Studies of the Max Kade Institute

the use of "singing-schools" and "shaped notes," both innovations
of English Protestant denominations for the learning of hymns in
frontier communities.
The musical publications of the religious press were not limited
to one or a single type of German-American denomination. Pietistic
sects with only a few thousand members, large Lutheran synods, the
German-American Catholic orders, and German movements within
American Judaism, all marked the religious and social particularism
they espoused with a variety of musical publications.10 Language,
of course, necessitated such publications, but so too did German-
American attitudes toward music and its symbolic cultural meaning.
For German-Americans it was natural that diverse musical styles and
repertories should be brought together and juxtaposed. Folk music,
classical music, and large-scale liturgical works all belonged to the
religious-ethnic community and benefited from the performing forces
available within the community. Indeed, it was the presence of all
these forms of music-making and all the related genres of publication
that came to define the musical life of the ethnic-religious community.
Whether singing from folk-song anthologies in the home or hymnals
in the church, whether performing chorales from scores for the
"church band" or oratorios from arrangements for the community
chorus, there was one common element in the muscial life of the
ethnic-religious community: the German-American religious press
and its commitment to the publication of music.
The Genres of German-American
Religious/Secular Music Publishing
Both secular and religious presses sought to broaden their
public. Just as both were engaged in different types of cultural
proselytizing, both could justify the diversity of their publications on
financial grounds. It was probably this combination of a need to carry
a message with the need to make money that suggested the efficacy of
publishing distinct genres, yet assuring that they overlapped in some
ways. It is not uncommon to find the publication of a new music book
preceded by a periodical essay testifying to the absolute necessity
of the new book and its songs. The different genres of music
publishing were, nevertheless, distinct enough that it is possible

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