Psalms and hymns

Although a distinctive American voice would not truly emerge until the nineteenth century, the musical roots of modern America were planted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The settlers in the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies were not the first to come to the New World; in fact, the first Europeans to establish themselves in America were the Spanish explorers who came through Mexico and the southwestern area of what is now the United States. The first gospel songs sung in the New World have been traced to the Roman Catholic Church through the inhabitants of what is now the southern U.S.A. and Mexico. Catholic service books were published in Mexico as early as 1556 and the main effect of this Catholic influence was to introduce the Gregorian chant, sung in Latin, to America.

However, the true settling and growth of what became identified as the United States came from the European settlers who peopled the eastern seaboard and then began moving westward; the roots of U.S. American music are embedded in the European culture these settlers left behind.

The Reformation in Europe brought a new song, sung in the vernacular (not in Latin) by the entire congregation. Two basic forms emerged here: the chorale (associated with the Lutherans and Moravians), and the psalm tune, which developed among the Calvinists. Both the French and English sang psalms which were paraphrased in regular meter, to which were added paraphrases of other lyric passages from scriptures. They sang “God's word” from the Bible. The Lutherans also sang “God’s word,” but welcomed devotional poems written by individuals. The Puritans of New England came from the Calvinist tradition and the transition in America from scriptural to devotional poems – psalms to hymns – was a long and gradual one, hindered by the Puritans’ strict adherence to the psalms. Musically, there was a major difference as the Lutherans and Moravians made use of the organ and orchestral instruments in worship while the Calvinists and English dissenters sang metrical poems in unison without musical accompaniment.