Anglo-American music

The Thirteen Colonies of the original United States were all former English possessions, and Anglo culture became a major foundation for American folk and popular music.

Overview

Many American folk songs use the same music, but with new lyrics, often as parodies of the original material. American Anglo songs can also be distinguished from British songs by having fewer pentatonic tunes, less prominent accompaniment (but with heavier use of drones) and more melodies in major ref|Anglo-America.

Anglo-American traditional music, dating back to colonial times, includes a variety of broadside ballads, humorous stories and tall tales, and disaster songs regarding mining, shipwrecks (especially in New England) and murder. Folk heroes like Joe Magarac, John Henry and Jesse James are also part of many songs. Folk dance of Anglo origin include the square dance, descended from the European high society quadrille, combined with the American innovation of a "caller" instructing the dancers ref|caller. Sea shanties are an important part of Anglo-American music ref|shanties

Folklorist Alan Lomax described regional differences among rural Anglo musicians as included the relaxed and open-voiced northern vocal style and the pinched and nasal southern style, with the west exhibiting a mix of the two. He attributed these differences to sexual relations, the presence of minorities and frontier life ref|Lomax.

References

*cite book |author=Burk, Cassie, Virginia Meierhoffer and Claude Anderson Phillips|title=America's Musical Heritage|publisher=Laidlaw Brothers|year=1942|
*; cited in Nettl
*

Notes

# Nettl, pg. 201
# Nettl, pgs. 201-202
# Burk, Meierhoffer and Phillips
# Lomax, pg. 1, cited in Nettl, pg. 202