Aaron Copland’s ballet suite, Billy the Kid, became one of his most popular works and remains well-known today. This particular piece helped to cement the idea of what the “American Sound” was for many people both American and foreign. In a time when European music was exploring further and further with the reaches of polytonal and generally complicated and complex compositions, Aaron Copland focused more on the simplicity of music that can be found in the folk songs he borrowed from in order to help American composers and people alike find a national musical identity. Copland was a populist composer, meaning he borrowed bits and pieces from popular and traditional music. Folk songs are one genre that he borrowed from quite generously. Snippets of popular American folk tunes, as well as cowboy songs, can be found littered throughout Billy the Kid. Of course, this was also highly appropriate for the subject matter, based on an Old West American cowboy legend and his gang. Among other things, these elements helped him to become one of the composers best known for capturing the essence of an American sound.

Aaron Copland began his career as a Modernist composing complicated avant-garde type music. During the time in his life that followed this, known as his “Americanist” period which started to really take shape during the Great Depression, he began to turn back to the simplicity that he felt evoked American imagery best. Part of this was in pursuit of simpler music with a wider appeal that would be more easily accessible to children in particular. The other reason for this was that Copland himself indicated that he was "anxious to write a work that would immediately be recognized as American in character." Having spent several years of his young adult life studying abroad in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, he began to think about the ways in which music is incorporated and viewed in both Europe and America. He came to the conclusion that the contact with serious art music in Europe is entirely natural, because ‘“classical music” is German, English, French, Italian and so forth – [it] has roots…in the young composer’s own backgrounds. That is not the case in America. In America, “classical music” is a foreign object, something that was transplanted and hence did not originate here in the same fashion it did overseas in Europe. He saw that the music that originated in the Western European countries was profoundly involved in everyday life and in general, the two spheres were viewed as inextricable. That realization held a stark contrast to the way America seemed to keep music and the way of life that surrounded it separate from each other. Copland became determined to make the two spheres that had long been isolated finally touch by expressing himself through his own compositions. This self-motivated quest to find how he could achieve such a feat fueled some of his most well-known compositions, and it also played an integral part in solidifying what current American musicians are able to aurally recognize as an American sounding piece. By focusing on American themes and evocative American subject matter in his compositions, it allowed for an unabated domination of the American classical music sphere. Without Copland, an American musical identity may not have been popularized, let alone found.

One of the main components of this Americanist venture that Copland embarked on seemed to be a quest for a sort of Americanized version of the German Gebrauchsmusik, translated to mean Utility Music. This category includes music used for films, theater productions, radio broadcasts, and music for amateur musicians, students, and the like. Essentially, it is written to be accessible, to be easy to aurally digest, and to be functional outside of a concert setting. He strove to achieve this goal by writing pieces that fell into this category, like his ballet Billy the Kid, and then by incorporating folk song and vernacular musical elements. Using this strategy, he not only made the music enormously more accessible to people who knew little to nothing about classical sphere music, but he also caught the attention of the general public by reusing bits and pieces of music they were already familiar and comfortable with. Copland believed that it was absolutely necessary, especially in the time period around the Great Depression, for the music to be simple and direct enough for common people to be able to relate to it on personal and situational levels. This commitment to simplicity became not only a trademark of his style but a part of the American musical identity. At a time when the rest of the European musical world was making progress with extremely complex and abstract music, some American composers like Copland were turning their backs on that method and instead focusing on something for the majority of people, rather than a small, educated or eclectic minority, that they could identify with and rally around.

One way to ensure that the attention of the masses will be caught by simple music is to pull from something that is already popular and widely known among all age groups. In Copland’s time, pulling from folk and another vernacular music of the era was exactly the way to go about that. Not only did using this music pull in more people in general, but it also made it more appealing to children and younger students to use something that they can more easily identify with, understand, and even study. Though he used folk music in many of his compositions in one way or another, one of the most notable was Billy the Kid. Throughout the course of the ballet, the listener is able to identify several different popular tunes that are placed at critical plot points, scene changes, and emotional episodes. However, some of these are cleverly disguised or morphed in just such a way that they seem reminiscent of a tune the audience knows, but with a new twist or influence. The primary ways that he altered these songs were by either placing the borrowed materials in contexts that centered around contrast and rapid juxtapositions or through rhythmic, melodic, and timbral changes, including fragmentation at times as well. This idea is actually quite brilliant because when the most recognizable music of the time is put into a context where it is almost what the audience is expecting but not quite, there is a sense of intrigue that is created, then joined and made comfortable by the lingering wisps of nostalgia that hang about the audience, helping them to become immersed in the piece and the overall experience.

