Content in the Learner-centered Non-major Classroom: Thinking and Listening Like a Musicologist

John Hausmann, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music

Appendix 1: Article Case Study, Music and the American Civil War

A scholar finds numerous references to music and sound in soldiers’ letters from the American Civil War. After reading and studying these letters, the scholar comes to several conclusions about what these letters can tell us about musical life before and during the war. You’ve been given the excerpts from the letters, and will need to read them to understand how references to music and sound are being used, and what they are being used for. This gives you an opportunity to approach a primary source (the letters) like a scholar researching the same topic would.

Directions

There are several interpretive questions below. Building on our class discussions, your reading, and your understanding of the context below, answer these questions.
Type your answers directly into the submission box on Blackboard by [date]. Please do not attach a separate document containing your answers.
Bring your answers with you to class on [date] for our follow-up discussion.

Context

Millions of combatants and family members were intellectually and emotionally unprepared for war.
Letters were means of communicating with family and friends back on the home front.
Letters were also attempt to cope with emotional and spiritual trauma of war.
These documents reveal the problem of conveying a “tale as may be told by a soldier who is no writer to a reader who is no soldier.”
One question this raises:
- Why would soldiers use musical ideas in their letters? In other words, why would they use language from an important part of “normal life” to convey aspects of war to their friends and family back home?
Two possible answers:
- Musical terminology and concepts gives both writer and reader a shared set of ideas.
- These references served as a means of emotional communication.
Such letters tell us how pervasive music was in 19th century American life.

Musical References in Soldiers’ Letters

“the bullets from the rebel line whizzed about our ears at the rate of at least thirty a minute.”
“The fire opened – bang, bang, bang, a rattle de bang, bang, bang, a boom, de bang, bang, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom, bang, whirr-siz-siz-siz, a ripping, roaring boom, bang!”

Question 1

In these two (2) letters, how are music/sound depicted? Why is there so much repetition in the second letter? What effect does this repetition create?

Musical References in Soldiers’ Letters

Sound of cannons at Gettysburg as “continuous and loud as that from the falls of Niagara.”
Battle of Chickamauga “seemed more like the mighty roar of a dozen Niagaras than anything nearly human.”

Question 2

These 2 letters compare the sounds of two different battles to that of the waterfalls at Niagara Falls. Why?
What could these references tell us about the sonic environment of 1860s America?

Musical References in Soldiers’ Letters

“The wild cries of charging lines, the rattle of musketry, the booming of artillery and the shrieks of the wounded were the orchestral accompaniments of a scene like very hell itself.”
“What a variety of hideous noises. The ping of the minnie ball, the splutter of canister, the whistling of grape . . . and the cannon’s roar from a hundred mouth’s went to make up the music for the great opera of death.”

Question 3

These 2 letters reference music explicitly. How do they do this?
Why would these soldiers compare the horrific sounds of battle to the very different sounds of a concert?
What could these references tell us about the musical life of 1860s America?

Musical References in Soldiers’ Letters

“While halting for a little rest just after daybreak, we hear that sound which I believe strikes a chill through the bravest man that lives, and causes him to feel that his heart is sinking down, down, till it seems to drop into his boots. I mean the dull rustling of air which is hardly more than a vibration, but which to the experienced listener betokens artillery firing at a distance.”

Question 4

The final letter contains a very subtle reference to music/sound. What is this reference?
What does this letter––more than any of our other examples––give you a sense of?

Conclusion

“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Question 5

The final quotation is from Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address. Describe how Lincoln uses references to music, and what he uses these references for.
How can you put this in the broader context of 19th century American musical life?