Antebellum Psalmody in Its Cultural Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-67
Author(s):  
Peter Mercer-Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Hymn Tunes ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Religious Nature

Christian worship factored centrally in the American circulation of psalm and hymn tunes in the 19th century, but the repertoire traveled far and wide beyond actual church services. Musical societies, conventions, singing schools, social gatherings of a religious nature, and domestic settings all provided venues for the singing of psalmody. This chapter undertakes a broad exploration of the place of psalm and hymn tunes in pre–Civil War American culture. In its closing stretch, however, it pivots toward those vibrant registers of American sacred music-making that lay beyond the Europeanized psalmodic practices that form this book’s focus. Psalmodic adaptations of classical music would never have been encountered by most of the nation’s enslaved, nor by most Native Americans. They also had little impact on the lives of many in the country’s southern and western regions who preferred the markedly different psalmodic tradition associated with “shape notes.”

scholarly journals Living With the I-Word: Improvisation and its Alternates

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Labaree
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
General Concept ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Insight Into

The word improvisation is burdened with limitations placed on it by changes occurring in Europe in the 19th century, the period when the model of the hyphenated performer-composer prevailing in Europe up to that point was being split into two specialties. By the 20th century, composition and improvisation had been cast in bronze as mutually defining opposites, the presumed starting point of any approach to how music is made and heard, regardless of historical period or cultural origin. As a way of creating a more critical approach to discourse dependent on the ubiquitous "I-word," this essay seeks to problematize it by focusing on the more general concept of variability itself, or mouvance, as the French literary scholar Paul Zumthor described it in his studies of medieval lyric poetry. More than a century of scholarship on the music of Chopin, the songs of the medieval troubadours, folk music of the British Isles and Balkans, and Turkish classical music—all repertoires which do not rely on the conventions of I-discourse—will provide examples of differing levels of tolerance for performer control of musical events, of different definitions of musicianship, and of different performance poetics. Reflex jazz-related I-genres intentionally play no role in this exercise, forcing us to reflect on I-qualities where we least expect to find them and thus to re-examine our dependence on the I-concept in our thinking about the full spectrum of music-making. None of the I-alternates offered here—musicianship, mouvance, control, variability, or poetics—can be considered competitors for the I-word’s universalizing pretensions, but rather offer insight into what I believe is the I-word’s real content.

Music of Tragedy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi A. Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Late Work ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Dramatic Action ◽  
Instrumental Accompaniment ◽  
And Performance

The Music of Tragedy offers a new approach to the study of classical Greek theater by examining the use of musical language, imagery, and performance in the late work of Euripides. Drawing on the ancient conception of mousikē, in which words, song, dance, and instrumental accompaniment were closely linked, Naomi Weiss emphasizes the interplay of performance and imagination—the connection between the chorus’s own live singing and dancing in the theater and the images of music-making that frequently appear in their songs. Through detailed readings of four plays, she argues that the mousikē referred to and imagined in these plays is central to the progression of the dramatic action and to ancient audiences’ experiences of tragedy itself. She situates Euripides’s experimentation with the dramaturgical effects of mousikē within a broader cultural context, and in doing so, she shows how he both continues the practices of his tragic predecessors and also departs from them, reinventing traditional lyric styles and motifs for the tragic stage.

THE FORMATION OF THE HISTORICAL AND LITURGICAL RESEARCH AREA IN RUSSIAN ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP IN THE LATE 19TH – EARLY 20TH CENTURY. A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES OF N.V. POKROVSKY AND I.A. KARABINOV

