Approximate: The oldest archeological remains of rasps, made from sheep horn, wood, deer bone, antelope scapula and elk rib, can be dated to approximately this timeframe.[1]
620-670 C.E.: Earliest wood flutes from the Prayer Rock district of NorthEastern Arizona.[2]
circa 1000
Approximate: Copper and clay bells can be dated to this era, and were traded across the Mississippi Valley and into Mexico.[1]
The "first documented European music education" in the United States begins in a colony in New Mexico, founded by a group of Spanish friars accompanying Juan de Oñate.[8]
1607
Jamestown, Virginia, becomes the first permanent settlement by the British in what is now the United States.[6]
1612
The Book of Psalmes: Englished Both in Prose and Metre is published in Amsterdam by Henry Ainsworth. This book will be the basis for the psalmody of the Pilgrims who colonize New England.[9][10]
The Pilgrims arrive in Plymouth, Massachusetts, who begin the well-documented sacred song tradition of New England. The psalmody of the Pilgrims and other early New England Protestants was "spare and plain", reflecting their Calvinist theology.[13]
The Dutch Reformed Church in New York colony orders the precentor (voorzanger) to "tune the psalm" for the congregation to sing along; this practice consisted of the leader singing a line, which is then repeated, and often elaborated upon, by the audience. This practice is later known as lining out and is a crucial feature of African American church music.[25]
1651
The Bay Psalm Book is published in its third edition, its definitive form, often called the New England Psalm Book. There is, as yet, no music provided in the collection.[26]
1653
The earliest known military band is formed in New Hampshire, consisting of fifteen oboists and two drummers.[17]
1655
The first documented music in New Sweden (now New Jersey) is from the military, when Governor Johan Risingh exited a fort with drums and trumpets or fifes playing to meet with the Dutch forces to whom he was capitulating.[27]
The Pilgrim congregation in Salem, Massachusetts, votes to stop using the Henry Ainsworth psalm collection because the tunes were considered too difficult.[18]
The Pueblo Revolt leads to the destruction of the Spanish missions in what is now New Mexico, obliterating all known printed music and other musical documentation.[15]
Money is authorized by several Virginia counties to purchase drums and trumpets for use in their state militia.[17][30]
1694
Johannes Kelpius, leader of the German Pietists who settled near Philadelphia, brings an organ, becoming the first individual in the future United States to do so.[31][32]
1698
The ninth edition of the Bay Psalm Book is published. It is the first to feature printed music.[26]
1704
Christopher Witt comes to America, where he will build his own pipe organ, becoming the first private organ-owner in the United States.[33]
Isaac Watts' Hymns and Spiritual Songs revitalizes church music in the colonial United States.[35] The book's influence on African American hymnody is "enormous",[20] and it is "well known and greatly admired" throughout North America.[36]
1710
The first concert in New York City is a private affair, at the home of a Mr. Broughton.[37]
1713
George Brownell of Boston becomes perhaps the first dancing master in the United States.[38]
1714
The first permanent church organ in the United States, the Brattle organ, imported by Thomas Brattle,[39] is installed in Boston at King's Chapel.[40] The colonial American aversion to music, which was viewed as sinful, led to the church leaving the organ unpacked for a full year before actually installing it.[41]
John Tufts publishes the first instructional book for singing in the country. It was extremely successful.[42]
The lined-out style of hymnody begins to be criticized for abandoning conservative notation in favor of an oral tradition.[47]
Reverend Thomas Symmes publishes an essay, The Reasonableness of Regular Singing,[48] in which he proposes schools to educate the public in psalm singing. Such schools were to become a major musical institution in New England in the 18th and 19th centuries.[49]
The Amish arrive in Pennsylvania, thus beginning the Amish music tradition in the United States.[50]
New England psalmody begins to grow more organized and disciplined, through singing schools and other institutions.[49] Public concerts, held alongside lectures or sermons, begin to be held in small towns throughout the region.[52]
1721
Two psalm collections are published in Boston, the first two emphasize the music and instructions for singing the tunes over the sacred verses of the psalms. These were John Tufts' An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes[48] and Thomas Walters' The Grounds and Rules of Musick, Explained. These two publications "began a new era in American music history: between them they formed a point of contact between music as an art with a technical basis and a public motivated to learn that technique".[49] Walter's is particularly influential and highly regarded, and is the first book to be printed (by James Franklin) with bar lines in British North America.[52][53]
