Vivian Ramalingam wrote:
>..tells me that the idea of a "standard" harmonization for the tune of the
>SSB was put forward by Elsie Shawe, supervisor for music in
>the St. Paul school system from 1898 through the 1930s
It's doubtless imprudent to generalize from just two cases--the
Massachusetts Stravinsky incident and this fascinating info--but it seems
that the implicit pressure for a national standard for the SSB--and
possibly even for a national anthem itself--arose ,ore from the local or
grassroots level than from the federal government (or gummint, for Walt
Kelly fans).
Charles Seeger's classic paper on U.S. music historiography, "Music and
Class Structure in the United States," identifies two broad
interest/pressure groups, a business-oriented Sell America Music and a
Euro-Art oriented Make America Musical. Tentatively, it appears that the
aim of advancing and fixing a national anthem fell between the cracks of
these two, and therefore fell to local patriots like Ms. Shawe.
MW Morse
(Many thanks, Vivian!)
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