Oh May Our Voice to Friendship Move: Masonic Singing in the United States

Freemasons in the United States have engaged in music making together to different degrees across the history of the country. Throughout the eighteenth century, it tended to occur at times of refreshment and structured meals as a means of diversion and community building. The nineteenth century gradually saw a transition from convivial songs to ritualistic songs that heightened the experience of initiation. The twentieth-century fraternity’s use of music generally followed that of society, away from communal music making and toward appreciation of recorded music by professionals or spoken word only. This article examines a few representative songs from different eras of American Freemasonry.