The first public concert in the country is held in Boston, in a room used by a local dancing master for assemblies.[17][20][56]
1730
The first singing school in the United States is formed in Charleston, South Carolina, where music is taught by John Salter at a boarding school for girls run by his wife.[57][58] Salter is the first secular music teacher in the country.[41]
The first opera written by an American to be both published and produced is The Fashionable Lady; or, Harlequin's Opera by James Ralph, which is premiered this year in London.[59]
John Wesley's A Collection of Psalms and Hymns is the "first book of religious music published in the colonies".[66]
The first newspaper advertisement concerning a fugitive slave with a reference to the slave's musical ability comes from American Weekly Mercury, about runaway Samuel Leonard of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, a half-Native American, half-African fiddler.[67]
Georgia's Governor James Oglethorpe invites minister John Wesley to come with him to Georgia, on a ship with Moravian missionaries whose hymn-singing had a profound effect on Wesley, who would go on to lead the Great Awakening of Christianity, often expressed through music.[70][71] Music historian David W. Stowe has called this the most profound event in the history of American sacred music.[72]
John Peter Zenger is imprisoned in New York after publishing ballads about the political opposition. His lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, successfully argues that the jury should judge the law – whether or not the ballads were justly considered libelous – rather than simply the fact of publication. The not guilty verdict is a precedent for freedom of speech, freedom of the press and jury rights.[73]
The oldest surviving music from New Orleans dates to this year. It is a piece of sacred music.[55]
The first major instrument manufacturer in the United States, John Clemm, comes to Philadelphia, where he will establish an organ and piano business.[75]
John Wesley publishes A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, inspired by the Moravians of Pennsylvania; the hymnal launches his career.[77]
1739
The slaves of the Stono Rebellion - the largest slave rebellion in British North America[78] - in South Carolina are reported to use drums to recruit fighters, and music and dancing for emboldening the rebels.[79] As a result, African American drumming is banned in South Carolina.[12][80]
1741
Trinity Church in New York begins instructing African Americans in psalmody, one of the earliest examples of formal African American music instruction; the teacher is organist Johann Gottlob Klem (John Clemm).[81]
Religious persecution at home leads to a wave of German-speaking Moravian immigrants, who will play a vital role in establishing American concert music, become known for their brass choirs and become among the earliest instrument manufacturers in the country.[50] They will settle in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania this year, flourishing and becoming widely known for their music.[41][82]
English hymn writer John Cennick publishes his first collection, Sacred Hymns for the Children of God; he will go on to become the "real founder of folky religious song in the rebellious eighteenth century movement".[83]
The custom of giving African American workers vacations during the spring election period begins in Connecticut; the workers establish secular festivals that include song and dance, with elections of "governors" and "kings" as part of the celebrations.[86]
1750
Though the ban may not have been strictly or effectively enforced, the city of Boston prohibits theater entertainment, due to a Puritan influence that treated theater as a negative institution that symbolized a "preference for idleness and pleasure over hard work and thrift".[87]
The first comic ballad opera, The Beggar's Opera by John Gay,[88] is first performed in the colonial United States, in New York City; it goes on to become hugely successful, and among the most popular pieces of the period.[89]
Approximate: The African American 'Lection Day holiday, in which blacks paraded and elected an honorary ruler, is first celebrated, in Connecticut.[90]
William Tuckey comes to New York City, where he will become the city's first music teacher.[37][41]
1753
The British Museum has had a drum since this date, made in Virginia from local wood and deer skin, but in a manner typical of the Ashanti of Ghana, a major piece of evidence for African retention in African American music.[12] It is also similar to the apinti drum of the Afro-Guyanese.[92]
