How music fuelled, and was fuelled by, the No Kings protests

If you were online last week, you probably saw footage from the No Kings protests.

The gigantic demonstration against U.S. President Donald Trump took place across the United States and portions of Canada — but was connected by one prevailing aspect: music. 

There was Les Miserables's rousing Do You Hear the People Sing?, sung by a crowd in Auburn, Calif. 

There was Bella Ciao — a lesser-known piece strongly linked to the Italian anti-fascist movement of the 1940s — performed by a brass band to drown out counter-protesters in Atlanta.

And there was a raft of other music, new and old, by musicians looking to tie themselves to the No Kings demonstrations.

"There's a fascinating mixture of new music as well as old songs being brought back into the mix," said Benjamin Tausig, an associate professor of critical music studies at New York's Stony Brook University.

It's "inspiring people in the context of protest at this moment."

That's because of music's inextricable connection to — and ability to inspire — political action, he says. 

When used in a specific way, some songs can become almost irresistible calls to action. And the beginning of protest movements often fundamentally alter both what music we are exposed to, and what music artists choose to release, says Tausig.

But when it comes to protest music, not all songs are created equal, says Noriko Manabe, chair of Indiana University's department of music theory and co-editor of the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Protest Music. And the way that we engage with that music, she says, speaks to why some of the most widespread songs used at recent protests have been older, less traditionally popular tunes.

Songs like Bella Ciao, Do You Hear the People Sing? or even The Star-Spangled Banner — which had moments of its own at the protests — tend to be of a specific type, she says. They are "participatory" versus "presentational."

While presentational music is meant for one skilled performer, participatory music, like other iconic protest songs such as We Shall Overcome, is not.

It's "more repetitive so that people can more easily join in," she said. "Whether or not they're virtuosic is actually not the point. The point is to get as many people involved as possible."

And with participation, she says, comes ideology.