ABSTRACT
America is a polyglot culture, different from any other in that it is non-indigenous. For the native American culture, which was that of the. The first art-music to be created by Americans manifests—as one might expect—both the virtues and the vices of the Puritan inheritance and of the pioneer's innocence and savagery. Indian, was exterminated by the settlers, or withered away of inanition; and the settlers brought with them a rag-bag of European traditions, out of which America grew. The settlers that came over, especially from Britain, Germany and Holland, brought with them their folk-songs and the religious music which expressed the faith for which they were self-exiled. As musical literacy increased, so did the number of mainly amateur composers. The half-intuitive composers, thinking modally, like folk-singers, did not know how to achieve the highly civilized equilibrium between horizontal polyphony and vertical homophony that characterized their European forebears.