1754
An unused room in a building becomes the first concert hall in Boston.[93]
The British begin expelling the French-speaking Acadians from Canada, many of whom will go to Louisiana, providing an important foundation for both Cajun music and Louisiana Creole music.[94]
An English surgeon composes the words to "Yankee Doodle", which will become the most popular song in the country in the latter part of the Revolutionary War.[95] It will remain the only national song of the United States until the War of 1812.[96]
1756
The first documented public performance by a military band in the British colonies comes in a Philadelphia parade this year.[17][97]
Full military bands are sent to North America by the British, hoping to alleviate reluctance by the colonialists to join the British militias. New bands will arrive every year during the French and Indian War.[97]
1758
The First Church of Boston forms a choir, the first of many New England churches to do so in the next decade.[98]
The earliest known reference to music in a newspaper advertisement comes from the Newport Mercury of Newport, Rhode Island. The advertisement seeks a violinist.[99]
1759
An ode by James Lyon for Princeton College's graduation and Francis Hopkinson's "My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free" are both composed; these two pieces are each cited as the first original musical composition by an American composer.[100] Hopkinson has been called the first secular composer in the American colonies,[101] and "My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free" is the first American secular song.[102]
Early 1760s music trends
Music instructor James Brenner begins teaching in a coffeehouse in Philadelphia.[103]
Francis Hopkinson begins playing harpsichord in concert; he would go on to be among the most influential composers of the colonial era,[104] and the first American composer for voice and harpsichord.[105]
1761
James Lyon publishes in Philadelphia the "first American tunebook to address the needs of both congregation and choir", Urania, or a Choice Collection of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems, and Hymns. This tunebook offers "something for every kind of sacred singer" and "was the first American tunebook to bring psalmody straight into the commercial arena", showing "how psalmody... could find a niche in the marketplace".[98][106][107] The collection features the first published American anthems, fuging tunes and hymn tunes. It is also the first work to identify its songs as "new", meaning composed in the colonies. Twenty-eight of the songs include both music and text, and are the first such printings in the country.[46]
Barzillai Lew, a free-born African American musician from Massachusetts, becomes an Army fifer and drummer during the French and Indian War. His wife, Dinah Bowman, is the first black woman in history to be identified as a pianist. The Lew family is prominent in the area around Dracut, Massachusetts, and the family remains musically renowned well into the 20th century.[108]
A scene from Love in a Village, a pasticcio of the 1760s
The only description of secular music among the Swedes in what is now New Jersey comes from Carl Magnus Wrangel, who reports that jubilant music and dance was common in private homes.[112]
1766
A pasticcio called Love in a Village, with music by Thomas Arne and based on a play by Isaac Bickerstaffe, becomes a major part of the American theater repertory after performances in Charleston and Philadelphia;[113] it is also considered the first English comic opera.[114]
Andrew Barton's The Disappointment; Or, the Force of Credulity is the first American ballad opera,[115] and the first opera with a plot based in the United States. Its libretto is the first of its kind (comic opera) written and published in the country.[59] It is not, however, performed until the 20th century.[115] The scheduled debut in Philadelphia is cancelled because the opera "contained personal Reflections [sic] (and) is unfit for the stage", according to the Pennsylvania Gazette.[43]
The first detailed account of an American military band concert comes the Royal American Regiment (Sixtieth Foot) in New York.[118]
Late 1760s music trends
British patriotic songs begin to be changed into anti-British protests circulated through newspapers and broadsides.[119]
Itinerant music instructor John Stadler travels across Virginia, teaching music to families like the wealthy Carters and the Washingtons[103]
1768
An advertisement in the Boston Chronicle is the one of the first for sheet music, for "Liberty Song", in the United States.[120]
1769
A concert is organized by John Gualdo in Philadelphia; this consisted of a wide range of pieces, much of which was composed by Gualdo himself, leading some historians to refer to this as the first "composers'-concert" in the United States.[121]
