As we have observed a number of times in this book, in the nineteenth century a rift opened between popular music and the music we now call classical. Nowhere has this rift been more apparent than in the United States of America, the most populist of all nations. And nowhere else have such strenuous efforts been made to close the rift. Think back to the various American composers discussed in the last few chapters, from the unlikely modernist Charles Ives, who quoted marches, ragtime, and hymns in his symphonic music, through William Grant Still, down to George Crumb and Tania León. It is not accidental that we have seen each of these composers working with popular as well as “classical” music sources.

Classical and popular are fuzzy words, however, especially when applied to music in American history. The terms cultivated and vernacular can be more illuminating. To cultivate means to nurture and consciously foster. Vernacular, on the other hand, refers to one’s native language. Cultivated music, then, is music that has been brought to this country and consciously developed, fostered at concerts, and taught in conservatories. Vernacular music is music we sing and hear as naturally as we speak our native tongue.

There is a bitter twist to this terminology as applied to American music. The word vernacular comes from the Latin word vernaculus, which is itself derived from verna: and verna meant a family slave. The heritage of African American music was and is central to the story of American music.