American Music: A Panorama, Concise Edition

Rating:
Summary: Good, but there could be more
Review: American Music: A Panorama is a cd that has many different tracks from American Music History. I think that it contains many good examples of this, but there could be so many more. Elvis, the artist of the century, has no songs, as well as many other influential artists from the 50's and 60's. The booklet in it also had many errors in track numbers and song title numbers in it. Overall it was good but could be better, and I definitely do not think it was worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but there could be more
Review: American Music: A Panorama is a cd that has many different tracks from American Music History. I think that it contains many good examples of this, but there could be so many more. Elvis, the artist of the century, has no songs, as well as many other influential artists from the 50's and 60's. The booklet in it also had many errors in track numbers and song title numbers in it. Overall it was good but could be better, and I definitely do not think it was worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Good Survey of American Music
Review: I teach a course in United States music history at the high school level, and this college text is a good stretch for my students. It is clearly written, well organized, and provides great points for departure in my lectures. The accompanying CD set, though not perfect, is a convenient way to bring in examples and allows for some independent study. Music history teachers can augment the examples with their current CD holdings.
The text surveys "American" music, not just music of the United States, although that is in the majority. The distinction of American versus U.S makes for a good discussion point throughout the semester. We do not take the chapters in order (we begin with music of the early European settlers), and the book lends itself to that flexibility.
Although there may be better texts for specific music history topics, (i.e., Jazz or contemporary "serious" music) this is an excellent survey text for the advanced high schooler or college music history survey course. Term paper suggestions, questions for additional research and bibliography are included at the end of each chapter.