[1] The sentence quoted opens Frederic Louis Ritter's 'Music in America.' In the next sentence the author admits the prior arrival of the Cavaliers on these shores, but hastens to add that they exercised very little influence on American musical development. 'It is a curious historical fact,' he says, 'that earnest interest in musical matters was first taken by the psalm-singing Puritans.' It _is_ curious. We quote further: 'From the crude form of a barbarously sung, simple psalmody there rose a musical culture in the United States which now excites the admiration of the art-lover, and at the same time justifies the expectation and hope of a realization, at some future epoch, of an American school of music.' _Quantum sufficit._ Louis C. Elson, in his 'History of American Music,' also tells us that 'the true beginnings of American music ... must be sought in ... the rigid, narrow, and often commonplace psalm-singing of New England.' If these things be so, well may the American composer exclaim in the words of the immortal Sly 'Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!' [2] We are leaving out of consideration the Spanish settlement of Florida as well as the French settlement of Quebec, and have in mind only those early colonies which formed the nucleus of the United States. [3] See Max Seiffert in _Vierteljahrschrift für Musikwissenschaft_, 1891. [4] Thomas Morley, 'A Plain and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke,' 1597. [5] 'The Colonial Era,' in the American History Series, New York, 1892-1902. [6] See Chapter XI for a further treatment of negro music. [7] Strictly speaking the Pilgrims who came from Leyden to Plymouth were not Puritans. They were Separatists, and their movement antedated the Puritan movement _per se_. It would be highly inconvenient, however, in a work of this character to draw constant distinctions between Pilgrims and Puritans and we shall consequently speak of them in general as one. [8] _Cf._ Sigmund Spaeth: 'Milton's Knowledge of Music,' New York, 1913. [9] For a full statement of the Puritan case in respect to music, see Henry Davey: 'History of English Music,' Chap. VII. London, 1895. CHAPTER II THE BEGINNINGS OF MUSICAL CULTURE IN AMERICA Composite elements of American music--New England's musical awakening; early publications of psalm-tunes; reform of church singing--Early concerts in Boston--New York, Philadelphia, the South--The American attitude toward music--The beginnings of American music: Hopkinson, Lyon, Billings and their contemporaries.