Musical Ear: Oral Tradition in the USA

The Musical Ear: Oral Tradition in the USA provides a wide-ranging look at the role played by music that is passed on aurally without the use of notation, in the folk, popular and art musics of North America. Professor McLucas argues that without the broad underlying oral repertoire of folk music, many musical styles - from that of the eighteenth-century singing schools to the minstrel tunes of Foster, the orchestral music of Copland and the jazz compositions of Armstrong and Ellington - would not possess their distinctive rhythmic and melodic content. Without the strong processes of oral tradition - its ability to communicate effectively to a particular ethnic or social group - American popular music would be much less multi-dimensional and vital. And without the idea that every man and woman has a voice and is entitled to sing (or play), the more elitist view of European music might be stronger than the participatory model appropriate to a democracy. Found within the many oral trad Read more