Roman Catholic missionary activity begins to "severely devastate" the civilizations of central coast and southern California, bringing new forms of Roman Catholic music to the indigenous peoples of California.[122]
An anonymous manuscript published by John Boyles of Boston, Abstract of Geminiani's Art of Playing on the Violin is the first known instrumental education book in the future United States.[48]
1770
William Billings' The New-England Psalm-Singer is the first compilation of entirely American music and the first compiled by a native-born American to be published,[102] first major publication by a singing master,[101] and the first tunebook in the country dedicated to the music of a single composer. The most famous song in the compilation is "Chester", which will be an unofficial anthem for Americans during the Revolutionary War.[101] Its publication begins a flourishing of distinctively American New England publications of sacred tunes (" First New England School").[124][125] Billings himself will go on to become one of the first major figures in American music history, and is said to have been the first to introduce both the pitch pipe and the violoncello to the New England church choir.[126]
William Tuckey, an organist and choirmaster in New York's Trinity Church, presents a performance from Handel's Messiah, the first performance from that piece in the United States.[127]
English traveler Nicholas Cresswell notes a song which he describes as a "Negro tune". This "may well represent the earliest record of the influence of slave music on the white colonists". His work also contains the first reference to a banjo.[129]
George Leile, one of the first African Americans with official permission to preach, travels along the Savannah River preaching to slaves. He eventually formed one of the earliest self-governing black churches in the country, in Silver Bluff, South Carolina.[130]
Samson Occom, a Native American minister, publishes the first hymnal to contain refrains.[131]
At a celebration following the victory of Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys in the fight to capture Fort Ticonderoga, a band performs. This is the first documented performance of a military band in celebration of battle.[17]
The Shakers, led by Ann Lee, settle at Niskayuna, New York, forming a communal religious society that used dance and music as an essential and sacred element of the religion.[136]
George Washington, worried that poor quality performance by musicians during drill practices would hinder military performance in battle, establishes tighter conditions for military bands in the Continental Army.[137]
The inspired musicianship of military drummers and fifers, under the command of Colonel John Stark, is credited with victory at the Battle of Bennington.[137]
1778
William Billings' The Singing Master's Assistant includes songs that link the plight of the Israelites in Egyptian captivity with the lives of Bostonians of the time. This tunebook influentially "treated Scripture not only as a guide to spiritual inspiration and moral improvement, but as a historical epic that, bringing past into present, offered timeless parallels to current events".[138]
Andrew Law and his brother form a tunebook-printing company in Cheshire, Connecticut, beginning with 1779's Select Harmony, which reveals Law as a "champion of American composers, at a time when the notion that Americans could compose music at all was a new one".[134][139]
Thomas Jefferson presents a view common to many of the upper-class elite in North America, in a letter to Giovanni Fabbroni complaining that American music was in a state of "deplorable barbarism".[140]
A reorganization of the Continental Army establishes pay grades of military musicians and creates staff positions for drum and fife majors.[137]
1779
Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben issues a manual, soon approved by Congress, which establishes the positions of military musicians and standardizes musical calls.[141]
Due to a manpower shortage, military musicians come to be chosen from enlisted men, rather than from performers who enlisted solely as musicians. This is the first evidence of musicians doing soldierly duties in the American army.[141]
Joel Barlow of Connecticut edits the very popular hymns of Isaac Watts to remove content supporting British sovereignty.[144]
1786
The city of New Orleans bans slaves from dancing in public squares on holy days and Sundays until after evening church services.[145]
The first Sunday school in the United States is established in Virginia; Sunday schools will become a major part of religious music instruction throughout the country.[146]
The Stoughton Musical Society, which remains in existence today, is founded in Stoughton, Massachusetts;[101] this is also the beginning of American choral societies.[147] It may be the oldest continuous musical organization in the country,[148] and is the oldest choral society in the United States,[149] and has been called the "earliest musical organization of importance".[150]
