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Unit 9 - Music and Cultural Identity (Chapter 59 (Sounds American: Ives,…
Unit 9 - Music and Cultural Identity
North Indian Cultural Music
Chapter 30, p. 172
North Indian classical music is a centuries-old performance tradition linked to Hinduism and its deities.
This musical style is based not on entirely fixed musical works, but rather on long-standing traditional repertories of motives and themes elaborated by expert performers.
Rather than featuring a key center, each semi-improvised elaboration introduces a raga, a series of pitches that also projects a particular moos and an association with a certain time of the day.
Indian musicians learn to play this music by apprenticing to master players, who pass their performance techniques down to the next generation via an oral tradition.
Ravi Shankar taught his daughter Anoushka this way, and she has herself become a great sitar artist.
Shankar in fact introduced Indian classical music to the Western world, inspiring a genre of "raga-rock" in the 1960s and 70s.
Overview of North Indian Cultural Music
Music passed down via oral tradition
Apprenticeships
Master players- pandit or ustad
Repertories of motives and themes- not a piece of music
Centuries-old performance tradition linked to Hinduism (12th century)
All memorized- no notation
North Indian Classical Music System
Tala- complex rhythmic cycle; translation- clap
Accompaniment to raga
Tabla or Pakhawaj- Hand drums
Drone- form of harmony; striking of strings that sustain pitches
Shruti box- bellows drone; electronic today
Swarmandal- Indian harp
Tanpura- long-necked, plucked ; string instrument
Raga: series of pitches, projects mood, time of day
Pitches for the organized melody
Descent sequences- avaroha
Other characteristics
Vadi- most important note
Samavadi- 2nd most important note
Pakad- essence of musical phrase
Ascent sequences- aroha
Played on sitar
Long-neck plucked string instrument with metal strings & gourd resonator
Ravi Shankar (1920–2012)
Apprenticeship system
Taught his daughter Anoushka and the Beatle George Harrison
Raga Rock
Influenced Indian music in 1960 & 70s pop music
Performed at Woodstock in 1969
One best known sitar players and teacher
Raga Bhimpalasi
He is often accompanied by a performer who plays a complex rhythmic cycle (tala, meaning "clap") with a small set of hand drums called tabla.
Raga Bhimpalasi is a mere twelve minutes. Indian audiences understand that this piece is performed in the afternoon - at the height of the day's heat - and it projects a mood of tenderness and longing.
Raga Bhimpalasi is performed by the venerable Indian musician Ravi Shanker who plays a sitar, a long-necked plucked string instrument with metal strings and gourd resonators.
The raga provides the pitches for the highly ornamented melody, and its tala is an additive rhythmic cycle of fourteen; you can hear Shankar explain both the raga and tala in a brief demonstration at the beginning.
Harmony is not really a part of this music, except for what's produced by the striking of strings that sound drones.
As in sonata-allegro form, we can expect the work to play out in sections, but while there is a general outline to the overall structure, improvisation plays a key role throughout.
As the performance progresses, the tempo gradually accelerates to an extended climax, with dazzling passagework on the sitar accompanied by animated rhythms on the tabla.
Improvised melodic elaborations
Ascending and descending raga
Form
2nd Section- Gat
Tabla enters
Rhythmic cycle
3rd Section- Jhala
Faster tempo
Interplay of instruments
Introduction- Alap
Slow/unmetered
Sitar alone
Complex Rhythm
2+4+4+4
The introductory section is slow and unmetered, played by the sitar alone; the pitches of the raga are established in this improvisatory section. The second section begins with the entrance of the tabla, which sets up the rhythmic cycle. With the third section, the tempo speeds up and the interplay between the instruments becomes more complex.
Chinese Opera
Chapter 44 pp. 254-255
After flourishing in the early 1900s, both in China and internationally, the genre suffered during the decade-long period known as the Cultural Revolution, a movement begun by the chairman of the Communist party, Mao Zedong, in 1966 to purge China of a class-structured society.
Operas that did not present communist themes were considered subversive and therefore banned. They were replaced by eight approved "model plays" that fostered the ideals of communism; one of these was The Story of the Red Lantern.
Beijing opera is a blend of music, mime, and dance, with stylized gestures and movements as well as colorful costumes and masks. Its repertory is large, with many works based on novels about the country's political and military struggles.
