Answer the following 2 questions separately.
Q1: On p. 326, the author writes, “although Nationalism was one of the features of nineteenthcentury
Romanticism in Europe, it did not appear in American music until well into the twentieth
century… The greatest interest in nationalistic music occurred from the 1930’s through the 1950’s.
Give some reasons as to why you think American composers did not write nationalistic music in
the late 1800’s when the majority of nationalistic compositions were being written in Europe at
that time. Also comment on why you think it appeared mostly in the three decades of the 1930’s,
40’s and 50’s.
Q2: The author states on p. 393, “Because most African music is functional, it does not take
place in a performer/audience situation. Musical performances are truly participatory events in
which there is little distinction between performer and audience. Because African music is
functional, its musicians want their work to have an impact. They do not care whether it is
considered ‘beautiful’ in the sense that Western musicians often think about music.”
You can see that there are some major differences between typical “African” music and the
concert music of Western civilization. We know, from a study of Western music in the 20th
century, that many composers incorporated ideas from African music in their compositions. Do
you think that this was also true for popular music? If so, list some examples of popular music
that utilize one or more of the distinctive of African music listed above and describe how they
are impacted. If not, why do you think that popular music was not impacted by African music?
In addition, do you think that African music has been impacted by Western music? Do you think
that this is a good thing, a bad thing, a combination of both, or neutral in effect?