Daniel Read and Amos Doolittle begin issuing the American Musical Magazine, the earliest music periodical in Anglo North America.[151]
1787
John Aitken becomes the first American publisher of strictly music, and the first to publish secular sheet music in the United States. Most of the music is composed or arranged by Alexander Reinagle.[152][153] Aitken engraves Reinagle's A Selection of the Most Favorite Scots-Irish Tunes, which is the first use of punching tools to engrave music in the country.[120]
Johannes Herbst, a Moravian bishop and hymn writer, begins collecting music manuscripts. His archive is not publicly available until 1977.[154]
John Griffiths, an itinerant New England dancing master, publishes A Collection of the Newest and Most Fashionable Country Dances and Cotillions, the first collection of country dances in the United States.[156]
1789
The Constitution of the United States comes into effect, granting Congress the power to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries", the beginning of American copyright law.[157]
A ban on theatrical music is lifted, for the first time since the American Revolution.[19]
A slave named Newport Gardner wins a lottery and buys his freedom, opening a singing school and becoming one of the first African American music teachers.[161]
The ban on theaters in Philadelphia is ended.[162]
1792
Congress passes a law requiring all able-bodied white males to join a state militia; the result helps spur the development of military bands, as opposed to fife-and-drum corps, which Congress authorizes for the first time the same year.[142][163] The Militia Act standardized the instrumentation of military bands.[164]
The ban on theater entertainment in Boston ends.[87]
John Aitken ends his music publishing career for a time, as composer Alexander Reinagle become music director for the New Theater in Philadelphia. One impetus for Aitken's ending his business comes from increased competition, as the American music publishing industry diversifies and competitors arise in New York, Boston and Baltimore.[152]
Benjamin Carr opens a musical instrument shop in Philadelphia, and soon begins publishing music as well, one of the first music publishing ventures in the United States.[166] His periodical The Gentleman's Amusement included Philip Phile's "The President's March",[167] which is later the tune for "Hail, Columbia".[164]
A comic opera called The Children in the Wood premiers in Philadelphia; with music by Samuel Arnold and libretto by Thomas Morton, the opera becomes wildly popular in the United States.[168]
Andrew Law publishes The Art of Singing, a trio of books aimed at educating Americans in music; these publications "represent nothing less than a conversion in musical taste", as he abandoned American composers in favor of European principles of composition.[169]
Ann Hatton and James Hewitt's Tammany; or, The Indian Chief is the both first American opera on a Native American subject[170] and the first on an American subject of any kind. It is also the first with a female librettist.[59]
Mid 1790s music trends
Though the publisher Andrew Law had gained fame for compiling American and British compositions in his tunebooks as equals, his increasingly British-oriented compilations begin to lose commercial ground to works that mix both American and British compositions, indicating a growing American musical sensibility.[171]
The French opera tradition in New Orleans begins with a production of Silvain, an opera by André Ernest Modeste Grétry.[173] New Orleans will remain the center for opera in the United States until the 1860s.[174]
The Pocket Hymn Book is published in Philadelphia. It will become the standard collection of hymns for the camp meetings of the Great Awakening of the early 19th century.[178]
The first complete work to be copyrighted is a pair of ballads, "Ellen Arise: A Ballad" and "The Little Sailor Boy: A Ballad", both by Benjamin Carr.[157]
The first governmental subsidy for music comes in the form of the United States Marine Band, led by Drum Major William Farr;[164][179] this is the first military musical establishment in the United States.[157]
The song "Hail, Columbia", set to the music of "The President's March", is published, with the intent of "arousing the American spirit"; it becomes one of the most popular and long-lasting patriotic songs in the country.[181]
Samuel Adams Holyoke's first volume of The Instrumental Assistant is the first "comprehensive instrumental and collection of traditional music for band instruments published" in the United States.[172]