The introduction of Billy the Kid, appropriately titled “The Open Prairie,” begins with a series of call and response type gestures between the clarinet and oboe, manipulating mostly open fifth sonorities to create an easy, overarching melody. A few bars later, the bassoon is added into the mix with the same, expansive motive, but this double reed addition changes the timbre just enough to cause the audience to listen a little harder. Another couple bars after the bassoon entrance, the strings and flute come in as well, expanding the color of the simple chord structure. The gathering of different timbres using a similar motive that gradually expands as it adds more instruments and colors to the sound is one of the reasons that people have associated this particular part of the famous ballet with an American sound. The fairly simple chords played in consistent thirds and fifths and the purposely brassy sheen creates a sound that seems to somehow be unanimously associated with the reaching plains of the Western United States in a pre-industrialized era. There is also an ostinato that chugs along almost without rest through the entirety of the tableau, reminding both the audience and the character of the seemingly eternally expansive nature of the plains. Along with the open spaces imagery that is being created, the title and subject matter notwithstanding, the way that everything is played with this brassy sheen and the simplistic rhythms that build in intensity but still retain this confident and exploring or pioneering spirit as many have called it, seems to capture exactly what “America” might sound like. In addition to this, it also seems to recall a feeling of loneliness, which could be Copland projecting how he felt when he was first exploring America after having been in France for several years. Acting as an aural interpretation of the “American Spirit,” this seems to be the perfect and most strategic way to not only begin a composition about an American Western legend but to also create a template for what the listener is expecting to come next.

“Prairie Night,” the fourth tableau in Billy the Kid, is quite reminiscent of the introduction, “The Open Prairie.” There is the same usage of open fifth intervals in a call and response fashion that creates a sense of “horizon” in the music so to speak, very similar to the opening. One of the biggest differences in this movement is the time signature. Rather than being in simple 3/4 time and felt that way, this section is in a compound 12/8 which adds a gentle sense of swaying that the introduction does not have. This makes the feeling of the section much calmer and creates a lulling sensation as if the listener was being cradled by prairie grasses as the wind blows around them. Adding to this sensation is the flute line that creates a repeating arc that gently undulates up and down in a very tuneful way. When the clarinet comes in, it works with the flute line creating a sort of hocket that fills in the space between repetitions of the flute figuration. The violin two part almost doubles the soothing flute line, but uses a slightly different articulation to create a mild echoing effect, as if to imitate the sounds that can be heard from all corners on a prairie. The harp part also helps set this imagery into motion. Aside from the tender, crystalline timbre that harps are naturally endowed with, the occasional sweeps from a lower register up into a higher one and mellow sustains that support the moving lines all aid in cementing the feeling of ease and relaxation into the listener’s ear. The slow, Ab pentatonic scale that is being used in the first violin and viola lines to create the melody is another element of this section that adds to the sleepy feel, all the while being stably supported by the bass ostinato.

Another major difference is the brassy sheen that was once found on all the instruments’ timbres in one way or another becomes a sort of recollected memory to the listener as it is removed from all but the trumpets. However, even in the trumpets, it has been toned down. This is particularly noticeable when the trumpet line eventually joins the texture that had been only high woodwinds and strings before this, creating an ostentatious difference in timbre even with only a slight brassiness being present this time around. The brassy effect that was used to paint the image of a sunrise on wide, open, grassy plains has been reused in a way that makes it sound like it is referring to the same scene but maybe in a memory or a promise for the next day after the character has awoken from his slumber. This imagery or thought of promise for another day of adventure and exploration seems fully appropriate for Copland’s Americanist perspective as an underlying force, as well as the storyline that supports the surface of the music itself, though only to an extent.

The second to last tableau of the ballet, “Billy’s Death,” is similar in feeling, instrumentation, and tempo to the previous two sections. It focuses in on the high woodwinds and strings to create a soft spoken, yet powerful statement about the event of Billy’s death. While the pentatonic melody from “Prairie Night” is not present here, there is a reappearance of a similar structure that uses mostly thirds and fifths with some step-wise motion in the underlying harmony parts. Even though this section is about someone’s death, it does not really sound sorrowful or lamenting like one might expect. It sounds peaceful, or maybe even vaguely reminiscent, as if Billy’s last moments are spent thinking about parts of his life that were good or maybe he wanted to be caught and he can finally rest now that everything is over. It could also be that after a long chase out to the plains where Billy was shot, he is dying and the sun rises over the plains illuminating the landscape that will serve as Billy’s final resting place and he deems this a fitting end. This imagery is rather bittersweet. While the ending of any life, particularly a young one, is always tragic, it also provides a soothing reassurance that even though a life may be extinguished, nature and the world will continue on, regardless. The overall texture is soothing like “Prairie Night,” with the exception of the solo violin line which features a sputtering thirty-second note figure tied to a note of much longer duration. These few occurrences seem to act as interruptions to the otherwise smooth texture, pointing to the possibility that these figures, which appear a few times, but get further and further apart until they stop completely, are representative of Billy’s ragged, dying breaths. Then, just as his breathing fades away, so too does the scene that was painted for the listener. The last notes are held slowly like a final glimpse of the rising sun, gently fading out into inaudibility until the sound has completely stopped and the image in the mind of the audience goes dark as well.