Protest

Transcript

• 00:00

  [CROWD SINGING]Yeah.[MUSIC PLAYING]

• 00:27

  On behalf of the national committeefor the March on Washington.[WOMAN SINGING]

• 00:54

  [CHATTER][WOMAN SINGING]

• 01:28

  [CROWD SINGING]

Protest music is any music associated with a political movement or a movement for social change or awareness, sometimes as music for peace or to create an awareness of environmental or green issues. These songs are most often associated with specific movements through context. Music has often been used as a vehicle of protest for various causes such as antiwar movements, environmental awareness, and election propaganda.

Sociologist R. Serge Denisoff has grouped protest songs into two categories, based upon their function: persuasion or propaganda. From each [Page 910]of these categories are further subdivisions: magnetic or rhetorical. The former creates solidarity, whereas the latter is meant strictly to persuade the alteration of thought on a subject from a distance. Additionally, a further distinction can be made between protest songs and complaint songs or criticism songs. In this type of song, no action is intended to be taken; the song functions not to enlighten or empower, but to have an audience for one to voice his or her societal gripes.

Some scholars believe that the universal success of protest songs has to do with a specific formula of rhetoric that the songwriters tend to follow. It is the distinct overt or covert expression of dissention by the singer that often states a desired result that is so appealing to the masses, especially if it regards a communal situation, thus expressing a cultural message to the public. The rhetoric of the protest song changes the music from the isolated expression of one person to a collective experience.

Early American protest music came in the form of songs that protested both sides of the Civil War, the abolition movement, and the women's suffrage movement. Similarly, protest music in early England discussed contemporary social upheavals such as the 1381 Peasant Revolt, desire for social justice in songs of the 14th century, or topics speaking against religious wars and the Digger movement in the 17th century. The advent of industrialization in 18th and 19th century Britain was the topic of varied protest songs that accompanied protest movements, and these songs later became associated with labor movements, and became their anthems and propaganda songs.

In early Europe, musical protest took the form of walkouts during performances. The most famous of these concerned the performance of Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 45 (1772), given the moniker “Farewell” because of the event that transpired during the work's finale. The piece, commissioned by Haydn's patron Prince Nikolaus Esterházy of Hungary, was written during an unplanned prolonged stay for both the composer and the orchestra at the monarch's summer palace in Esterháza, a situation of which they were unhappy. As a result, Haydn composed the final movement of the work so that the performers would leave the stage one by one as a subtle hint to the prince that they would like to return home to their families. This protest was successful, and the orchestra was allowed to return to their homes in Eisenstadt the next day.

...