François Delochaire Mallet of France, Gottlieb Graupner of Germany, and Filippo Trajetta of Italy announce the founding of a music academy in Boston, called the American Conservatorio of Boston, in the Boston Gazette on November 24. It is the first such institution in the United States and lasted just two years.[186][187]
1801
Reverend Richard Allen publishes A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns for Bethel Church in Philadelphia; this is the first such collection "assembled by a black author for a black congregation".[71][142][188] The collection includes works by Isaac Watts and others, as well as some that are unattributed and may have been composed by Allen himself.[189] It was also the first collection "to employ the so-called wandering refrains -- that is, refrain verses or short choruses attached at random to orthodox hymn stanzas".[131]
William Smith and William Little publish The Easy Instructor in Philadelphia;[48] it is the first shape note tunebook, which would become the standard for American shape note singing in the 19th century.[171]
Richard Allen publishes his own hymnal, A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns, which becomes very popular.[190]
Presbyterian clergy in Kentucky begin to hold camp meetings to promote Christian spirituality; these would go on to be run by Baptist and Methodist preachers as part of the Great Awakening of religious fervor.[192][193]
William Little and William Smith publish The Easy Instructor, a book whose shape note system will become the standard in the United States.[194]
1803
Publisher Andrew Law begins to publish in shape notes, with the publication of the fourth edition of The Musical Primer. His system had been copyrighted, but was surpassed by William Little and William Smith's The Easy Instructor, which used a slightly different system and quickly became the standard for American shape note singing.[171][195]
The earliest full description of the African American Pinkster day holiday comes from a poem published in Albany, New York.[196]
The earliest extant orchestral score for an American opera known to exist is The Voice of Nature by William Dunlap and Victor Pelissier, composed in this year.
1804
In Salem and western Middlesex County, Massachusetts, clergymen and other local leaders and singers begin advocating for a more formal and European style of religious musical expression.[197]
mid-19th century music trends
Presbyterian clergy begin to hold camp meetings to promote Christian spirituality; these would go on to be run by Baptist and Methodist preachers as part of the Great Awakening of religious fervor.[192]
Two important British-dominated tunebooks are published in 1805 and 1807. These lead to an increase in European-dominated tunebooks being published after the mid-19th century.[198]
1805
Shape note singing grows in popularity and expands in influence after William Smith and William Little'sThe Easy Instructor is picked up by an Albany, New York publisher.[199]
The Salem Collection of Classical Sacred Musick is published in Salem, Massachusetts; it is described by traditionalist psalmodist Nathaniel D. Gould as a spearhead for musical reform in New England churches.[200]
Approximate: Musical reformers of psalmody, who promote "European standards and 'correct taste'", begin using the name of George Frideric Handel to symbolize the idealized music they prefer.[201]
Richard McNemar converts to become a Shaker; he will become known as the "Father of Shaker music", and is the most prolific composer of Shaker hymns and anthems.[136]
Librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte emigrates to the United States, where he will help to introduce opera to mainstream Americans.[43]
1807
The Middlesex Collection of Church Musick is published in Boston; it is described by traditionalist psalmodist Nathaniel D. Gould as a spearhead for musical reform in New England churches.[200]
The age of popular parlor music begins with the first publication of Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies, in Dublin, London and Philadelphia. The collection popularizes parlor music to a large audience of mixed social and economic backgrounds.[43] The collection also inspires a vogue for nostalgic, sentimental songs throughout the Anglophone world.[202] Two of the most important songs from the collection are "The Last Rose of Summer" and "The Harp That Once Thro' Tara's Halls".[147]
The earliest extant full piano vocal score known to exist is from James Nelson Barker and John Bray's The Indian Princess; Or, La Belle Savauge, composed in this year.[59]
1809
The first African American Baptist church is formed in Philadelphia.[35]
The first military band in New York City is formed, serving the 11th Regiment of the New York Militia and based on Bedloe's Island.[206]
1811
Russian visitor Pavel Svinin visits an African American church in Philadelphia; this is one of the first written depictions of black church music in the United States.[190]
