During the 19th and early 20th centuries, sheet music was produced in enormous quantities in the United States. To historians and other interested parties, much of this material serves as a way to look at social and cultural mores of the times. This digital collection from Brown University takes a look at the sheet music that reflected attitudes towards African-Americans. Containing several...

Written and produced by Tom Voegli, and produced by Minnesota Public Radio in association with the San Francisco Symphony and its music director, Michael Tilson Thomas, this lovely 13-part radio series "tells the story of the distinctly American music that grew along with the country." Part of this essential story is the music of such iconoclastic tradition-breaking composers as Charles Ives,...

While Jazz may be the only (disputably) American art form, the roots of traditional, and authentically American music, are deeply embedded in the hills and farms of the early colonies. Mountain Music, Country Music, or Bluegrass all called for picking up easy-to-find instruments and singing songs about daily life. This genre of music has gone through many iterations and evolutions in its history,...

With his truly remarkable dynamism and technique, it is no wonder that Buddy Rich eventually acquired the title of World's Greatest Drummer. One of the most popular and renowned jazz drummers, Rich began life in 1917, and by the age of 4 he was a solo performer known by his vaudeville act moniker, Traps the Drum Wonder. Rich went on to join the Tommy Dorsey band in 1939, and later went on to front...

Aaron Copland, born and raised in a small Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, worlds away from the sophistications of Carnegie Hall, helped define American music. His “vernacular” style, honed to perfection in the 1930s and 1940s with ballets like Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, and Rodeo, almost single-handedly reinvented American classical music and shaped such luminaries as Leonard Bernstein...

This site pays homage to one of America's most prestigious and creative composers, Duke Ellington. Offering an introduction to the many accomplishments of Mr. Ellington's career, which lasted over fifty years, is quite challenging, but the site serves as a nice introduction, particularly for younger students. Divided into five sections, users may want to start with the short biographical essay...

The official Gershwin Music site provides some wonderful Gershwin memorabilia in a snappy, entertaining package. Born to Russian Jewish immigrants in 1890's Brooklyn, Ira and George Gershwin (nee Israel and Jacob Gershovitz) lived the quintessential American Dream, moving from poverty to riches and obscurity to renown. The homepage opens with a classic, rotating Gershwin tune and clicking on Menu...

Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music Project (HASM) presents digital images of 3,042 pieces of sheet music from Duke's collections, published between 1850 and 1920. Highlights of the collection include "antebellum Southern music, Confederate imprints, and Civil war songs." The search capabilities at the site are sophisticated, allowing users to look for music by publisher name,...

This Website from the University of Pennsylvania Library, while not brand new, certainly provides an excellent overview of the career and music of one of the 20th century's most noted conductors, Leopold Stokowski. Stokowski was particularly known both for his advocacy of contemporary classical music and for his abiding interest in the latest technological innovations in musical production and...

Edited by Michael F. Murray, Assistant Professor of Music at Southwest Missouri State University, this site is a terrific resource for students and fans of traditional American music. The site offers numerous selections from the Max Hunter Collection, an archive of almost 1,600 Ozark Mountain folk songs, recorded between 1956 and 1976. Hunter was a travelling salesman from Springfield, Missouri...