Transcript Dialect and Messages of Negro Spirituals

Dialect and Messages of
Negro Spirituals
Presented by
Clarence Jones
NEGRO SPIRITUALS EMANATED
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From the hearts of the Ante-Bellum Slaves
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The House/Field Negros
Religious Passion Overflowing
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Faith in God
Oral Tradition – One Generation to
Another
 The “Invisible Church”
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THE PRE-LITERATE ERA OF
SLAVERY
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Preaching Inspired These Songs
Singing Sacred Songs
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Jubilees – “Great Day the Righteous Marching”
Folk Songs – “Study War No More”
Shout Songs – “Every Time I Feel the Spirit”
Sorrow Songs – “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless
Child”
Slave Songs – “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”
Minstrel Songs – “Cotton Pickin’ Songs”
Religious Songs – “Were You There When They Crucified
My Lord”
Negro Spirituals – “Steal Away”
CONDITIONS THAT INFLUENCE
NEGRO SPIRITUALS
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Negative
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Degrading
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“The Blind Man Stood on the Road and Cried”
“Master Going to Sell Us Tomorrow”
Dyer Conditions
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6,000 Independent Spirituals Exist Today
HANDED DOWN SPIRITUALS SPEAK
OF…
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Life – “Scandalize My Name”
Death – “I Want to Die Easy, When I Die”
Suffering – “I’ve Been ‘Buked”
Sorrow – “A City Called Heaven”
Love – “God is God! God Don’t Never Change!”
Judgment – “In That Great Getting Up Morning”
Grace – “Fix Me, Jesus”
Hope – “Heaven, Heaven”
Justice – “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel”
Mercy – “Standing in the Need of Prayer”
SPIRITUALS WERE…
Songs of A PEOPLE WEARY AT HEART
 Songs of UNHAPPY PEOPLE
 BEAUTIFUL EXPRESSION of Human
Experience
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AFRICAN’S LIVES CELEBRATED
THOUGH MUSIC
Marriage – “ Marry a Woman Uglier Than”
 Birth – “Mary Had A Baby”
 Death – “I’m So Glad There’s No Dying
Over There”
 Work – “Children, Don’t Get Weary ‘Til
Your Work Is Done”
 Play – “All I Do the Church Keep A’
Grumbling”
 Public Humor – “Jerry, The Arkansas Mule”
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RHYTHM
Important to Music
 Words Primary
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Derived From Particular Event
Content & Mood Dictated Instrumentation
Use
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Ex. Hand clapping
NEGRO SPIRITUALS TELL OF…
Exile – “Let My People Go”
 Trouble – “I Been in the Storm So Long”
 Strife – “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody turn Me
‘Round”
 Hiding – “No Hiding Place Down There”
 Groping (toward some unseen power) –
“Over My Head I Hear Music in the Air”
 Sigh For Rest (at the end of life) –
“Soon I Will Be Done”
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“But through all the sorrow of the
sorrow songs there breathes a
hope - a faith in the ultimate
justice of things.”
William E. B. Dubois
MUSICAL FORM OF THE NEGRO
SPIRITUAL
Rhythm
 Intricacy (of Rhythm)
 Written in Quadruple & Duple Meter
 Syncopation
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3 CLASSIFICATIONS OF NEGRO
SPIRITUALS
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Call & Response
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Syncopated
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Chant & Response By Choir
Fast Tempos
Body Movements
Rhythm That Swings
Slow & Sustained
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Long-phrased Melodies
Slow Tempos
Long & Sustained Phrases, Nostalgic, Dignified
SPIRITUALS ARE…
Vocally Diatonic
 Highly Ornamental
 Plaintive
 Nostalgic
 Dignified
 Beautiful
 Appealing
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TYPES OF SCALES USED IN
SPIRITUALS
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Conventional Major & Minor Scales
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Pentatonic Scale
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Mixed & Modal Scales
Flatted Thirds
 Flatted Sevenths
 Flatted Sixths
 I, IV, and V7 Chords
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MUSICAL TEXTUTES
Horizontal – Melodic
 Vertical – Harmonic
 Monophonic
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Polyphonic
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Single melodic line without accompaniment
2 or more simultaneous melodies
Homophonic
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Single melody with accompaniment
VOCALIST/SOLOIST
Most vital factor
 Techniques – Had No Bounds or Rules
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Chants
Hums
Wailings
Shouts
Glides
Turns
Groans & Moans
Word Interjections
IMPROVISATION
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Main Stylistic Feature/Tool of Folk Songs
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Permitted in Lyrics
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Words of the Negro Spiritual…
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Generally represent the feeling of the songs
HOWARD THURMAN SUGGESTS
Majority of Text Came From…
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Old Testament of the Bible
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“Go Down Moses”
“Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel”
New Testament of the Bible
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“Were You There When They Crucified My
Lord”
“He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word”
“Go Tell It On the Mountain”
“De Glory Manger”
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The World of Nature
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“Deep River”
“Roll, Jordan Roll”
“The Promised Land”
“Heaven”
“Over Jordan”
Freedom from slavery and
freedom from life
were often synonymous.
“Oh Freedom”
“Bound for Canaan Land”
“Deep River”
“Swing Low Sweet Chariot”
“Steal Away to Jesus”
Release in death sometimes
became the ultimate hope and goal.
“Steal Away”
“Swing Low Sweet Chariot”
“I Want to Die Easy, When I Die”
HILDRED ROACH informs us
that despite the
overabundance of biblical
words used in the majority
of spirituals, their functions
were not purely religious.
