Cultivated By Hand - Amateur Musicians in the Early American Republic

Scattered in archives and historical societies across the United States are hundreds of volumes of manuscript music, copied by hand by eighteenth-century amateurs. Often overlooked, amateur music making played a key role in the construction of gender, class, race, and nation in the post-revolution years of the United States. These early Americans, seeking ways to present themselves as genteel, erudite, and pious, saw copying music by hand and performing it in intimate social groups as a way to make themselves-and their new nation-appear culturally sophisticated. Following a select group of amateur musicians, Cultivated by Hand makes the case that amateur music making was both consequential to American culture of the eighteenth century and aligned with other forms of self-fashioning. This interdisciplinary study explores the social and material practices of amateur music making, analyzing the materiality of manuscripts, tracing the lives of individual musicians, and uncovering their musical tastes and sensibilities. Author Glenda Goodman explores highly personal yet often denigrated experiences of musically "accomplished" female amateurs in particular, who grappled with finding a meaningful place in their lives for music. Revealing the presence of these unacknowledged subjects in music history, Cultivated by Hand reclaims the importance of such work and presents a class of musicians whose labors should be taken into account.

Product details

• Authors: Glenda Goodman, Glenda (Associate Professor of Music Goodman
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 17.06.2024
• EAN: 9780197776995
• ISBN: 978-0-19-777699-5
• No. of pages: 272
• Series: New Cultural History of Music
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Music > Monographs; USA, Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, military history, HISTORY / Military / United States, HISTORY / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), Ethics & moral philosophy, United States of America, USA, Ethics and moral philosophy, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, History of the Americas, Battles & campaigns, Specific wars and campaigns, Early modern warfare (including gunpowder warfare), American War of Independence, C 1700 To C 1800, c 1765 to 1783 (American Revolutionary period), HISTORY / Wars & Conflicts / General, HISTORY / Military / Early Modern Warfare (1500-1800)