’s Elect as understood by the Puritans.

What is TRUE of shape-note hymnody of the southern uplands?

The shapes of the notes provided a visual “crutch” that helped singers find the right notes.

What is NOT attributed to Lowell Mason?

He had a lifelong creative and business collaboration with Thomas Hastings

What is NOT a common characteristic of African music that influenced development of African American music?

It was built on complex structures of harmony.

What is NOT an example of African American musical practice observed and written about by European American people in the United States in the 1800s?

Orisha (African religious) ceremonies

Work songs were used to?

Provide a steady rhythm for repetitive tasks

Were African American spirituals sacred songs rooted in the diverse experiences of different colonial centers such as Puritan or Anglican faith?

No, these were white Christian subsects

What is true of African American participation in camp meetings / revivals?

They extended the length of hymns with drawn out choruses and improvisation using vocables.

What could NOT be said of the presentation of complete European operas in the United States in the early 1800s?

It focused on English language opera so that audiences could understand.

What was one of the methods used by P.T. Barnum to market the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind?

Generate entertainment as "news” by announcing she would donate her share of profit to charity

Did men in San Francisco only go to the opera because their wives or girlfriends pressured them to?

No, the first big San Fran theater saw over 217,000 ticket sales in a year with a population of only 60,000 - majority of the town was comprised of men - EVERYBODY was going

What was NOT an ingredient in the white fascination with black lives that led to the phenomenon of minstrelsy?

Respect for Black culture

What were personality traits are associated with the minstrel character Zip Coon?

Garrish style of dress, conman, womanizer, boastful

What were standard components of a minstrel show in the 1840s?

Bones, skits or comedy sketches, Focus on both northern urban and southern rural life, Singing in exaggerated African American dialect, blackface, Fiddle, tambourine, Dancing, Topical speeches / monologue, Banjo

What was not a type of politically activist song sung by groups like the Hutchinson Family in the mid-1800s?

Environmentalist songs

George Copway

Born into Ojibwe tribe, gave a personal account of the value of song as a personal possession

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Romanticized for the public the image of American Indian life before their ways had been mostly seen

Buffalo Bill

Created a minstrel-show like image for American Indians that unfortunately became widely believed

Frances Densmore

Collected thousands of American Indian songs, including 600 from the Lakota (Teton) Sioux, and even recorded some songs on wax cylinders.

Alice C Fletcher

Collected and carefully transcribed songs from the Omaha people with the help of Francis La Flesche

John Comfort Fillmore

Believed American Indian music was “undeveloped” so he created harmonic accompaniment to Fletcher’s transcribed songs

Lewis Cass

Described a Miami Indian song meant to recruit men for war and described performance technique

Theodore Baker

Published the first scholarly work on American Indian music as part of his dissertation in Germany

What is NOT a characteristic of the song “A Buffalo Said to Me” sung by Tatan ka-ohi tika?

Melodic shape is a terraced ascending scale

What are general characteristics of the traditional songs known as Child ballads?

Strophic song structure, common linguistic motifs, emotionally subdued

What did folk songs about the American western frontier in the late 19th century present?

Both realistic and romanticized versions of the west.

What could the idea of “home” in an African American spiritual not represent?

The southern plantation where they were born and cared for

What is true of a typical march written by John Philip Sousa?

They use counterpoint, meaning more than one melody at once in later strains.

What is NOT true of John Philip Sousa's relationship with recording technology?

He avoided having his groups record because of his negative attitudes about the technology.

What was NOT a factor in the growth of gospel hymns?

People liked the way gospel hymns reminded them of the well-composed and edifying hymns of Lowell Mason

Is Tin Pan Alley located between 27th and 28th streets in lower Manhattan?

No, 5th and 6th Avenue

What was the best way to market new songs on sheet music?

to get a performer to include it in their act on stage.

Most to least prestigious

Opera, Burlesque, Musical Comedy, Vaudeville, Revue, Operetta

What is NOT one of the ways that opera is different from operetta?

Operetta uses a different style of singing voice

What is NOT one of the ways that operetta is different from musical comedy?

Musical comedy plots and songs are more fixed

What was the cakewalk?

a style of dance derived from African American culture in which couples competed to see who could do the fanciest “strut” and the winners won a prize of a cake.

What was NOT true of Scott Joplin?

He invented the term ragtime to describe his syncopated style of piano composition

What structure is typical of a ragtime piano piece?

Intro AA BB A CC DD