The so-called model plays were heard often on the radio and seen in stage and film versions. Indeed, this was a political art form well known to all the Chinese people. Beijing opera enjoyed a revival after the "lost decade" of the Cultural Revolution and remains a popular form of entertainment today; new works are being premiered, and traditional works updated, for modern audiences in China and abroad.
Musical theater has been one of the leading forms of entertainment in China for centuries, and Beijing opera is perhaps the most prestigious of the many regional styles.
You will hear that the singing styles and accompanying instruments are vastly different in the Western and Chinese operatic traditions; this is the result of differing aesthetics of vocal timbre as well as divergent conceptions of melodic and harmonic movement. But both styles rely on acting, particular gestures, and other body movements to communicate the story behind the words being sung.
Chinese Opera
Leading form of entertainment in China for centuries (13th century)
Beijing opera
Most prestigious
Blend- music/mime/dance/costumes
Themes- novels & politics
Cultural Revolution - 1966
Opera
Traditional operas were banned
8 approved as “model plays”
Example- The Story of the Red Lantern
After the Cultural Revolution, Beijing opera enjoyed a revival
Communist Regime
Purge China of class-structured society
The West the Enemy
Leader- Mao Zedong
The Story of the Red Lantern
The protagonist Li Tiemei learns from her adoptive grandmother of the sacrifices her parents made during the communist revolution, and of the work of Li Yuhu, who the took up the cause of the communist martyrs and was taken prisoner.
Li Tiemei vows that she will follow the example of her father, determined "to do such a thing and to be such a person." Her anger toward the Japanese enemy grows increasingly intense as the opera progresses.
This Chinese opera was written as a political manifesto against the Japanese occupation of China in the 1920s and 30s.
The death of her parents is the starting point for Li Tiemei's quest; she too demonstrates extreme anger and hatred toward her enemies, but her determination to carry on the work of her father makes her a more likable character.
This drama concerns communist underground activities during the Japanese occupation of China in 1939. The Story of the Red Lantern likewise draws on a contemporary novel, There Will Be Followers of Revolution, by Qian Daoyuan.
Unlike Western operas, there is no tale of romance in The Story of the Red Lantern; rather, it presents an ideological family - not blood-related - drawn together by revolutionary martyrs.
Based on 1958 novel- Will be Followers of Revolution by Daoyuan
Story
Li Tiemei takes up the cause of the communist martyrs after parents death of parents
No romance
Japanese occupation of China in 1920s and ’30s
Heard on radio, film, and live performances
Singing styles and accompanying instruments very different from Western opera
“To be such a person” for soprano soloist accompanied by traditional Chinese instruments
Heterophony
Mandarin
Erhu, Yang Qin, Pipa
After an instrumental introduction, the voice begins, singing melismatically, wavering between pitches and with a wide vocal vibrato. The instruments drop out occasionally, then rejoin the voice, weaving heterophonic lines around the melody and punctuating the voice with percussive sounds rather tahn harmony.
The vocal range and pace of the song pick up several times, reaching a loud climax near the end, when Li Tiemei resolves to carry on the work of her father.
Japanese Music
Chapter 47 p. 271
Then in 1854, the US Navy, under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry, forced the country to open its doors to world commerce, ending two hundred years of isolation.
Japan quickly adopted some Western ways and institutions, while the United States and Europe experienced a "craze"for all things Japanese - fans, bronzes, woodblock art prints, and music.
From around 1600 to the mid-nineteenth century, Japan had limited contact with the West. Its rulers, fearing the strength of the European powers and the disruptive effects of their influence on Japanese society, banned traders and Christian missionaries, and built an elaborate but self-contained artistic culture.
England also experienced this japonisme fever, inspiring W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's much-loved operetta The Mikado (1885), which satirizes British society but is set in Japan.
When Giacomo Puccini visited London and saw the play Madame Butterfly, he too was hooked, and began studying Japanese melodies - some of which appear, if only fleetingly, in his opera. We know that Puccini was particularly fond of a melody title Echigo Jishi composed around 1811.
Japanese folk melodies are often built on a pentatonic, or five-note, "gapped" scale.