The first use of the word hit referring to a success in show business comes from this year. The word is borrowed from the game of backgammon.[207]
Early 1810s music trends
Three regions of shape note publishing take form, outside of New England: one was based in the South, especially Georgia and South Carolina, another was dominated by Germans between Philadelphia and the Shenandoah Valley, and the last stretched from Pennsylvania and the Shenandoah Valley westward to Cincinnati and St. Louis.[208]
1812
A hymnbook, popularly called The Bridgewater Collection is first published; it will be used at least until well into the 20th century.[209]
During the War of 1812, American military bands use bugles rather than drums and fifes as in the Revolutionary War.[206]
While British troops blockade American ports, European sheet music can not be imported, helping to spur the rise of the American music publishing industry.[211]
Rayner Taylor's romantic grand opera, The Acthiop; Or, The Child of the Desert, is a popular and influential composition, which remains in production into the 1860s.[59]
1815
In Boston the Handel and Haydn Society is formed to "improve sacred music performance and promote the sacred works of eminent European masters". This marks "a new stage in Americans' recognition of music as an art".[217][218] It remains an influential part of Bostonian culture.[7][219]
The keyed bugle is introduced to the United States. The keyed bugle led to the development of a whole new class of valved brass instruments called saxhorns after their French inventor, Antoine-Joseph Sax[220]
This is the earliest proffered date for the formation of the first minstrel troops.[221]
Thomas Hastings, a prolific publisher of church music and author, publishes his "first and most famous collection", Musica Sacra.[222]
1816
The African Methodist Episcopal Church is founded in Philadelphia, which "established a racial division in American Protestantism; music was to remain a major part of the Church's spiritual expression.[81]
The earliest description of a specifically African American Christian music performance comes from George Tucker, who witnessed the song in Portsmouth, Virginia.[223]
Thomas Funk publishes Choral Music, a songbook that helps establish the American shape note singing tradition. Funk's descendants will carry on his legacy in founding Ruebush-Kieffer, a publishing company that will be the predecessor of most of the Southern religious music publishing firms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[224]
Late 1810s music trends
Thomas Hastings begins composing works that use European harmonic techniques; he is one of the few American composers of the era considered to have mastered these techniques.[225]
1817
The city government of New Orleans limits African American dancing to Sundays before sundown in Congo Square, which would become a hotbed of musical mingling and innovation.[145][226]
Civilian Richard Willis is hired as teacher of music at the West Point Academy. The tradition of hiring civilians for this position will last until 1972. He will also introduce the keyed bugle to the American military.[214]
1818
Music teacher, keyed bugler and bandleader Frank Johnson publishes Six Sets of Cotillions, establishing a career that will make him the leader of the "Philadelphia School", the first African American "school of classically trained composers".[111] He also becomes the first African American to publish sheet music this year,[227][228][229] and will later become the first widely acclaimed composer, both at home and in England, first to innovate a style or school elaborated upon by other individuals,[230] first to give formal band concerts,[230][231] and the first to perform with white musicians in public[232] and the first to tour widely in the United States.[230] He may be the first American of any race to tour abroad, in 1837.[233]
Bohemian composer Anthony Philip Heinrich comes to the United States and is so impressed by the "natural scenery, (America's) exciting history, and the music of the Native American" that he began composing a string of works on these topics.[236]
1819
John Fanning Watson, a Wesleyan Methodist, publishes a tract called Methodist Error, which criticizes clergy that hold camp meetings, on the basis that they were relatively racially egalitarian, and the music poorly-composed and performed, especially by African Americans. Though his criticism is not entirely aimed at African Americans, the features he most identifies as religiously inappropriate are characteristically African American.[192] His chief complaint is the use of refrains "of their own composing", referring to those include in the hymnal of Richard Allen from 1801.[237]
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Koskoff, Ellen (2005). Music Cultures in the United States: An Introduction. Routledge. ISBN0-415-96589-6.
