There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of the experience of life and thinking about life and living life.

See also
[Portal icon]Biography portal. 3 The Camp Meeting (1908–10)
Central Park in the Dark for chamber orchestra (1906 1909)
The Unanswered Question for chamber group (1906; rev. Ives' idiom like Mahler's employed highly independent melodic lines.

Sources of Ives' tonal imagery are hymn tunes and traditional songs the town band at holiday parade the fiddlers at Saturday night dances patriotic songs sentimental parlor ballads and the melodies of Stephen Foster. Over time Ives came to be regarded as an "American original".