Japanese Music
Little contact with the West until 1854
Japan adopted elements of Western culture
Westerners experienced a “craze” for all things Japanese
US Navy ended isolation
Scale System
Pentatonic (5 notes)
Echigo Jishi
This dance tells the story of a traveling entertainer named Kakubei, who hawks products from the Echigo district while performing a lion's dance, complete with elaborate headgear, and waving long strips of cloth in different patterns.
There was a long folk tradition of lions' dances in Japan, and today there are many versions of Echigo Jishi.
This melody accompanies a dance from a kabuki play, a type of dance-drama that is highly stylized, with elaborate costumes and makeup.
Japanese folk melodies are often built on a pentatonic, or five-note, "gapped" scale. We will hear two versions of Echigo Jishi: the first is the melody in its simplest form - probably as Puccini knew it - played on a shamisen, a banjo-like lute with three twisted silk strings; the second is a dance performance that starts off with a drum, followed by a shamisen playing variations on the melody.
You'll notice there is no real supporting harmony, and the rhythmic movement of the longer, dance version is rather free. Puccini's knowledge of tunes like Echigo Jishi allowed him to infuse his opera with authentic hints of Japanese culture.
The drum begins, then the shamisen enters with an elaboration of the tune. The sections alternate between shamisen solo and drum/shamisen together. At around two minutes, the main tune is heard more clearly, alternating with rapid, repeated notes on shamisen and irregular drumbeats.
The tune undergoes variations in different ranges and tempos. The dance builds to a fast-paced climax, then the music slows, with a regular drumbeat and closing vocal interjections.
Written in 1811
Kabuki play
Dance - drama
Much style- costumes, makeup, etc.
Story
Kakubei- entertainer- steals things while performing a lion dance
Two versions presented here
Simple tune played on the shamisen
Dance performance with drum and shamisen variations
Javanese Gamelan
Chapter 62 pp. 374-375
Listeners at the 1889 Paris World Exhibition were captivated with the spectacle of Javanese dance and the accompanying orchestra called gamelan.
French composer Camille Saint-Saens observed that it was a "a dream music which had truly hypnotized some people."
From that time on, many composers have looked to the music of Southeast Asia and Oceania for inspiration in their own works. American West Coast musicians in particular had the opportunity to experience the gamelan on their own turf: in California, Santa Barbara-based composer/ethnomusicologist Henry Eichheim brought Indonesian instruments back from his travels in the 1920s and also adopted elements of Balinese music in his work.
Beginning in 1940, touring Javanese ensembles traveled up the coast from Los Angeles. These events caught the attention of experimental composers Henry Cowell, who taught a class on "Music of the World's Peoples" at the New School for Social Research in New York, and Lou Harrison, who wrote a number of works for Javanese-style instruments.
John Cage, a devotee of Cowell and Harrison, was certainly not blind to these influences, and he too undertook a study of Asian cultures. The prepared piano technique Cage devised owes a significant debt to gamelan music, in both texture and timbre, although the sounds are achieved in quite a different way.
The gamelan, an orchestra of metallic percussion found on the Indonesian islands of Java, Bali, and Sunda, is comprised of melodic-percussive instruments, each with its own function.
The music is generally performed from memory, passed on through oral tradition from master musician to apprentice. It is only in recent years that a notational method has been devised.
Gamelan music is often heard in ritual ceremonies, including court performances, and in wayang, or shadow-puppet theater.
The performance of a shadow-puppet play would normally begin in the early evening with an overture and continue until dawn. A master puppeteer operates the puppets from behind a screen, narrates and sings the songs, and signals the gamelan - here, soft and loud metallophones, gongs of various sizes, wooden xylophones, and drums - when to play. Our selection is an overture, called Patalon, to a shadow-puppet play.
Javanese Gamelan
Oral tradition & performed by memory
Passed down from master to apprentice
Mostly metallic percussion instruments
Interaction of the melodic movement with a cyclical rhythmic structure determines the form of the work
Hindu, Islamic, and Buddhist influences
1889 Paris World Exhibition- introduced to Western culture
Traditional ensemble music of Java, Bali, and Sundan- Indonesia
Performed at
Ritual ceremonies, court performances
Shadow-puppet theater (wayang)
Shadow-puppet plays begin early evening and continue until dawn
Wayang Patalon
In Javanese music, the interaction of the melodic movement with a cyclical rhythmic structure determines the form of the work.
