Papers by Maxine Fawcett-Yeske
Journal of the Society for American Music, Feb 1, 2016
Scholars of American music have long and painstakingly contemplated how most effectively to expre... more Scholars of American music have long and painstakingly contemplated how most effectively to express the dynamics, distinctions, and nuances of such a vast repertoire. In his foreword to Gilbert Chase's 1987 edition of America's Music, Richard Crawford cites Chase's earlier commentary on the writing of music history. Chase, Crawford states, "[O]bserved that historians of music have generally taken a 'diachronic' view of time, which considers phenomena sequentially, in the order in which events in their development have occurred." This approach, according to Chase, was effective in tracing the history of a single idiom. However, "where two or more equally important kinds of music do coexist, time is better thought of spatially or 'synchronically,' ... juxtaposing accounts of many different musics, just as they live side by side in real life." 1 Embracing the challenge of writing a "highly variegated" account of American music, Richard Crawford and Larry Hamberlin give us a second, reconfigured edition of Crawford's textbook, An Introduction to America's Music. Departing from the chronological narrative employed in the first edition, the second edition, although roughly sequential, adopts a more holistic approach. Categories such as classical, popular, and folk/traditional are treated less rigidly. Crawford and Hamberlin expand on Crawford's well-known interest in the broader, dynamic context of music-making that encompasses performers, teachers, audiences, and the music business. Giving inclusive consideration to the interaction of these elements tests the bounds of a century-by-century template. Thus, the larger sections of the current edition are envisioned and titled according to acts of human engagement, specifically employing war as a benchmark of social and cultural change. In this malleable framework the authors "probe the boundaries drawn to separate different types of music and, by implication, different groups of listeners from each other" and argue convincingly for the interconnectedness of "music and the life that surrounds it" (xvii). Part 1, America's Music from Colonization through the Civil War, encompasses a period often defined by its disparity. Yet, out of the conflict and tumult that emanated in waves across this era, Crawford and Hamberlin depict continuity and community through musical expression. Drawing upon the writings of European
Journal of the Society for American Music, 2016
Journal of the Society for American Music, 2016
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Papers by Maxine Fawcett-Yeske