North American music in a "no slavery" scenario

We all know thst african Americans shaped a great part of american modern music such as jazz, rock etc, becoming mainstream with the majority white population and later influencing the world wide industry of music.

Considering a "no transatlantic slave trade" scenario, regardless of how it's done, do you guys have any insights of how the anglo american music would be without a great presence of Africans in the continent?
 
I would guess much more like British music. For popular music the Scottish and Irish influences would be stronger (along the lines of Appalachian music) and maybe European immigrant influences—Jewish and Eastern European?

Modern popular music would be completely unrecognizable—for one thing, rhythms would be far less complex with syncopation in particular being almost absent.
 
There would be an astounding number of butterflies-for starters, much less dense European settlement without a slave trade.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Modern popular music would be completely unrecognizable—for one thing, rhythms would be far less complex with syncopation in particular being almost absent.

I agree that music would be wildly different, but the idea that syncopation would somehow be unknown to Europeans is absurd. It's been prevalent in European music since, oh, about the 15th century. Granted, this was not popular music per se, but I'm pretty sure there's a whole universe between 'folk music' and 'formal music', and at some point, someone is going to fill that void. Probably with music that you can really dance to. ;)

Personally, I also doubt that rythms would stay overwhelmingly simple, for the same reason. My own view of musical evolution is that you have what's often called 'classical music' (i.e. European formal music), and you have folk music that exist everywhere, and is often pretty simple. "Black music" wasn't more complex than, say, Irish music. Not at the outset. What changed things - in a huge way - was... globalisation? Well, not quite that, yet, but the general tendency of communications improving, literacy spreading, a middle class emerging (a middle class that listened to music!), and communities in general growing more interwoven and coming closer together. All of the above caused musical cross-pollenation. More and more people being more and more exposed to more and more different influences. People with formal training being more influenced by folk/popular music, various traditions merging, combining, changing each other...

That added the complexity. The idea that "black music" is somehow a unique magical ingredient seems incorrect to me. Without it, we'd see the same general evolution for the same background reasons, but it would just be different traditions merging and evolving. Popular music would indeed be near-unrecognisable to us, but I doubt it would ultimately be somehow less complex. I bet there would still be songs you could groove to, songs you could sway to, songs that make you cry and songs that get your blood pumping.
 
I agree that music would be wildly different, but the idea that syncopation would somehow be unknown to Europeans is absurd. It's been prevalent in European music since, oh, about the 15th century. Granted, this was not popular music per se, but I'm pretty sure there's a whole universe between 'folk music' and 'formal music', and at some point, someone is going to fill that void. Probably with music that you can really dance to. ;)

Well, I did say almost...

It’s more that syncopation was uncommon in American folk music, not folk music as a whole. It was fairly prevalent in other European cultures, though, so I guess you’d see syncopation in America become more common once immigration kicks off instead of during the 18th century as IOTL.

Personally, I also doubt that rythms would stay overwhelmingly simple, for the same reason. My own view of musical evolution is that you have what's often called 'classical music' (i.e. European formal music), and you have folk music that exist everywhere, and is often pretty simple. "Black music" wasn't more complex than, say, Irish music. Not at the outset. What changed things - in a huge way - was... globalisation? Well, not quite that, yet, but the general tendency of communications improving, literacy spreading, a middle class emerging (a middle class that listened to music!), and communities in general growing more interwoven and coming closer together. All of the above caused musical cross-pollenation. More and more people being more and more exposed to more and more different influences. People with formal training being more influenced by folk/popular music, various traditions merging, combining, changing each other...

The issue is that cross-pollination and fusion was happening with African music in the Americas as soon as the first slaves were brought over.

The earliest American folk musics incorporated African traditions. The Son Jorocho music of Mexico, for example, possesses songs dating back to the 18th century featuring African-inspired rhythms and instruments. For a more concrete example, the banjo as we know it would never be introduced to America. (Actually, this raises a question—is the WI getting rid of slavery across the Americas or only in the British colonies?) Basically, American folk music can’t be separated from its African inspirations any more than it can from its Scottish and Irish ones.

I suppose rhythm (and syncopation) are more fundamental issues that might change from other influences, but IMO the inspiration would come much later.

added the complexity. The idea that "black music" is somehow a unique magical ingredient seems incorrect to me. Without it, we'd see the same general evolution for the same background reasons, but it would just be different traditions merging and evolving. Popular music would indeed be near-unrecognisable to us, but I doubt it would ultimately be somehow less complex. I bet there would still be songs you could groove to, songs you could sway to, songs that make you cry and songs that get your blood pumping.