Here, the melody is based on the pentatonic scale. The work unfolds in sections, with the drum marking the transition between sections.
In this play, the evil king's brother is cast out of the kingdom for suggesting that Rahwana return Sinta to her husband.
The first, including an introduction, is slow and stately - the melody can be heard in the highest-pitched metallophone, which sounds each note of the pentatonic pattern twice.
Like many Javanese dramas, the story comes from the great Hindu epic Ramayana, the story of King Rama, the story King Rama, whose wife Sinta is kidnapped by an evil king named Rahwanna.
When the singer enters, he elaborates on the melody in quite a different way from the instruments, but both singer and instruments converge on accented notes.
At dramatic moments in the text, the accents can jolt the listener. A fast-paced and excited closing section signals the entrance of the dancers and puppet characters.
A slow introduction features the high-sounding metallophone outlining the melodic pattern; the voice soon enters, elaborating on the main melody, which is punctuated by gongs.
A drum cues the transition to the next section; a loud-style section follows, featuring the first four notes of the melody and the gong playing on most main notes.
A transition leads to a soft-style section, featuring quieter instruments and the voice (with dramatic accents and leaps; the dynamic level grows, with loud instruments; recording fades out).
East African Drumming
Chapter 64 pp. 388-389
Since the era of the late nineteenth century European colonization known as the New Imperialism - and the 1889 Paris World Exhibition, where musicians and nonmusicians alike first experienced music and dance from cultures across the globe - an aura of mystery has surrounded the little-known regions of sub-Saharan Africa.
Although French composers like Camille Saint-Saens and Maurice Ravel were charmed by the music of Arab northern Africa, music of the sub-Saharan colonies was viewed as "primitive" for its lack of melodic and harmonic content.
This "primitivism" soon took hold int he arts world, however, influencing early twentieth-century artists and musicians toward non-Western ideals of abstraction - among them painter Paul Gauguin, who was attracted to the simplicity of Tahitian life, and Igor Stravinsky, whose Rite of Spring drew on pagan themes to reach new heights of rhythmic complexity.
From the early twentieth century, composers have continued to look beyond Western musical ideas and constructs; some, like John Cage and Steve Reich, introduced Asian and African elements in their own works.
Reich claims that when he first saw notated music from Ghana, in West Africa, he realized it was composed of repeating patterns that were superimposed on each other.
These patterns became a part of Reich's phase technique. Upon his return from Ghana, he wrote Drumming, a large-scale percussion ensemble work for tuned bongos, marimba, and glockenspiel as well as voice; the use of all-tuned instruments lends interest not only to the dense polyrhythms but also to the short, repeated melodic patterns.
The Ugandan people - representing many different cultures - have felt influences form the Arab world, from Indonesia, and also from their British colonizers. The modern Republic of Uganda was formerly subdivided into a number of powerful kingdoms, each with its own court and ruler.
East African Drumming
Europeans once viewed African music to be "primitive" due to lack of melodic and harmonic content
Oral tradition
Repeating patterns that superimpose on each other
Passed down from master to apprentice
Royal Drum Ensembles of Uganda - Entenga
Consist of both pitched and unpitched drums
Ensemble has 6 musicians and 15 drums
4 musicians plays on pitched drums (called drum chimes & played with curved beaters)
2 musicians accompany on unpitched drums
Music played at courts
Use pentatonic melodies and polyrhythms
Uganda
East Africa borders Kenya & Lake Victoria
Influenced by Arab, Indonesian, and British cultures
We will hear music from one of these courts, performed by a royal drum (entenga) ensemble of six musicians playing fifteen drums. Four musicians play on twelve melody drums that are graduated in size and tuned to the pitches of a pentatonic scale, while the other two accompany on three unpitched drums.
Ensiriba ya munange Katego
One night, his precious headband disappears, and he feels so unprotected without his charm that he falls ill and dies.
In the performance, the players of the melody drums enter one after another, first striking the sides of drums. One plays a melody pattern, which is then doubled an octave lower by another player.
This tells the story of a subchief named Kangawo who wears a leopard-skin headband for good luck.
Then the other melody players enter in turn, playing new patterns. Once the melodic ideas are established, the large bass drums enter, punctuating the complex, polyrhythmic fabric with strong strokes.
When the players move their sticks to the middle of the drum head, the volume increases and the individual melodies can be heard more clearly.
