What is American Music?

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I believe that the entire spectrum of popular music could be defined as the quintessential sound of American Music. Blues, Jazz, and Rock and Roll more specifically are what I believe to be the epitome’s of the American sound. American music is known for its hopeful sound and unique melodies that depict what it is to be an American. I believe that each of the genres mentioned above depict and represent different factions, cultures, and social identities of American Life. The blues is a genre that has significantly affected American culture in many ways. The Blues helped mold many American genres such as country, jazz, ragtime, and rock and roll. The blues has a significant depiction of an American culture that isn’t really seen in the American Dream. The blues stands for the America who has treated its children unfairly, because of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. The blues was born out of the field working slaves in the form of call-and-response songs thus giving it the significance needed to be attributed as a quintessential sound of American Music. Jazz is a symbol of American music in many different ways. One of the characteristic that I would consider to make it a part of the American sound is improvisation. Improvisation is a key component of the genre of jazz and it represents the style of jazz extremely well. Improvisation in jazz is a highly individualistic art form that differs between every musician. Improvisation is effected by the performer’s life experiences, emotions, moods, who the audience members are, and his/her relationship with the other members on stage. It’s a highly personal and individualistic skill. Improvisation is a symbol of America’s individualism and creativity; it depicts how different America is from the rest of the world. In American history, rock and roll can attribute to three different movements of American sound:

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