Following the Armenian genocide of 1915 perpetrated by the Young Turk government in Turkey, large numbers of Armenians settled in the Central Valley area of California, especially around Fresno. Of the second- and third-generation musicians from this community, Richard Hagopian became a minor star in the Armenian-American community. Alan Hovhaness used traditional Armenian music in his compositions. Daja Yavasharian is a solo violinist who performs classical music.
The ethnically Armenian heavy metal band System of a Down features Armenian melodic elements in many of their songs and has written songs dedicated to the Armenian genocide. The group is very active in promoting genocide awareness and recognition.
Chinese-American bands include Say Bok Gwai. The pop-rapper Jin has lately gained some national renown as well. The electronic group Shanghai Restoration Project has been rising through the charts in online downloadable music stores.
Though associated with Slovenia, Germany and Poland as well, the Czech Republic includes Bohemia, the ancestral home of polka music. Polka has a long history in the United States, and the city of Chicago, among others, had produced numerous innovations in the genre.
As the homeland of many of the settlers of the original Thirteen Colonies, and a major source of immigration thereafter, England's musical traditions are closely tied to those of the United States, especially Appalachian folk music. In the 1850s, there was a thriving brass band tradition in the United States, drawing on British bands formed around factory workers.
The music of the Amish, a religious community descended from German and Swiss settlers who eschew modern technology in favor of simplicity, is entirely religious, and is sung in a style that has not been widely performed in Europe for centuries.
The songs of the Pennsylvania German culture, a mixture of British, South German and other elements, are primarily German, with many based on British tunes. Pennsylvania spirituals are a well-known kind of folk hymn, most of which date to the early 19th century.
A big sign of the Greek immigrant music culture has left the Greek soprano Maria Kallas. Immigrant Greek music also includes music from Greek islands the Nisiotika and the famous dance Sirtaki with well-known artists like Yiannis Parios etc.
The Pontic genre of immigrant music which is well-known from the remarkable minority of Pontians in America, retains elements of the musical traditions of ancient Greece, Byzantine music and the tradition of Caucasus. The prime instruments in Pontic music are the Pontic lyra (Kemenche), which has origins in Byzantine period and it is related closely with the Byzantine lyra and Cretan lyra. Other instruments include drums, lute, askomandoura (a type of bagpipe) and aulos.
It is also known The well-known Cretan music of the dominant folk instrument Cretan lyra on the island as the results of immigrant music; a three-stringed bowed instrument similar to the Byzantine Lyra. It is often accompanied by the askomandoura (a type of bagpipe) and the Cretan laouto (λαούτο). The earliest documented music on Crete comes from Ancient Greece. Cretan music like most traditional Greek, began as product of ancient and Byzantine inspirations.
The Indian diaspora (and significant portion of other South Asian diaspora) enjoy Indian music, which includes Indian classical music and non-classical Indian music. The non-classical music has at least two categories: film music (original sound tracks) and non-film music (often called Indi-pop). The Bollywood music represents Hindi language film songs. Indian diaspora speaking non-Hindi languages enjoy music of their own languages, such as Tamil music, Bengali music, Punjabi music and so on. Fusion between popular Indian music (such as Bollywood or Bhangra music) and American music has taken place, and is popular in certain areas with high Indian American population density.[1]
After the 1979 revolution, the new Iranian government banned all pop music and many other genres. Numerous Iranians, including musicians, entered into exile, many settling in the Los Angeles-area. The Iranian-American scene produced several stars in the Iranian-in-exile community, including Dariush, Ebi, Homeira, Hayedeh, Mahasti, Moein and more.
There are also many newcomers in Persian/Iranian Music who have made huge impression. Below are a list of them:
Joseph Halliday, a Dubliner, is notable for having introduced the keyed bugle in 1810. While not a technical innovation (the keyed trumpet was already known), it did become extremely popular in the burgeoning brass band tradition and inspired a whole family of instruments, the ophicleides. In the middle of the 19th century, Irish bandleader Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore was very influential, having introduced a wide range of reed instruments as well as developing instrumentation that allowed a large wind ensemble to approximate the effects of a full orchestra.
In the eighties several high-profile Irish artists emigrated to the US, including Mary Black, Dolores Keane and Maura O'Connell. At the same time groups sprang up in America to play Irish music at a professional level. Mick Moloney founded Green Fields of America in 1977 to bring together immigrant Irish and native-born players of Irish music. Although they did not record an album until 1989, they created a ripple. The band contained several people who went on achieve international fame – Seamus Egan, Eileen Ivers and Jerry O'Sullivan. Another early Irish-American band was Cherish the Ladies formed in 1985.
The rules of the All-Ireland championships allow non Irish residents to complete and thanks to Irish cultural centres in New York and Chicago, young US citizens began to win in dancing and fiddling. Chicago-born Liz Carroll came second in 1974 with her fiddling. In 1992 she was a member of Trian, who recorded two highly regarded albums of strictly traditional no-frills Irish instrumentals. Some films gave exposure to Irish music – "Barry Lyndon" (1975 – The Chieftains), "The Brothers McMullen" (1984 – Seamus Egan), "Dancing at Lughnasa" (1998 – Arty McGlynn) and "Titanic" (1997). The touring stage show "Riverdance" (1995) was probably the biggest single publicity blaze in the cause of Irish-American music. The New York "Kips Bay Ceilidh Band" recorded an admired album of dance tunes (1993).