If there were no slavery American culture would be drastically different, though. What supports the Southern economy without slave plantations ITTL? The South could be a vastly different place—more Native is one possibility.

You’re right that there’d still be music for popular enjoyment with the focus on dancing that is found worldwide. It’s just that the situation for dancing might be very different—what if dances arose from Southeast Native traditions, celebrating different things? I dunno, just feeling contrarian today I guess!
 
There would be an astounding number of butterflies-for starters, much less dense European settlement without a slave trade.

I think it would be the reverse. The area of the US affected by slavery had far lower population density because immigrants don't want to move somewhere they are undercut by slave labour.
 
Anglo-American folk music with influences from Italian and German traditions. Later in the late 20th century, someone is going to create something horrible out of it using electronic instrumentation which will sound a bit like turbofolk (some godawful Balkan sort of pop music), and it will make some musicians and record executives very wealthy.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Of course Africans might have emigrated as indentures, specialty craftsmen or "coolies" or students at some point anyway. But of course all the specifics would change.
 
There would be an astounding number of butterflies-for starters, much less dense European settlement without a slave trade.

Yes, but we are not focusing on demographic or political implications but the butterflies on music.

I love the idea of focusing on music.
 
there's an example of this in the AH mockumentary C.S.A.: Confederate States of America where, firstly, it's explained that Confederate media is extremely stagnant and almost entirely propaganda-driven because they have no African-American contributions, which go to Canada instead since abolitionists and escaped slaves go there, but that's probably not exactly realistic since C.S.A. was written as a commentary on current American culture and racism rather than to actually be a plausible ATL. the other thing brought up in the film, though it's not directly spelled out like the point on Canada being a cultural powerhouse, is that the theme song to fictional show R.U.N.A.W.A.Y., an alternate version of Cops about overseers catching escaped slaves, is bluegrass instead of black reggae, the implication seeming to be that the latter genre doesn't exist as bluegrass would be a white equivalent to it
 
Anglo-American folk music with influences from Italian and German traditions. Later in the late 20th century, someone is going to create something horrible out of it using electronic instrumentation which will sound a bit like turbofolk (some godawful Balkan sort of pop music), and it will make some musicians and record executives very wealthy.

Granted, that depends on settler patterns. If the slave-trade is disregarded, the colonization of the New World will be slower and most likely the colonists will assimiliate into the Tribes until some are strong enough to form their own, but having udnergone sume cultural reformations. Definitely which Europeans with which tribe will infuence.

Franco-Iroquois inspired music will be different from Anglo-Cherokee inspired music
 
Granted, that depends on settler patterns. If the slave-trade is disregarded, the colonization of the New World will be slower and most likely the colonists will assimiliate into the Tribes until some are strong enough to form their own, but having udnergone sume cultural reformations. Definitely which Europeans with which tribe will infuence.

Franco-Iroquois inspired music will be different from Anglo-Cherokee inspired music

Once the settlement of the Americas gets started, people are going to want to settle it with or without slaves. You have the option for indentured servitude to man your plantations. It's only really a huge issue south of the Mason-Dixon line, where the population will be less since rice, tobacco, indigo, and later cotton will be produced in much smaller amounts if you don't have slaves. And plenty of people cultivated tobacco and other crops with few or no slaves.

If somehow you can't have a transatlantic slave trade (aside from ASBs, I don't see how that wouldn't rule out indentured Africans coming over to the New World in large numbers), then you can definitely have the historic slave trade amongst American Indians, and that would be all the harsher here since they're your main labour force. Ergo, there will be few substantial populations of Indians for anyone to assimilate into, and rather the reverse. The Indian Wars will be harsher and even more of a struggle for survival, even though there would be less massacres since that's destroying potential "goods".

This would be the vector where indigenous music enters into American culture, and it depends on where the slaves come from. The Iroquois could end up master slave traders given their historic patterns of expansion and wars against neighbouring peoples, or you could have the main source of Indian slaves be from slavehunting expeditions into the backwoods of the Southeast, in which case the Southeastern Indians (including the Five Civilised Tribes, not that such term would exist TTL) would be the main source of influence. But given their much smaller numbers (indigenous slaves died in larger numbers to disease and more frequently escaped), it's doubtful they'd play as big of an influence as African slaves and their descendents did.
 
Top