Sweet Thing: The History and Musical Structure of a Shared American Vernacular Form (OXFORD STUDIES IN MUSIC THEORY)

As children, many of us learn to sing, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." But despite the familiarity of this tune, few of us realize that what we're singing is actually part of a pervasive - and centuries-old - musical scheme. This particular pattern, the "Sweet Thing" scheme, has generated a large group of songs spanning a broad range of topics, genres, and time periods, but all related through a specific stanzaic form. Early twentieth-century blues songs "My Babe" and "Motherless Children," country songs "Peg and Awl" and "Crawdad Song," and gospel songs "Pure Religion" and "This Train" use this form, along with popular songs like Ray Charles's "I Got a Woman," The Beatles's "One After 909," and the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man." Sweet Thing: The History and Musical Structure of a Shared American Vernacular Form studies one of the most productive and enduring shared musical resources in North American vernacular music. Author Nicholas Stoia offers the most comprehensive examination to date of the long history of the "Sweet Thing" scheme, exploring how it made its way from sixteenth-century Scotland to eighteenth-century British broadside ballads to nineteenth-century American ragtime. Stoia also examines the form in various contexts, including early blues and country music, and moving forward to rhythm and blues, soul, and rock music, connecting these modern forms to their ancient roots. Through this close look at a ubiquitous musical from, Sweet Thing shows us how it has linked listeners and musicians alike across the boundaries of genre, race, and even time. "As children, many of us learn to sing, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." But despite the familiarity of this tune, few of us realize that what we're singing is actually part of a pervasive - and centuries-old - musical scheme. This particular pattern, the "Sweet Thing" scheme, has generated a large group of songs spanning a broad range of topics, genres, and time periods, but all related through a specific stanzaic form. Early twentieth-century blues songs "My Babe" and "Motherless Children," country songs "Peg and Awl" and "Crawdad Song," and gospel songs "Pure Religion" and "This Train" use this form, along with popular songs like Ray Charles's "I Got a Woman," The Beatles's "One After 909," and the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man."Sweet Thing: The History and Musical Structure of a Shared American Vernacular Form studies one of the most productive and enduring shared musical resources in North American vernacular music. Author Nicholas Stoia offers the most comprehensive examination to date of the long history of the "Sweet Thing" scheme, exploring how it made its way from sixteenth-century Scotland to eighteenth-century British broadside ballads to nineteenth-century American ragtime. Stoia also examines the form in various contexts, including early blues and country music, and moving forward to rhythm and blues, soul, and rock music, connecting these modern forms to their ancient roots. Through this close look at a ubiquitous musical from, Sweet Thing shows us how it has linked listeners and musicians alike across the boundaries of genre, race, and even time."--Site web de l'éditeur "As children, many of us learn to sing, 'If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.' But despite the familiarity of this tune, few of us realize that what we're singing is actually part of a pervasive - and centuries-old - musical scheme. This particular scheme, dubbed the 'Sweet Thing,' has generated a large group of songs spanning a broad range of topics, genres, and time periods, but all related through a specific stanzaic form. Early twentieth-century blues songs 'My Babe' and 'Motherless Children,' country songs 'Peg and Awl' and 'Crawdad Song,' and gospel songs 'Pure Religion' and 'This Train' use this form, along with popular songs like Ray Charles's 'I Got a Woman,' The Beatles's 'One After 909,' and the Velvet Underground's 'I'm Waiting for the Man.' Sweet Thing: The History and Musical Structure of a Shared American Vernacular Form studies one of the most productive and enduring shared musical resources in North American vernacular music. Author Nicholas Stoia offers the most comprehensive examination to date of the 'Sweet Thing's' long history, exploring how it made its way from sixteenth-century Scotland to eighteenth-century British broadside ballads to nineteenth-century American ragtime. Stoia also examines the form in various contexts, including early blues and country music, and moving forward to rhythm and blues, soul, and rock music, connecting these modern forms to their ancient roots. Through this close look at a ubiquitous musical from, Sweet Thing shows us how it has linked listeners and musicians alike across the boundaries of genre, race, and even time"-- Provided by publisher "As children, many of us learn to sing, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." But despite the familiarity of this tune, few of us realize that what we're singing is actually part of a pervasive - and centuries-old - musical scheme. This particular scheme, dubbed the "Sweet Thing," has generated a large group of songs spanning a broad range of topics, genres, and time periods, but all related through a specific stanzaic form. Early twentieth-century blues songs "My Baby" and "Motherless Children," country songs "Peg and Awl" and "Crawdad Song," and gospel songs "Pure Religion" and "This Train" use this form, along with popular songs like Ray Charles's "I Got a Woman," The Beatles's "One After 909," and the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man." Sweet Thing: The History and Musical Structure of a Shared American Vernacular Form studies one of the most productive and enduring shared musical resources in North American vernacular music. Author Nicholas Stoia offers the most comprehensive examination to date of the "Sweet Thing's" long history, exploring how it made its way from sixteenth-century Scotland to eighteenth-century British broadside ballads to nineteenth-century American ragtime. Stoia also examines the form in various contexts, including early blues and country music, and moving forward to rhythm and blues, soul, and rock music, connecting these modern forms to their ancient roots. Through this close look at a ubiquitous musical from, Sweet Thing shows us how it has linked listeners and musicians alike across the boundaries of genre, race, and even time"-- Provided by publisher Sweet Thing: The History and Musical Structure of a Shared American Vernacular Form is a historical and analytical study of one of the most productive and enduring shared musical resources in North American vernacular music. Many of us learn the form as children, when we sing “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands,” and we hear it frequently in popular music, but usually without realizing that this poetic and rhythmic pattern has been penetrating the minds of musicians and listeners for centuries. The antecedents of the form date back to sixteenth-century Scotland and England, and appear in seventeenth-century English popular music; eighteenth-century English and American broadside balladry; nineteenth-century American folk hymnody, popular song, gospel hymnody, and ragtime; and American folk repertoire collected in the early twentieth century. It continued to generate many songs in early twentieth-century popular genres, including blues, country, and gospel music, through which it entered into many postwar popular genres like rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, country pop, the folk revival, and rock music. This book offers the most comprehensive examination to date of the centuries-long history of the scheme, and defines its musical parameters in twentieth-century popular music. 'Sweet Thing' offers readers a comprehensive new perspective on a musical scheme shared by broadside ballads and experimental rock songs alike