Celtic new age music from Clannad (Ireland), harpist Loreena McKennitt (Canada) and Nightnoise (Ireland) were popular in a low-key way in the US. Tríona and Mícheál O Dhomhnaill from Nightnoise had emigrated to the US in the 70s and started recording in 1984. There were pop hits for Enya (originally from Clannad). Among the immigrants from Ireland was Susan McKeown. She had been recording since 1990 but won international praise for "Lowlands" (2000). In 1996 the Irish-American supergroup Solas was formed. The group contained multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan and a powerful new singer Karan Casey. The Chieftains had been visiting America since the 70s but by 2003 the audience was big enough to justify a DVD, live from Nashville.
Italian folk traditions have had a lasting influence of barbershop singing and doo wop. Neapolitan bandleader Francis Scala was bandleader of the U.S. Marine Band after immigrating in 1840; as is common in Naples, he placed the clarinet (which he played himself) in a prominent place in his performances.
Undoubtedly the most influential Jamaican-American entertainer is DJ Kool Herc, who is often credited as the inventor of hip hop. He immigrated to New York City and brought with him the roots of hip hop—a DJ isolating and repeating a percussion break while an MC spoke over the beats.
For more information about Caribbean cultural influence in the United States, see Holger Henke's, The West Indian Americans, Westport: Greenwood Press 2001.
Large-scale Japanese immigration to the United States began early in the 20th century, and traditional music came with them. California and Hawaii were two of the biggest destinations for these immigrants. The first North American taiko group was Seiichi Tanaka's San Francisco Taiko Dojo in San Francisco, which was founded in 1968.
Norwegian-American folk music in the United States is mostly found in Minnesota and surrounding states. Reinlenders, polkas and waltzes are played; of these, waltzes are by far the most common . Instruments include the psalmodikon, fiddle and accordion. Celebrations like Syttende Mai have become an important outlet for traditional Norwegian music.
Pakistani music in the United States is largely influenced by homegrown Pakistani American musicians and bands. The Kominas are an American-Pakistani taqwacore band from Boston. There have been a number of successful American musicians of Pakistani origin; they include Nadia Ali, rappers Bohemia and Mr. Capone-E, Junoon member Salman Ahmad, the Qaiyum brothers (MCs GQ and JAQ), as well as Explosions in the Sky guitarist Munaf Rayani. Much of the works contributed by Pakistani musicians in the U.S. are often inspired by a fusion of contemporary and traditional American and Pakistani musical genres.
While Polish folk music still exists in its "old country" form, the most prevalent form of music evolved from traditional polkas, obereks, waltzes and Krakowiaks into what is common among the community today. This music form was pioneered by such musicians as Bernie Witkowski, Frank Wojnarowski, AmPol Aires, and Eddie Ziema. Royal Polish music, such as the polonaise (polonez), and folk music, mazur, oberek, krakowiak, kujawiak, and regional music, are celebrated by various Polish folk groups around the country.
The Polish community is strongest in the area around Chicago, Illinois. Chicago's Orkiestra Makowska, led by George Dzialowy, defined that city's unique sound for many years.
The city's Polish-American community spawned a wave of musicians that are usually considered polka players, though their actual output is quite varied. Chicago-style polka music has a distinctive sound from that found in other parts of the country. New England, Buffalo, NY, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis also have Polish-American musical traditions and each has its own distinctive sound.
More than 50,000 Polish-Americans live in the area around Houston, Texas. There is a rich tradition of Polish fiddling from Texas that had declined into obscurity until a recent revitalization by performers like Brian Marshall. Polish settlers arrived beginning in the middle of the 19th century, settling in Panna Maria, a village just south of San Antonio. A few decades later, a new wave of Polish migrants settled in Chappell Hill, Stoneham, Brenham, Bremond, Anderson, Carlos and New Waverly. These people's folk music consisted of bowed bass, fiddle and sometimes a clarinet, with the later additions of drums, accordions and guitars. Within Texas, Polish music was diverse, with a rhythmic style predominant in the Chappell Hill/Brenham area, and a melodic sound in Bremond. The group, Brave Combo is an example of what is commonly called within the industry Tex-Mex polka music. The Czech and Polish settlers in Texas had a major influence on the traditional Mexican folk music forming what we now know as Tejano music.
Slovenian-American polka musician Frankie Yankovic is by far the most famous musician of that genre. He began his career in the 1930s, beginning with some regional hits in the Detroit and Cleveland areas, followed by mainstream success in the later 1940s.
Ukrainian-Americans in the Cleveland and Detroit area have kept a folk scene alive, also producing a minor crossover star in the 1920s and 30s, Pawlo Humeniuk, the King of the Ukrainian Fiddlers.
Recently, the Ukrainian immigrant band Gogol Bordello have emerged into the mainstream.
