Although the Shakers’ material culture has received the most modern attention, arguably the most vital facet of Shaker life was not the production of material objects, but rather the production of music.

Providing the gamut of contexts for specific musical expressions in America’s past makes them all the more comprehensible, and conveys an appreciation for the ubiquitous importance music had for people long before the age of electronics.

While the lyrics conveyed forceful messages to the eighteenth-century public, the music also spoke to listeners.

Because psalmody was transmitted through a fluid mix of printed books, manuscript compilations, and oral tradition, hymn tunes and texts were frequently mixed and matched, and tune names likewise varied.

Eighteenth-century French armies marched at one of two tempos.

Having been involved in different levels of reenacting for 30 years, from the French and Indian War to the Western […]

Dancers and musicians, who work primarily with physical knowledge and sensation, perceive jigs differently than historians who rely on written evidence.

McIntosh championed the soprano-led ensemble, softer singing style, proper enunciation, and a more affected style of performance characteristic of both liturgical-based denominations such as Episcopalians, Catholics, and Lutherans, as well as members of polite society.

All the essays in this issue treat music that registers quintessentially American processes of cultural change-encounter, innovation, contestation, reconfiguration, transfusion.

Norumbega Harmony is a choral ensemble organized at Wellesley College in 1976. Since the beginning we have sung weekly in […]

Hesperus was founded as a baroque ensemble in Arlington, Va., in 1979, but quickly expanded its repertoire to include colonial […]

The Newberry Consort presents historically informed programs of early music, often drawn from the collections at the Newberry Library, through […]

What makes American music American? Is there a distinctive American music? What is the relationship between American music and music […]

David and Ginger Hildebrand co-founded the Colonial Music Institute, which conducts and promotes research and offers information and resource materials […]

    Databases Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources, 1589-1839: An Index http://www.colonialdancing.org/Easmes/Index.htm The Hymn Tune Index. All hymns […]

Or How the Puritans Boogied Down, Down, Down Derry Down