The influence that South Carolina has had on the musical history in America is phenomenal. Robert Weir tell us in his book, Colonial South Carolina, that Carolinians were known for spending half of their wealth on social entertainment, and he claims that “Charles Town was equally noted for its music” (239). These Southerners certainly did not fail to revive the good ole’ carpe diem saying, that’s for sure, and what better way is there to please a large crowd than through music? Apparently, the first and now oldest musical organization in the United States was founded right here in our hometown in 1762. The name of that organization is the St. Coecilia’s Society.
Thanks to the South Carolina History Society, I have been able to dig up the original handbook of which explains all of the rules for the St. Coecilia’s Society. This artifact, along with a book titled, Early Concert-Life in America, by Oscar Sonneck, will serve as aids as I construct my archival research on the early musical culture of South Carolina. The St. Coecilia’s Society was responsible for sponsoring live music that was performed by amateur and professional musicians. The rules that defined their organization were sometimes strict in terms of admission and management, but this will be explored more deeply in my actual project. All of this pre-modern and modern evidence will help to give a clear indication of what kind of music was being listened to back in the day, and how the music differed in terms of various social classes. However, would a musical archival blog about Colonial South Carolina truly be authentic if it didn’t include actual music from the time period? Definitely not!
That being said, I have also uncovered hand-written music from a family in Charles Town in 1715. The manuscripts that I will be showing and performing on my blog were produced by a guy named Samuel Peryes. His family continued to play music, specifically gospel music, after his death (before 1800, families often carried on their musical heritage through generations so this is not that surprising). There are a couple of other sources that I have been able to find on the internet to support the Peyre’s family background. These include excerpts taken from a dissertation by Nikkos Papas from the University of Kentucky, and another dissertation by Nicholas Beasley from the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University. More information may appear as I dive into the history of Samuel Peyre’s musical psalms, but in order to provide a vivid idea of what kind of music was available during the 18th century in South Carolina, I will also cite another book on the historic culture of South Carolina titled Charleston, South Carolina written by John Meffert and Sherman Pyatt.
Lastly, I hope to create an audible representation of the music that I have from Samuel Peyre, so that anyone reading our website can get a better grasp of what sort of tunes were being played. After all, if someone doesn’t read music, how would they be able to appreciate the written notes without being able to hear them? In order to do this, I will play the music by Peyre myself and will record it. Then, somehow, I plan on putting this on the blog (I’ll probably need help from a technological savvy person to do this, but it will happen). There’s so much out there on the music in South Carolina, just waiting to be discovered! I can’t wait to re-create the musical culture of our state!
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