Anglo-American music is derived from the

English culture The culture of England is defined by the cultural norms of England and the English people. Owing to England's influential position within the United Kingdom it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate English culture from the culture of the ...

of the

Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of Kingdom of Great Britain, British Colony, colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Fo ...

of the United States and has been a founding influence for American folk and popular music.

Overview

Many American folk songs use the same music, but with new lyrics, often as

parodies A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

of the original material. Anglo-American songs can also be distinguished from British songs by having fewer

pentatonic A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancie ...

tunes, less prominent accompaniment (but with heavier use of

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

s) and more melodies in major. Anglo-American traditional music, dating back to colonial times, includes a variety of

broadside ballad A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the ...

s, humorous stories and

tall tale A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it n ...

s, and disaster songs regarding

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

s (especially in New England) and

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

. Folk heroes like

Joe Magarac Joe Magarac () is a pseudo-legendary American folk hero. He is presented to readers as having been the protagonist of tales of oral folklore told by steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which later spread throughout the industrial areas of ...

, John Henry and

Jesse James Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla and leader of the James–Younger Gang. Raised in the " Little Dixie" area of Western Missouri, James and his family maintained stro ...

are also part of many songs. Folk dance of English origin include the

square dance A square dance is a dance for four couples, or eight dancers in total, arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances contain elements from numerous traditional dances and were first documente ...

, descended from the European high society

quadrille The quadrille is a dance that was fashionable in late 18th- and 19th-century Europe and its colonies. The quadrille consists of a chain of four to six '' contredanses''. Latterly the quadrille was frequently danced to a medley of opera melodie ...

, combined with the American innovation of a '' caller'' instructing the dancers.

Sea shanties A sea shanty, chantey, or chanty () is a genre of traditional Folk music, folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large Merchant vessel, merchant Sailing ship, sailing vessels. The term ''shanty ...

are an important part of Anglo-American music. The

folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...

described regional differences among rural Anglo-American 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.

References

* * ; cited in Nettl *

Notes

# Nettl, pg. 201 # Nettl, pgs. 201-202 # Burk, Meierhoffer and Phillips # {{note, Lomax Lomax, pg. 1, cited in Nettl, pg. 202 English music Ethnic music in the United States English-American culture