American Cultural Influence

Influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself. Western music has been influenced by other world country to the point where we can’t call any one thing our own. The majority of all musical movements has steamed from another culture finding its way into our own; we never start it on our own accord. The leaders in this charge for vicissitude come from the Indian, Latin, Japanese, African, and Russian cultures. Other cultural influences are the backbone of modern American music and allows us to innovate in every genre. One of the biggest players in the psychedelic movement was Indian culture, with Ali Akbar Khan arriving in America in 1955 via an invitation

What’s interesting is that the misspelled “rhumba” was not the authentic Afro-Cuban ‘rumba’. It was instead a simplified version made to be used in middle-class American lounges and ballrooms. The craze all started when a visiting Cuban orchestra first performed their piece “El Manisero” which became an early bestselling tune and also a standard for rumba. However, it didn’t become widely known until Louis Armstrong and Stan Kenton’s interpretation set the tone for what became the sexualized, care free vision of the Latino community (Latin

Swartz also noted that the positive responses given at recitals towards the Russian composers and performers show Russia’s stylistic influence on America. Russian virtuoso Anton Rubinstein’s tour in 1872 and was the first of its kind in America. It consisted of 215 recitals in 239 days and was important because, “he brought the modern piano repertoire to small towns and regions where there would have been little opportunity for concerts of classical music” (Wheeler). Rubinstein’s intensely passionate performances helped shaped America’s musical tastes in the late nineteenth