In this 250th anniversary year of the United States, pianist Lara Downes is traveling the country collecting conversations with scholars, searching for our history through songs. I've read books and watched Ken Burns documentaries, but my principal education in American history comes from our music. Together we considered "My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free," a song written in Philadelphia in 1759, and the conditions in our country just before it officially became the United States. But of course, so much music existed here long before that — Native American songs and then African American music that's been happening here since 1619. And yet, she became completely transformed by the ideals of the revolution and the founding of the United States.