Product Description

This best-selling survey text describes American music as a panorama of distinct yet parallel streams-popular, folk, sacred, and classical-that reflect the uniquely diverse character of the United States. Comparing and contrasting musical styles across regions and time, Candelaria and Kingman deliver a vision of American music both exuberant and inventive, a music that arises out of the history and musical traditions of the many immigrants to America's shores.

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Product Details

Publisher	Schirmer
ISBN	0495128392
Format	Paperback
Author	Lorenzo Candelaria,Daniel Kingman
EAN	9780495128397
Label	Schirmer
Edition	3
Dewey Decimal Number	780.973
Studio	Schirmer
Number Of Pages	384
Title	American Music: A Panorama, Concise Edition
Publication Date	2006-03-28
Manufacturer	Schirmer

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Customer Reviews

College Text Book

Review by Daniel Chesnut, 2010-02-17

Received the book in the condition advertized, during the timeframe expected. Recommend the seller.

DMC

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Candelaria

Review by Lucero Sanchez, 2010-01-09

This was a set of CD's (music)..it was used and it was in great condition!

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Old but good

Review by Beatymon!, 2009-09-18

Ask your teacher if you can use this old edition. I paid only for shipping practically. Came with the CDs, which was a hug bonus!

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I never received it!

Review by Samuel T. Riebel, 2009-09-03

I never received this product and have not received any help from the seller or Amazon on this matter.

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Probably the best college text for a "survey" of American Music

Review by Hudson Valley thinker, 2008-10-21

In the past, there was Hitchcock, Chase, and Hamm's books. They were all "surveys" in that they started with Native American music and the music of the early settlers and progressed roughly to the present. These are outdated books as far as the "present" goes, but they are each still very good, even if what they emphasize is different. Today, though, the college teacher has two options, Richard Crawford's "Introduction to America's Music" and this book, originally by Kingman and substantially revised by L. Candelaria. Crawford's "Introduction" is really excellent in every way. It is packed full of information with all points-of-view and arguments thoroughly influenced by the most recent research. He really knows his stuff. It's organized chronologically, so, like the books above, it starts with the settlers and moves forward. My students had trouble with this book, as did I, because it takes a full third of the semester before you get to any music that most of the students have even heard of. That's why Kingman/Candelaria is, in my opinion, a uniquely successful alternative. It starts with the four historically principal categories of "folk" music (N-A, Mexican American, Anglo America, and African American) and includes another chapter on more recent kinds of folk music from other traditions. As for many students the "real" American music is "folk music," this is a great way to start off the semester and gets the class really thinking about the issues that shape the character and content of music in regions that now comprise the U.S. After that comes Blues and Rock (which I separate because I think rock needs to come AFTER all the other popular music), then big units on Sacred Music, Popular Music, and Classical Music.

At first I didn't like this approach. But after using it I realize that, if properly supplemented, it is the ticket to a successful class. Students need to know that American Music has been around for several centuries and that we can't shape our understanding of what it is by just current standards alone. So I find the book to be very balanced. Yes, the section on jazz could be larger. And I think there musical theater gets short shrift as well as American popular music from the 1920s to 1950s that isn't jazz (as in the many famous songs that reflected changing American values over those decades as well as served as standards for jazz bands).

So this needs to be supplemented. But its still the best approach for many reasons. One is that there isn't a huge amount of reading (which most students just won't do). The text that is there is, for the most part, accurate and includes very important interpretive information. I think most students feel "informed" after reading the chapter so that they can listen to music, whether it's the shape note singing of Appalachia or barrelhouse piano style or the songs of Tin Pan Alley with some solid knowledge about where these genres came from. Yes, there isn't a whole lot of historical information here. But what there is is judiciously chosen. A book on American Music of four centuries that would include all the historical background would probably have to be about 1600 pages at the minimum.

So I highly recommend this. Just be ready to add some supplemental music. For example, I used some wonderful recordings of 18th century American sacred music that has appeared in the last 15 years, particularly of the Moravian community or of Billings and the New England tunesmiths. Also, I thought there should be more popular music from the period just before and leading up to the Civil War. THere are tones of recordings out there now of this music that are available, some even using period brass instruments.

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