Music of the United States
Native Americans played the first music in what is now the United States, using a wide variety of styles and techniques. These early traditions often lacked harmony or polyphony, relying instead on vocables and descending melodic figures. The flute and many kinds of percussion instruments like drums, rattles, and shakers formed the core of their instrumentations. Beginning in the 17th century, settlers from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Germany, and France arrived in large numbers. They brought new styles and instruments that would eventually merge with indigenous sounds. Enslaved people from West Africa brought their own musical traditions to the New World. Each subsequent wave of immigrants contributed to a melting pot of cultural expression. The most distinctly American musics are a result of cross-cultural hybridization through close contact. Slavery mixed persons from numerous tribes in tight living quarters, resulting in a shared musical tradition enriched by further hybridizing with elements of Latin and European music.
European classical music was brought to the United States with some of the first colonists. Many American composers of this period worked exclusively with European models until late in the 19th century. William Billings, born in Boston, composed patriotic hymns in the 1770s. He was also influential as the founder of the American church choir and the first musician to use a pitch pipe. Supply Belcher and Justin Morgan developed a style almost entirely independent of European models. Antonín Dvořák visited the United States from 1892 to 1895 and urged that American classical music needed its own models instead of imitating European composers. Louis Moreau Gottschalk is perhaps the best-remembered American composer of the 19th century for bringing indigenous or folk themes into concert hall music. His work reflected the cultural mix of his home city, New Orleans, Louisiana. Charles Ives produced music in a uniquely American style, though it remained mostly unknown until after his death in 1954. John Cage, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass used modernist and minimalist techniques in the later 20th century. Reich discovered phasing, where two musical activities begin simultaneously and drift out of sync.
The first slaves in the United States sang work songs, field hollers, and following Christianization, hymns. In the 19th century, a Great Awakening of religious fervor gripped people across the country, especially in the South. When blacks began singing adapted versions of these hymns, they were called Negro spirituals. It was from these roots that blues, jazz, and gospel developed. Fisk University became home to the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1871, a pioneering group that popularized spirituals across the country. Blues is a combination of African work songs, field hollers, and shouts. It developed in the rural South in the first decade of the 20th century. The most important characteristics of the blues are its use of the blue scale with a flatted or indeterminate third. Modern gospel began in African American churches in the 1920s as worshipers proclaimed their faith in an improvised manner. Composers like Thomas A. Dorsey composed gospel works that used elements of blues and jazz in traditional hymns. Ragtime was originally a piano style featuring syncopated rhythms and chromaticisms. Scott Joplin was the most famous ragtime performer known for works such as Maple Leaf Rag.
Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression and in African American music traditions including blues and ragtime. Jazz's roots come from the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, populated by Cajuns and black Creoles. Large Creole bands that played for funerals and parades became a major basis for early jazz. Louis Armstrong became one of the first popular stars and a major force in the development of jazz along with his friend pianist Earl Hines. Armstrong also popularized scat singing, an improvisational vocal technique in which nonsensical syllables are sung. Swing is primarily a fusion of 1930s jazz fused with elements of the blues and Tin Pan Alley. Swing used bigger bands than other kinds of jazz, leading to bandleaders tightly arranging the material which discouraged improvisation. The later 20th-century American jazz scene produced some popular crossover stars such as Miles Davis. Bebop evolved into styles like hard bop and free jazz in the middle of the 20th century. Innovators of the style included Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie who arose from small jazz clubs in New York City.
R&B, an abbreviation for rhythm and blues, is a style that arose in the 1930s and 1940s. Early R&B consisted of large rhythm units smashing away behind screaming blues singers. Bandleaders like Louis Jordan innovated the sound of early R&B using a band with a small horn section. Motown Records became highly successful during the early and mid-1960s for producing music of black American roots that defied racial segregation. Berry Gordy founded Motown in 1959 in Detroit, Michigan. It was one of few R&B record labels that sought to transcend the R&B market and specialize in crossover music. Notable Motown acts include the Four Tops, the Temptations, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, and the Jackson 5. James Brown was critical through the gospel-impassioned fury of his vocals and complex polyrhythms of his beats in turning soul music into funk. Sly & the Family Stone's There's a Riot Goin' On (1971) has been considered among the first and best examples of matured funk music. Michael Jackson's album Thriller sold over 10 million copies in the United States alone by 1983.
Rock and roll developed out of country, blues, and R&B. Black-performed rock and roll had previously had limited mainstream success until Elvis Presley appealed to mainstream audiences with a black style of music. The 1960s saw several important changes in popular music especially rock. Many of these changes took place through the British Invasion where bands such as The Beatles became immensely popular. Folk rock entered the mainstream in the middle of the 1960s when the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan began his career. Psychedelic rock was closely associated with the city of San Francisco. The Grateful Dead became an iconic part of the psychedelic counterculture. Punk was a form of rebellious rock that began in the 1970s and was loud, aggressive, and often very simple. American bands in the field included The Ramones and Talking Heads. Hardcore punk emerged in metropolises like Washington, D.C. in the 1980s. Seattle's local scene produced grunge music which became wildly popular across the United States in 1991. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains added a more melodic element to the sound.
Hip-hop arose in the early 1970s in The Bronx, New York City. Jamaican immigrant DJ Kool Herc is widely regarded as the progenitor of hip-hop. He brought with him from Jamaica the practice of toasting over the rhythms of popular songs. Emcees originally arose to introduce the soul, funk, and R&B songs that the DJs played. Over time, the DJs began isolating the percussion break of songs producing a repeated beat that the emcees rapped over. By the beginning of the 1980s there were popular hip-hop songs and celebrities like LL Cool J gained mainstream renown. Gangsta rap broadened and came to apply to many different regions in the country. Rappers from New York City such as the Notorious B.I.G. and influential hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan appeared alongside rappers on the West Coast such as Too Short and N.W.A. A distinctive West Coast hip-hop scene spawned the early 1990s G-funk sound. Eminem was the best-selling music artist of the 2000s in the United States. Hip-hop became a defining element of contemporary global culture through its evolution into various subgenres.
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Common questions
What instruments did Native Americans use to play the first music in what is now the United States?
Native Americans used a wide variety of styles and techniques, with the flute and many kinds of percussion instruments like drums, rattles, and shakers forming the core of their instrumentations. These early traditions often lacked harmony or polyphony, relying instead on vocables and descending melodic figures.
When did Antonín Dvořák visit the United States to urge that American classical music needed its own models?
Antonín Dvořák visited the United States from 1892 to 1895 and urged that American classical music needed its own models instead of imitating European composers. He encouraged composers to develop indigenous styles rather than following European examples.
Where did blues develop in the rural South during the first decade of the 20th century?
Blues developed in the rural South in the first decade of the 20th century as a combination of African work songs, field hollers, and shouts. The most important characteristics of the blues are its use of the blue scale with a flatted or indeterminate third.
Who founded Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan in 1959?
Berry Gordy founded Motown in 1959 in Detroit, Michigan. It was one of few R&B record labels that sought to transcend the R&B market and specialize in crossover music while producing music of black American roots that defied racial segregation.
Which city produced grunge music which became wildly popular across the United States in 1991?
Seattle's local scene produced grunge music which became wildly popular across the United States in 1991. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains added a more melodic element to the sound.