Radio doings (Dec 1930-Jun1932)

What Songs Should America Sing? An Article That Goes a Long Way Toward Determining What American Music Really Is — Whether Negro, Indian, Hill Billy, Jazz or Opera by Ted White £ £ MY fools make speeches; I I wise men sing songs." So ^~>^ says Sinclair Lewis in his novel "Arrowsmith," and so, perhaps, will we Americans all do when we have learned wisdom. But — what kind of songs will we sing? They should be American songs, for a nation wise enough to make music, is old enough to develop its folk-melodies. And when we do sing our own songs, I, for one, hope they will be truly American ones, not the synthetic creations of which commercial song-writers and foreign composers have been equally guilty in foisting upon us as "typical" of America. I refer to the Negro music and the Indian themes which we Americans have been told represent our own kind of music, for so long that we accept the theory without question. Negro music and Indian music have had the sway of interest and research in the past, and the music of the white American has been neglected by our moguls of culture, who have overlooked totally its value in establishing a nationalism in our musical literature. A few of our sincere American composers have utilized the powerful inspiration offered by songs typical of the American, but too many have followed the lead of foreign composers in calling Negro or Indian music the only true American folk themes. As a matter of fact many of them while doing so did not fully comprehend the true nature of the themes they used. The Bohemian composer Dvorak was one of these, and much inaccurate publicity has been given his New World Symphony. It is generally believed that the principal melody in the Largo movement in this composition was taken from an old Negro melody, but that is not true. Dvorak used an impression of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" as a useful theme in building this symphony, but that song, commonly understood to be a Negro spiritual, really is an old ditty selected by many Negroes from an old hymn book of the white people. As for Dvorak's famous "Hu moresque" — that is really a highly decorated version of "Swanee River" — and "Swanee River" is of course not a Negro melody at all, since it was written by Stephen Foster. Aside from the beauty they contain and the pleasure they give to listeners, such interpretations of "American music" by foreign-born composers are useful principally for the stimulation they present to American music writers. When our native composers were forced by public demand to gain a prestige from foreign study, their work was tinged with foreign characterizations, but now these composers are realizing that their own country is richly endowed with folk-music of its own. But — where does it begin and where does it end; what are its true roots, and what has been artificially grafted upon it? In other words what IS American music? In attempting to establish a native American tone in our music we cannot be governed by suggestions from commercial sources to the effect that certain types of music, such as the Negro spirituals and Indian melodies are in the foreground, and therefore characteristically American. Jazz is of course commercially made music, but even jazz has developed from the crooning of folk-singers to an accompaniment of steady rhythm. Though Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" is classed usually as a type of jazz, it is in fact a contribution to American fantastic music. The so-called Negro spirituals have been heralded by the publishers of music as being "American," but these songs are a hybrid, born of the Negro's habit of copying influences from the white people. Usually the spirituals are the naive interpretations of religious hymns, and the present fad for spirituals is attractive only because of a peculiar emotional coloring which the Negro puts into music, and emotion not understood by a white man. The white man puts humor into his songs, rather than the somberness which is prevalent in Negro song. 'The Big Rock Candy Mountain" is such, while the lamentation-note which the Negro chooses in his musical expressions, may be accounted for in his long condition of servitude, when he was free to sing mostly on sad occasions such as funerals, religious orgies, jail sentences and the like. One of the nearest approaches to transcribing Negro conditions into a standard musical form is the "St. Louis Blues," by W. C. Handy. True American music must be a music that coincides with the emotions of the white people and must be typical of the people's environment. It must be born of an emotional feeling greater than intellectual intention, and not deliberately sought. This is not to say that the white man's music is better than the Negro's, because each people has its distinct emotional characteristic. One musical masterpiece is not greater than another if the composer of each expresses an individuality of environment and spirit in a masterly manner. Anatole France said, "One must not expect all birds to sing the same way," and patriotism is no enemy of dialects. But an essentially Anglo-Saxon nation derives its nationalism in music only from its own people. Naturally, the least affected of the music that now exists in this country is preserved by the people in the more inaccessible places, the mountainous country or on the enormous plains. Unsophistication marks these tunes and it is this sincerity which is priceless. There are plenty of these real folk-tunes in their native state and this is the music that offers a genuine background for .making masterpieces conforming to the feelings of the people. Many legends reveal marvelous opportunities for operas, plays with music or music alone. Just imagine what an opera the legend of "Paul Bunyan," the Siegfried of the Northwest and Canada, would make. Don't you think you could get a bigger thrill out of an opera on such a subject, than you do out of the usual Italian varieties? It would be closer to our experiences as Americans. I think that one of the finest things radio is doing, musically, is to reawaken and preserve the humble Hill Billy airs, the Cowboy tunes, and similar songs which, through repetition in our childhood as in our parents' childhood, have the ring of familiarity. This kind of music may seem of little importance throughout a great part of our lives, yet every time we hear it, it has the ability to stir haunting memories — not only of our own childhood, but the inherited memories of generations of Americans before us. Only true folk-music can do that, and only from folk-music can a nation's own music grow. Page Eighteen RADIO DOINGS