John Shepherd; David Horn; Dave Laing; Paul Oliver; Peter Wicke, eds. (2003). Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 1: Media, Industry and Society. London: Continuum. ISBN0-8264-6321-5.
Southern, Eileen (1997). Music of Black Americans. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN0-393-03843-2.
^ abcHaefer, Richard. "Musical Instruments". The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. pp. 472–479. Diamond, Beverly; M. Sam Cronk; Franziska von Rosen (1994). Visions of Sound: Musical Instruments of First Nations Communities in Northeastern America. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN0-226-14475-5.
^Crawford, pg. 20; Crawford notes that "Florida Indians liked the psalm melodies and continued to sing them years after the Spaniards had massacred the French colonists, as a way of testing strangers to determine whether they were friend (French) or foe."
^ abcKoskof, "Musical Profile of the United States and Canada", pgs. 2–20, Garland Encyclopedia of the World Music
^Elson, University Musical Encyclopedia, pg. 25; Elson notes that it was the second book printed in the colonies.
^Horn, David. "Hymnals". The Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music. pp. 580–583. ISBN0-8264-9112-X. Horn notes that it was the first book printed in English in the colonies.
^Levine, Victoria Lindsay; Judith A. Gray. "Musical Interactions". The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music.Howard, James H. (1955). "The Pan-Indian Culture of Oklahoma". Scientific Monthly. 18 (5): 215–220. Bibcode:1955SciMo..81..215H.
^Haufman, pg. 24; Haufman notes the use of drums and trumpets from a document by Israel Acrelius, writing in 1789, and the use of drums and fifes, attributed to John E. Pomfret, writing in 1956.
^Elson, The History of American Music, pg. 42; Elson cites this claim to Henry M. Brooks, antiquarian
^Crawford, pgs. 81–82; "Hopkinson himself claimed to be the first American composer in 1788, in a preface to the publication of Seven Songs for the Harpsichord or Forte Piano." Crawford notes that music historian Oscar Sonneck tested this claim in 1905, concluding that Hopkinson had a valid claim. Crawford also notes, however, that some historians would not consider any composer American until the ninth state ratified the United States Constitution in June 1788, and thus it is possible that Hopkinson was, in fact, referring to the publication of Seven Songs for the Harpsichord or Forte Piano as the first American composition.
^Crawford, pg. 113; Crawford notes that the Lew family's musicianship continued through a total of seven generations, counting Barzillai's father Primus Lew, a military field musician.
^Keeling, Richard. "California". The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. pp. 412–419.Herzog, George (1928). "The Yuman Musical Style". Journal of American Folklore. 41 (160). American Folklore Society: 183–231. doi:10.2307/534896. JSTOR534896. and Nettl, Bruno (1954). North American Indian Musical Styles. Philadelphia: American Folklore Society. ISBN0-292-73524-3.
^Elson, The History of American Music, pg. 43; Elson cites Scharff and Westcott's History of Philadelphia (Volume II, pg. 879)
^Hansen, pg. 205 describes a 1775 "beautiful mahogany piano-forte in the manner of a harpsichord", but does not call it the first piano Behrent constructs.
^ abRycenga, Jennifer, Denise A. Seachrist and Elaine Keillor, "Snapshot: Three Views of Music and Religion", pgs. 129–139, in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
^Cornelius, Steven, Charlotte J. Frisbie and John Shepherd, "Snapshot: Four Views of Music, Government, and Politics", pgs. 304–319, in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
^Levine, Victoria Lindsay. "Northeast". The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. pp. 461–465.Morgan, Henry Louis (1962) [1852]. League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois. Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press. ISBN0-665-38467-X.
^Chase, pg. 109; Chase calls the Society a "prestigious and permanent feature of Boston's musical life, with ramifications that spread its influence far and wide".
Keller, Kate Van Winkle. Popular Secular Music in America Through 1800: A Preliminary Checklist of Manuscripts in North American Collections. Philadelphia: Music Library Association. ISBN0-914954-22-9.