2021 ◽  
pp. 30-49
Author(s):  
Zoya M. Dashevskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Research Methodology ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Academic Science ◽  
Scientific School ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
Academic Courses ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 19Th Century

n the second half of the 19th century – especially in the period following the introduction of the Academic Constitution of 1869, and in the 1880s and continuing until the forced closure of Theological Academies after the Revolutionary coup – the historical and liturgical research area in Russian academic science experienced a period of its formation and flourishing. The subject of the article is a comparison of approaches to the study of the worship service history and analysis of the formation of the research methodology for teaching Liturgics by professors N.V. Pokrovsky and I.A. Karabinov of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, where they taught the history of Christian worship from the 1880’s until its forced closure in 1918. Analysis and juxtapos- ing of academic courses in Liturgics allows defining the boundaries and content of the discipline in the period of its formation as well as considering the evolu- tion in research methodology and, more broadly, the formation of the Russian historical and liturgical scientific school. A comparison of the courses reveals the authors attitudes towards histori- cal sources material and its studies. Their own ideas about the provenance of various rites used in church worship characterize their views on the develop- ment of the liturgical tradition, expressing their approaches to its study and thereby form our picture of the establishment of historical Liturgics as a field of researchable knowledge.

Interpreting Multi-text Analysis: Is a Theory of Adaptation Possible?

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-167
Author(s):  
Glen Nichols
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
The 19Th Century

The multi-level problems associated with the transformation of dramatic texts from one cultural context to another are examined in this paper, with reference to adaptations of popular European plays made specifically for use by all-male amateur groups in Quebec at the end of the 19th century. Some suggestions are offered concerning the general kinds of information to be gleaned from close multi-text analysis, the specific cultural indicators gatheredfrom this particular study, and the possibility of developing a usable 'theory of adaptation.'

Հոգևոր մոնոդիան հայ կոմպոզիտորական արվեստում․Հարո Ստեփանյանի առաջին սիմֆոնիան

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
Musical Composition ◽  
Innovative Idea ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Original Theme ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Music Tradition

Հայ հոգևոր երգաստեղծության նմուշները կոմպոզիտորական ստեղծագործության նյութ են դարձել դեռևս XIX դարավերջին։ Հոգևոր մոնոդիայի մուտքը հետկոմիտասյան շրջանի հայ կոմպոզիտորական արվեստ տեղի ունեցավ 1944 թ.․ նորարարական գաղափարի հեղինակը Հարո Ստեփանյանն էր, որն իր Առաջին սիմֆոնիայում ներառեց «Այսօր ժողովեալ» շարականի թեման։ Սույն հոդվածում քննվում են՝ ա․ Հ․ Ստեփանյանի Առաջին սիմֆոնիայում մոնոդիայի գործածման կերպը և զարգացման սկզբունքները, բ․․ շարականի և օրիգինալ թեմատիզմի հարաբերակցությունը ստեղծագործության երաժշտական հորինվածքում, գ․ մոնոդիայի դերն ու նշանակությունը երկի երաժշտական դրամատուրգիայում։ The samples of the Armenian Sacred music tradition became the subject of musical composition at the end of the 19th century. The sacred monody entered into the Armenian composing art of the post-Komitas era in 1944. The author of the innovative idea was Haro Stepanyan, who included the melodic theme of the “Aysōr žōłōveal” šarakan in his First Symphony. This article examines: a) the manner of usage of the monody and the principles of its development in H. Stepanyan’s First Symphony; b) the correlation between the šarakan and the original theme in the musical composition; c) the role and the importance of the monody in the musical dramaturgy of the artwork.

Rearing Children of the Market in the “You” Decade: Choose Your Own Adventure Books and the Ascent of Free Choice in 1980s America

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
ELI COOK
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Interactive Narratives ◽  
Market Choice ◽  
Individual Market

Exploring some of the key tenets of neoliberal American culture, this article examines the historical forces behind the meteoric rise of interactive “Choose Your Own Adventure” (CYOA) children's books in the 1980s. Despite selling over 250 million copies worldwide and becoming the fourth most popular children's series of all time, the CYOA phenomenon has yet to be placed in its larger social, economic, historical or cultural context. When explaining the rise of interactive narratives, previous literature has mostly focussed on technological change – namely the invention of video games, computer consoles and hypertext narratives. Moving away from such claims, this article demonstrates how the incredible success of solely text-based CYOA books stemmed largely from the cultural ascent of individual market choice to the heart of American notions of agency, liberty, subjectivity and selfhood in the 1970s and 1980s.

