Project Title
Hearing Music on the 19th-Century Campaign Trail
Faculty Mentor(s) Name(s)
Dana Gorzelany-Mostak, Jennifer Flory
Abstract
Music has played a significant role in presidential campaign pageantry since the earliest days of our nation’s history. From the 1840s to the 1920s, political parties distributed campaign songs in “songsters,” small booklets that typically provided lyrics and indicated the appropriate melody to go with them. While a handful of scholars have turned a critical lens to the song’s lyrics and the politics therein, these songs have indeed passed into history as only a small number have been recorded, their ephemeral, yet politically and culturally significant content mostly forgotten outside of academic circles. What did this music sound like? Our research project on campaign songsters combines archival research methods, music analyses and arranging, and music technology to engage with this important question. In this performance and lecture, the Trax on the Trail Vertically Integrated Project Team and the Max Noah Singers will discuss the roots of the campaign song in the US, offer analyses of representative examples, and give a performance that illustrates the important role sound played in electioneering during the 19th century.
Hearing Music on the 19th-Century Campaign Trail
Music has played a significant role in presidential campaign pageantry since the earliest days of our nation’s history. From the 1840s to the 1920s, political parties distributed campaign songs in “songsters,” small booklets that typically provided lyrics and indicated the appropriate melody to go with them. While a handful of scholars have turned a critical lens to the song’s lyrics and the politics therein, these songs have indeed passed into history as only a small number have been recorded, their ephemeral, yet politically and culturally significant content mostly forgotten outside of academic circles. What did this music sound like? Our research project on campaign songsters combines archival research methods, music analyses and arranging, and music technology to engage with this important question. In this performance and lecture, the Trax on the Trail Vertically Integrated Project Team and the Max Noah Singers will discuss the roots of the campaign song in the US, offer analyses of representative examples, and give a performance that illustrates the important role sound played in electioneering during the 19th century.