National Music Of America Between17th And20th Century

It is known that the music development of a country is always involved in the history of the country. In the perspective of studying music under the huge context of a national history, it is necessary to examine the correlations between a nation’s music and politics, economy and culture, among which the most important relationship is between music and humans.On the basis of the American history, this paper focuses on the17-20th century American music by stressing on music phenomena and great musicians, which is threaded by the line of politics, economy and culture. As pointed in the paper,"nation" is a broad and abstract concept. If it is considered as an objective social entity,"nation" should be extremely inclusive. Therefore, the "national music" as mentioned in this paper should refer to an integration of various kinds of music which are native to the American land and typical of the nationality of American music. American music presented a combination of different schools and styles since the advent of20th century, at which time a cut-off point could be made in the development of American music. Hence, this paper centers on the period of17th century and20th century American music, analyzing the status quo of American music before20th century on the one hand, and examining the causes for diversity of American music after20th century on the other.The paper features three parts of the American music:the early sign, the advent and the booming period, which arrives on the17th century,18th to mid-19th century and the mid-19th century to20th century. In research, the paper mainly revolves around the native music, centers on music forms and musicians in different periods and analyzes the origin, features and functions of various kinds of national music. It also includes the personal background, writings, thoughts and music works of musicians in the period of17th century to20th century.