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a "brighter" tone than the deep tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (folk) styles, which are typically aural traditions—taught "by ear" rather than via written music.
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations, music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that.
The rebec is a bowed stringed instrument of the Medieval era and the early Renaissance. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and one to five strings.
Klezmer is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these would have been played at weddings and other social functions. The musical genre incorporated elements of many other musical genres including Ottoman music, Baroque music, German and Slavic folk dances, and religious Jewish music. As the music arrived in the United States, it lost some of its traditional ritual elements and adopted elements of American big band and popular music. Among the European-born klezmers who popularized the genre in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s were Dave Tarras and Naftule Brandwein; they were followed by American-born musicians such as Max Epstein, Sid Beckerman and Ray Musiker.
The music of Greece is as diverse and celebrated as its history. Greek music separates into two parts: Greek traditional music and Byzantine music. These compositions have existed for millennia: they originated in the Byzantine period and Greek antiquity; there is a continuous development which appears in the language, the rhythm, the structure and the melody. Music is a significant aspect of Hellenic culture, both within Greece and in the diaspora.
"Misirlou" is a folk song from the Eastern Mediterranean region. The original author of the song is not known, but Arabic, Greek, and Jewish musicians were playing it by the 1920s. The earliest known recording of the song is a 1927 Greek rebetiko/tsifteteli composition. There are also Arabic belly dancing, Albanian, Armenian, Serbian, Persian, Indian and Turkish versions of the song. This song was popular from the 1920s onwards in the Arab American, Armenian American and Greek American communities who settled in the United States.
Rebetiko, plural rebetika, occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek music which in the 1930s went through a process of musical syncretism and developed into a more distinctive musical genre. Rebetiko briefly can be described as the urban popular song of the Greeks, especially the poorest, from the late 19th century to the 1950s, and served as the basis for further developments in popular Greek music. The music, which was partly forgotten, was rediscoved during the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early 1970s onwards.
The music of Crete, also called kritika, refers to traditional forms of Greek folk music prevalent on the island of Crete in Greece. Cretan traditional music includes instrumental music, a capella songs known as the rizitika, "Erotokritos," Cretan urban songs (tabachaniotika), as well as other miscellaneous songs and folk genres.
Balkan music is a type of music found in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. The music is characterised by complex rhythm. Famous bands in Balkan music include Taraf de Haïdouks, Fanfare Ciocărlia, and No Smoking Orchestra.
Music history of the United States includes many styles of folk, popular and classical music. Some of the best-known genres of American music are rhythm and blues, jazz, rock and roll, rock, soul, hip hop, pop, and country. The history began with the Native Americans, the first people to populate North America.
The latter part of the 19th century saw the increased popularization of African American music and the growth and maturity of folk styles like the blues.
Lyra is a constellation.
Celtic fusion is an umbrella term for any modern music which incorporates influences considered "Celtic", or Celtic music which incorporates modern music. It is a syncretic musical tradition which borrows freely from the perceived "Celtic" musical traditions of all the Celtic nations, as well as from all styles of popular music, it is thus sometimes associated with the Pan-Celtic movement. Celtic fusion may or may not include authentic traditional music from any one tradition under the Celtic umbrella, but its common characteristic is the inspiration by Celtic identity.
Greek traditional music includes a variety of Greek styles played by ethnic Greeks in Greece, Cyprus, Australia, the United States and other parts of Europe. Apart from the common music found generally in Greece, each region of Greece contains a distinct type of folk music that originated from the region due to their history, traditions and cultural influences.
Thanassis Skordalos was a musician from Crete, noted for playing the lyra, the bowed string instrument of Crete and most popular surviving form of the medieval Byzantine lyra.
Polka is a music and dance style that originated in Bohemia in the 1830s and came to American society with immigrants from Europe. A fast style in 2 4 time, and often associated with the pre–World War II era, polka remains a dynamic "niche" music in America.
The Byzantine lyra or lira was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by stopping the strings from the side with the fingertips and fingernails. The oldest known depiction of the instrument is on a Byzantine ivory casket, dated to circa 900–1100 AD, preserved in the Bargello in Florence. Modern variants of the lyra are still played throughout the Balkans and in areas surrounding the Black Sea, including Greece, Crete, Karpathos, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Croatia, Italy, Turkey and Armenia.
The Cretan lyra is a Greek pear-shaped, three-stringed bowed musical instrument, central to the traditional music of Crete and other islands in the Dodecanese and the Aegean Archipelago, in Greece. The Cretan lyra is considered to be the most popular surviving form of the medieval Byzantine lyra, an ancestor of most European bowed instruments.
Music of Canadian Cultures is a wide and diverse accumulation of music from many different individual communities all across Canada. With Canada being vast in size, the country throughout its history has had regional music scenes. The music of Canada has reflected the multi-cultural influences that have shaped the country. First Nations people, the French, the British, the United States and many others nationalities have all made unique contributions to the musical heritage of Canada
The classicalkemenche, Armudî kemençe or Politiki lyra is a pear-shaped bowed instrument that derived from the medieval Greek Byzantine lyre.
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