This music is transmitted by oral tradition: an apprentice musician learns the repertory and technique by sitting beside an accomplished drummer, and so maintaining a vestige of Uganda's rich cultural past.
Players begin to establish rhythmic patterns by striking the sides of their drums, making a clicking sound.
The drum chime players move one at a time to the drum heads, introducing several melodic ideas; the lower-pitched drum player moves to the drum head, adding depth of sound.
The texture thins as lower-pitched drums drop out; one melodic pattern is heard above the others.
One drummer moves his sticks to the side of the drum, as the tempo slows to the end.
Chapter 57
Modern America: Still and Musical Modernism in the United States
American composers of the early twentieth century sought to define a unique tradition of American modernism.
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement in the 1920s and 30s that highlighted African American contributions to the country's cultural heritage.
African American composer William Grant Still broke numerous racial barriers in the art-music tradition. His Suite for Violin and Piano looks to three black visual artists for inspiration.
The 1920s and 30s were a time when African American artists in many media banded together to identify creative outlets for blacks that would both pay tribute to their heritage and recognize individual excellence regardless of race or ethnicity.
One of the most prominent and successful musicians who joined this effort, William Grant Still, is now regarded as a pioneer both in the search for a "modern American sound" and in opening a wider range of musical opportunities for African Americans.
In the early 1900s, economic opportunity brought increasing numbers of African Americans to New York City, and specifically to the northern part of Manhattan called Harlem. By the beginning of the economic boom of the 1920s, a contemporary poet referred to Harlem proudly as "not merely a Negro colony or community, but a city within a city, the greatest Negro city in the world."
Alain Locke and the other authors of The New Negro encouraged their fellow black artists to look to Africa for inspiration on how to shape their American future, and the essays spoke about racial equality and pride in black cultural heritage. The ideas from the essays in The New Negro are credited with sparking the so-called Harlem Renaissance.
In choosing the genre of the suite, which had long been part of the European dance and programmatic tradition, Still was able to draw on an established genre and also to evoke images that he felt exemplified the artistic efforts of black America in a progressive way.
The Harlem Renaissance
Location- Harlem, NYC
Growing sense of a new black identity
Looking to Africa for inspiration
Seeking racial equality and black cultural pride
In the 1920s and ’30s, African American artists paying tribute to their heritage
Famous Artists
Poet Langston Hughes
Imitated the rhythms and flow of jazz
Poet Zora Neale Hurston
Sculptor Richmond Barthé
Musicians Duke Ellington and William Grant Still
William Grant Still (1895-1978)
Search for a “modern American sound”
Opened wider range of opportunities for African American musicians
Moved to Memphis, then New York
Arranger for radio and musical theater
Studied composition with Varèse
1st Symphony
Afro-American Symphony (1931)
1st symphony by African American composer to be performed by major American orchestra
Studied violin
1934 moved to Los Angeles- film and television scores
Grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas
1949 opera Troubled Island
1st opera to be premiered by an African American composer
Listening Guide 49
Still: Suite for Violin and Piano, III
Genre: Suite for piano and violin
Three Movements
II. Slowly and expressively (based on Sargent Johnson's Mother and Child)
III. Rhythmically and humorously (based on Augusta Savage's Gamin)
I. Majestically and vigorously (based on Richmond's Barthe's African Dancer)
Date: 1943
Melody
Bluesy, short, syncopated ideas, with flattened third and seventh scale tones
Ideas exchanged between violin and piano
Rhythm/meter
Quick 2/4 meter
Rhythmic and highly syncopated, with chords played on offbeats
Harmony
Modal, with blues chords
Stride bass
Use of ostinatos
Texture
Mostly homophonic
Form
Sectional form, with four- and eight-measure ideas
Opening returns frequently
Timbre
Violin trills, glissandos, and double stops
Expression
Playful and humorous
Evokes image of cocky street kid depicted by sculpture
Established practices to evoke images of black America’s artistic efforts
All movements use modal harmonies and blues-style melodies
The last movement is flashy and syncopated, with a “stride” bass
Chapter 59
Listening Guide 51
Ives: Country Band March
Rhythm/meter
Mostly duple, but with syncopation and triplets that disguise the meter
Harmony
Harshly dissonant, polytonal