Religion and Native American Assimilation, Resistance, and Survival

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Heise
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
White American ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Reservation System ◽  
The 19Th Century

Since the early 19th century, the expansion of American empire has constrained Native American autonomy and cultural expression. Native American history simply cannot be told apart from accounts of violent dispossession of land, languages, and lifeways. The pressures exerted on Native Americans by U.S. colonialism were intense and far-reaching: U.S. officials sought no less than the complete eradication of Native cultures through the assimilation policies they devised in the 19th century and beyond. Their efforts, however, never went uncontested. Despite significant asymmetries in political power and material resources, Native Americans developed a range of strategies to ensure the survival of their communities in the complicated colonial context created by American expansion. Their activism meant that U.S. colonialism operated as a dynamic process that facilitated various forms of cultural innovation. With survival as their goal, Native American responses to U.S. colonialism can be mapped on a continuum of resistance in which accommodation and militancy exist as related impulses. Native Americans selectively deployed various expressions of resistance according to the particular political circumstances they faced. This strategy allowed them to facilitate an array of cultural changes intended to preserve their own cultural integrity by mitigating the most damaging effects of white rule. Because religion provided the language and logic of U.S. colonial expansion and Native American resistance, it functioned as a powerful medium for cross-cultural communication and exchange in the American colonial context. Religion facilitated engagement with white (mostly Protestant) Christian missionaries and allowed Native Americans to embrace some aspects of white American culture while rejecting others (even within the context of Native conversion to Christianity). It also allowed for flexible responses to U.S. consolidation policies intended to constrain Native autonomy still further by extending the reservation system, missionary oversight of indigenous communities, and land use in the late 19th century. Tribes that fought consolidation through the armed rebellions of the 1870s could find reasons to accept reservation life once continued military action became untenable. Once settled on reservations, these same tribes could deploy new strategies of resistance to make reservation life more tolerable. In this environment of religious innovation and resistance, new religious movements like the Ghost Dance and peyote religion arose to challenge the legitimacy of U.S. colonialism more directly through their revolutionary combinations of Native and Christian forms.

Mainline of the Protestant Worship in Latin America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilhelm Wachholz
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
Worship Services ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
The One ◽  
The 19Th Century

The Latin American Christian worship service celebrated in most of Latin America until the beginning of the 19th century was Catholic, particularly the one that was prior to the Catholic Reformation or the Counter-Reformation. As of the 19th century, the Catholic worship lost its exclusiveness as a result of the incoming of immigrants and foreign missionaries. Among other worship services, there emerge those of the so-called ethnic Protestantism and of the mission endeavor. Latin American Protestantism was characterized as apologetic with regard to the relation with Roman Catholicism. Instigated by the goals of missionary work and the conversion of the Catholics, mission Protestantism tended to construct its worship identity as being “nonliturgical.” This identity can still be perceived in current times, especially in the Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches. The roots of the liturgical identity of Latin American Protestantism will be presented in this text, culminating in the liturgical renewal movement of the second half of the 20th century.

Reimagining the archive as thick sound: A case study of Dhrupad from Bettiah and beyond

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-58
Author(s):  
Sumitra Ranganathan
Keyword(s):  
Complex I ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
Indian Classical Music ◽  
And Function ◽  
Archival Work

The ephemerality of music is a consuming philosophical problem; it is also a practical dilemma for archivists and researchers. For oral traditions such as Indian classical music, notations, recordings and transcriptions fail to capture much of what is communicated in musical performance, which problematizes the creation and function of archives. This article explores an approach to archiving musical practices in relation to constitutive processes of emplacement, a complex I denote by the term ‘thick sound’. Using a rich and historic Dhrupad tradition as a case study, I discuss how I used documentary, material, aural, embodied and sensory performance data to construct my archive. I investigate the ways in which such documentation captures ecologies of music-making and the challenges posed for the analysis of histories of (thick) sound. I conclude by discussing the implications for theorizing archival work as active intervention, mediating relationships of past, present and future.

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