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Question:

I like to listen to CDs and the radio.  Most of the music I like my parents and grandparents think is silly or bad.  What kind of music did they like back in Old Sturbridge Village times?

Answer:

Dear Vanessa,

When you say "they," I hope you don't mean your parents and grandparents, who are much too young to have grown up in "Village times." Every generation seems to think its own music is the best and the younger generation's music is bad - or at least inferior. It was like that for some people even in the early 19-th century, which we consider the "Village times" you mention.

Actually, there was no "one kind of music" back then. Just as there are lots of different kinds of music around today (from classical music to "classic rock," from pop and jazz to country & western and others), different people enjoyed different kinds in the 1830s. Even in the same community, some people would be singing ancient ballads around the fireside, while others clustered around a new pianoforte (an early piano) to hear a young lady play the latest piece of "parlor music."

Some people enjoyed mostly church music, while others sang "bawdy" (or, perhaps, "vulgar") songs in nearby taverns. Singing masters and dancing masters went from town to town teaching people how to sing "in parts" and how to dance both old and new steps. Some people sang while they worked in the fields, others sang strictly for pleasure and relaxation. Sometimes they sang to the accompaniment of an organ or violin, sometimes their voices were the only musical instruments they used.

What they didn't have was tape recorders, CDs, or other electronic devices to play and replay the same music in exactly the same fashion, so there were often as many (slightly) different versions of a song as there were singers and players.

Like most other aspects of 1830s life, music was undergoing change and transition and was viewed by rich people and poor people, city people and country people, in different ways. The best music survives a lot of changes. Today we still enjoy some of the songs and dances of the 1830s, because they were worth remembering. Do you think people will still like your favorite music (or that of your parents and grandparents) 160 years from now?