Melody
Forceful march theme, over which many well-known tunes occur
Main march returns throughout
Form
Sectional (A-B-A-B'-A')
Genre: March, arranged for wind band
Expression
Humorous
The realism of amateur bands
Nostalgic American tunes
Date. c. 1903
Performing forces
Large wind ensemble, including woodwinds (piccolo, flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, saxophones), brass (cornets, trumpets, French horns, trombones, baritones, tubas), and percussion (drums, cymbals, bells, triangle, xylophone)
Complex mesh of tunes
Mostly well-known musical quotations from Ives’s childhood
London Bridge
Arkansas Traveler
Semper Fidelis
Battle Cry of Freedom
Yankee Doodle
Marching through Georgia
British Grenadiers
Simulates an amateur band’s skills
Bad entrances
Wrong notes
Out of tune notes
Listening Guide 52
Copland: Appalachian Spring, excerpts
Genre: Ballet suite in seven sections
Section 1
Harmony
Overlapping of chords (polychordal) produces a gentle dissonance
Texture
Individual instruments are featured
Rhythm/meter
Very slow, tranquil
Changing meter is imperceptible
Expression
Introduces the characters
Evokes a broad landscape as daybreak
Melody
Rising motive quietly unfolds, outlining a triad
Date: 1945
Section 7
Harmony
Moves between various keys
Form
Theme and five variations, on a traditional Shaker song
Rhythm/meter
Flowing duple meter, then tune in augmentation (slower)
Timbre
Each variation changes tone colors
Individual instrumentals are featured
Melody
Theme with four phrases (a-a'-b-a'')
Later variations use only parts of the tune
Expression
Calm and flowing
Majestic clsoing
Ballet Suite in 7 sections
Collaboration with choreographer Martha Graham (1894–1991)
Portrays a pioneer celebration
Sounds American: Ives, Copland, and Musical Nationalism
Several modernist composers in the United States attempted to craft a musical style that would reflect a truly "American" sound.
Charles Ives drew on the music of his New England childhood - hymns, songs, marches - which he set using polytonality and polyrhythms.
Aaron Copland used the early American song Simple Gifts in his famous ballet Appalachian Spring, commissioned by the great choreographer/dancer Martha Graham.
As a nation of immigrants with diverse cultural heritage, part of a large continent that can equally legitimately claim the label "America," we have also struggled to define the shifting nature of American identity.
Music has always played a part in that definition, and some of the most compelling American sounds have emerged from attempts to integrate vernacular musical traditions with music that aims at a higher quality of the spirit.
Since Charles Ives's father was a Civil War bandmaster, he was thoroughly steeped in the vernacular heritage of his country. His compositional voice, however, followed very modernist tendencies, making him one of the more innovative, and misunderstood, composers of the early twentieth century.
Copland is one of America's greatest twentieth-century composers. Few have been able to capture the spirit of this country successfully - his well-crafted and classically proportioned works have an immediate appeal. His ballet suites are quintessentially American in their portrayal of rural life and the Far West.
Modern-American Nationalism
Patriotism a part of national identity
Compelling American sounds from attempts to integrate vernacular and “serious” music traditions
Non-concert traditions played a vital role in North American musical life of the late 1800s
Music from various parts of the country
Art should “serve the American people” (Copland)
Patriotism has been an essential part of national identity since democracies began to replace authoritarian states in the late 1700s. As a nation, founded explicitly on ideals of democracy, the United States has rightly fostered pride in the principles that distinguish it from other countries.
Charles Ives (1974-1954)
Studied composition at Yale
Decided against music as a profession and became insurance
agent; composed in his spare time.
Church organist (13)
Gradually became known to the general public; famous by age 73
Born in Danbury, Connecticut
Father former Civil War bandleader
Experimental Composer
Used vernacular heritage
Polytonality- Halloween
Polyharmony - Symphony 4 movement 3
Polyrhythm – Central Park in the Dark
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Popular ballets & film scores
Billy the Kid & Appalachian Spring
Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony, The Heiress
Investigated in 1950s as Communist supporter
In the 1930s and ’40s changed directions- populist style
Wide appeal and music useful in a variety of contexts
Studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger (Composition teacher)
Returned writing jazz and neo-Classical styles
Rooted primarily in Appalachian and other Anglo-American
folk melodies
Born in Brooklyn