Dvorack Summary

In "Antonin Dvorak and the Development of National Music," Dvorak fully believes that the roots of the american national identity is centered on the music of Native American and African Americans.  He then uses the Native American/African American music to compose his new music, and allow for performances that will sounds like Native American and African American folk music.  He also firmly believes that everyone in American can identity with these two styles of music.  He argues that where he comes from, in England, there is no true English school of music because English composers always failed to take into consideration Scottish, Welsh and Irish music when forming a distinctly English School of music.  Therefore, he wanted to ensure that the same thing would never occur within America.  He also argued that the plantation songs were the most distinct and sought after musical tunes in the New World, thus leading to his belief that Native American and African American music were the foundation of the American school of music. However, I agree with his critic, Amy Beach.  America is far too diverse for any one type of music to be representative of such a vast majority of people.  Also, she makes a particularly interesting point: "The Africans are no more native that the Italians, Swedes or Russians."  She denies that African American, as well as Native American music in particular cannot be representative of an entire diverse population that was  continuously growing.

As ethnomusicologists, we must remind ourselves that there are multiple ways for people to express themselves and their patriotic identity.  When studying Native American music in particular, we must keep in mind that there are multiple different cultures under the umbrella of Native American music.  What may be representative of one tribe, might have little to no meaning in another tribe.  Thus ethnomusicologists must remind ourselves of this when researching distinct groups of people.