American Music and American Musicology

Abstract

T he main thrust of this brief article will be promote view that musical history of United States cannot be adequately delineated or interpreted except by a conjunction of musicology and ethnomusicology, which inevitably involves input from social sciences. ultimate result would be a cultural continuum rather than a fragmentation of forms, styles, and values. last item is crucial, for music should be valued, judged, and historically interpreted in terms of its importance mankind at all levels of society. In my view, two fundamental exegetes of American musical history are Oscar Sonneck and Charles Seeger. Neither wrote extensive histories; but what I have in mind is their affinity with root meaning of exegesis, which derives from Greek exegeisthai, to show way. My own debt these crucial precursors is immense. While Sonneck concentrated more heavily on documentation and Seeger on theory, both emphasized sociocultural foundations of music.1 Sonneck's basic contribution our topic is a paper titled The History of Music in (modestly subtitled A Few Suggestions), dating from 1916. For me, his key statement is that the interests of a historian of music and musical life are not and ought not remain confined matters of musical esthetics or techniques.2 Later he quotes from an earlier paper in which he stated: The literature on music in America is fairly voluminous and is constantly growing, but books and articles deal more with history of music and musicians in America than with history of America's musical life.3