Introduction
Music is a combination of sound, rhythm, and harmony used to create a pleasant piece of melody that can express feelings and emotion. Music has, therefore, been used since time immemorial by many people as a social identity to identify themselves from other communities. Music serves many purposes in society, from the display of emotion to motivating workers or conveying messages. As such, there are many genres of music according to what inspires the writer to compose that piece of music. In the early 1800s, music was especially influential in American society as a form of non-violent expression of emotion or political messages, especially among African Americans and other colored people, although the opposite is true, as well. This essay will study some of the popular music genres of the European and African Americans in the mid-19th century.
Main text
Starr (3-15) observes that popular music refers to music that is likable by a majority of people in a given sample population, regardless of the age differences in the population or the genre of music. On the other hand, the genre of music can be used to describe a style of music that may be popular with a given group or segment of the population, but not necessarily liked by the majority of the population. The mid-1800s were a time of political and economic strife in American history, and as such, people took up several genres of music as a music revolution to try and express their views, some open and compassionate like the soul, and country music, while others took a harder and more incisive stance like the Jazz and Rock music (Selcer 340-356). Minstrel shows made African music popular by crossing cultural and racial divides, an example being the intermarriage between African and European cultures to give Jazz music. Further, migration of the people, especially after World War II led to the intermixing of the African Jazz with European Blues to birth the Rhythm and Blues more popularly known as the RnB (Maurice 47), popularized by a growing number of younger adults and teenagers, who then replaced the older generation as admirers of this music genre.
Most of the African songs date back to years before slavery. Africans, brought in as slaves, came with their culturally diverse tunes, mixing them into a polyrhythm, common in Africa at the time (Selcer 341). Maurice states that African music heavily borrowed its themes from daily situations like work (slavery) as well as their cry (or Blues) against oppression during the slavery years (50). Surprisingly, European music copies heavily from the African culture, as well. This is because Blues and country music originated from white singers who incorporated sad African slavery tunes in their war songs during the American Civil War. Moreover, Minstrel shows, which were popular at the time, showcased white singers dressed in black and mimicking Negro music. These shows helped popularize African American music across races at that time (Maurice 51). Blues music, on the other hand, were sad African songs, made popular by the European singers who were sympathetic to the plight of the poorer communities. This compassion helped cultivate resilience in the people against the oppressive authorities, and thus helped nurture the evolution of Rock music. Rock music represented a new musical rebellion against the authorities (Starr 101-115).
Individual communities carefully crafted their music, structuring it for internal consumption or conveying messages to their opponent races. Africans, for example, sung soul music taking pride in their African identity. Soul music was a slight variation of popular inspirational Gospel tunes in order to make the Gospel beats more danceable (Selcer 342), unlike other genres like Rock which were a new creation of music that the native people coined out of rebellion chants. The target population for Jazz music, on the other hand, was both the white and black communities. This was because even the thought of European (white) people singing African slavery songs was racially incorrect while, and likewise, Africans considered their fellow mates as corrupted if they sung white songs hence jazz served to bridge this into an acceptable middle ground (Starr 53-77) for both races. Colonized communities sang Rock music, directing it towards the colonial masters, as a rebellion against the oppressive rule, while country music was a preserve of the white population. Europeans intended Country music to be a warning to the rest of the members against racial intermixing with the inferior Africans (Starr 204-233).
The genre; Blues, intrinsically groups Classic and Country Blues into one category of music, however, the style is slightly different. Country Blues represent a class of Blue songs played in rural areas, with native and pre-civil war themes (Selcer 344). These songs can be substantially referred to as the authentic blues, whereas, classic blues are the urbanized version of blues. Urbanized composers use contemporary instruments like electric guitars to give a modern touch to the plantation theme of Country Blues (Maurice 66-73). As such, the native or country blues are more gentle and relaxing as compared to the modernized Classic Blues.
Conclusion
In conclusion, as much as some genres of music remained popular only among a group in the population, some were more culturally and racially diverse and became accepted by the whole population. These include the Rhythm and Blues music, a true testament to the term Popular American Music of the 19th century.
Works Cited
Maurice, B. Wheeler, “Politics and Race in American Historical Popular Music: Contextualized Access and Minstrel Music archives”, Archival Science 11. 1-2 (2011): 47-75. Print.
Selcer, F. Richard, Civil War America, 1850 to 1875: Infobase Publishing, 2006. Print.
Starr, Larry and Waterman, Christopher Alan, American Popular Music from Minstrelsy to MP3: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.