An Introduction to America’s Music

USING THE LISTENING GUIDES 17

This introduction covers a large number of concepts, but you shouldn’t

worry if your listening skills are not immediately up to the task of identifying

them all by ear. At fi rst, you might focus simply on perceiving the beat, hearing

the meter, and feeling where phrases begin and end. With the listening guides to

help you, the other skills will develop naturally out of your study. You may some-

times fi nd it useful to pause the recording at the moments indicated in the lis-

tening guide, taking in the musical selection section by section. And you should

count on listening to each selection multiple times, both with and without the

listening guide in front of you.

With this goal of critical listening before us, we can now start our exploration

of the history of music in the United States, beginning at a time when the nation

did not yet exist.

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