FUNCTIONS OF BIBLICAL WORDS USED IN
SPIRITUALS (According to Hildred Roach)
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Search of Freedom
In Religious Services
To Teach - To Gossip
To Scold - To Signal
To Delight in the Telling of Tales
Relief in the Minds & Bodies of the Enslaved
Inform Slaves of Their Own Affairs
Social Politics - Deliverance - Escape - Satire
SPECIALIZATION IN MESSAGE
OF SPIRITUALS
“God is a God”
“God don’t never change!”
“God is a God”
“An’ He always will be God!”
SPIRITUALS WITH DUAL OR
DECODED MEAINGS
“There’s a Great Camp Meeting”
 “Walk Together Children”
 “Children Don’t Get Weary”
 “Steal Away”
 “O Mary, Don’t You Weep, Don’t You
Mourn”
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SPIRITUALS WITH AMAZING
MEANINGS OR “WORD PAINTINGS”
“Hush, Hush, Somebody’s Calling My
Name”
 “Keep A-Inchin’ Along”
 “Somebody’s Knocking at Your Door”
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RELIGIOUS SONGS WITH
SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE
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“De Gospel Train”
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“Get on Board Little Children”
“Steal Away”
 “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel”
 “Deep River”
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EARLY SPIRITUALS…
Not Just Songs
 Unceasing Variations on a Theme
 Religious (& Social) Songs
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Sung by group of people
Expressions of Feelings
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Miniscule regard for sound effect, vocal
beauty, or proper harmonic progression
SPIRITUALS BEYOND
THE ACT OF EMANCIPATION
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The Fisk Jubilee Singers
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George L. White
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Artistic metamorphosis in 1870’s
Became permanent American art form
Caucasian music instructor at Fisk
Organized, trained, and named original
“Fisk Jubilee Singers”
“The Invisible Church”
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Praise house songs artistic & “concertized”
in choral form in U.S. and beyond
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“The Hampton Institute Singers”
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Black Colleges & Churches
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Guidance of R. Nathaniel Dett
Became extremely popular
Sacred music of the painful past
Anthemizes Spiritual
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Developed by black composers & musicians
who studied in conservatories
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R. Nathaniel Dett
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“Listen to the Lambs” – 1914
Harry T. Burleigh
 One of the first to arrange & perform spirituals
 Style of the European Art Song
 “Deep River” - 1916
 Became model for others
BLACKS WHO SING, FOLLOWED TRADITION &
HELPED DEVELOP THE FORM
Marian Anderson
Camilla Williams
Mattiwilda Dobbs
Dorothy Maynor
Leontyne Price
George Shirley
Paul Robeson
Roland Hayes
Todd Duncan
Robert McFerrin
Shirley Verrett
Simon Estes
BLACK COMPOSERS OF VOCAL &
INSTRUMENTAL SPIRITUAL ARRANGEMENTS
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Edward Boatner
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Harry T. Burleigh
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Native of New Orleans, LA
Music Director, National Baptist Convention
Erie, PA
Singer, Composer, Arranger
Clarence Cameron White
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Clarksville, TN
Taught at West Virginia State & Hampton
Institute
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Willis Laurence James
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Montgomery, AL
Music Educator, Violinist, Musicologist
Alabama State, Fort Valley State, Spellman,
Leland College
Hall Johnson
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Athens, AL
Composer, Arranger
Conductor of Famous “Hall Johnson Choir”
Wrote Music for “Green Pastures” & “Run, Little
Chillun”
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William Dawson
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John W. Work
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Annestomn, AL
Composer, Arranger
Conductor of Famous Tuskegee Choir
Tullahoma, TN
Fisk Jubilee Singers Director
Frederick Hall
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Atlanta, GA
Director of Music at Clark, Morris Brown,
Alabama State, and Dillard Universities
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R. Nathaniel Dett
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Drummondville, Ontario
Taught at Lane College, Lincoln, and Hampton
Institute
Eva Jessye
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Coffeyville, KS
Composer, Conductor
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James Weldon &
Rosamond Johnson
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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
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William Grant Still
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Florence Price
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Woodville, MS
Conducted Major Symphony Orchestras
Little Rock, AK
Conductor, Arranger, and Composer for Instrumental &
Vocal Ensembles
Margaret Bonds
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Chicago, IL
Pianist & Choral Arrangements
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Undine Smith Moore
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Jarrat, VA
Music Educator, Composer, Arranger
Taught at Virginia State an VA Union
Lena McLin
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Chicago, IL
Composer, Arranger, Music Educator
WHITE SYMPHONIC COMPOSERS
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Anton Dvorak
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Czechoslovakian composer
Greatly influenced by student Harry T. Burleigh
George Gershwin
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American Composer
“Porgy & Bess”
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First successful American Opera
Written about the life of blacks
Written in style of the Spiritual
SPIRITUALS:
INFLUENCE & DEVELOPMENT
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Messages & Emotions
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Penetrating in Popular & Classical Music
Minstrel Songs
Blues
Popular Songs
Swing
Soul Music
R&B
Jazz
Country Music
Ring-Game Songs
White Rock
Gospel
Rap
OUT OF RESERVOIR OF
NEGRO SPIRITUALS CAME…
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Freedom Songs of
“The Nonviolent Movement”
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Songs that Demonstrate Justice &
Human Dignity
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The Foundation for Black Music in U.S.
SONGS of the SOUL AND OF THE SOIL
ENRICHED AMERICAN MUSIC
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Syncopated rhythm
The Art of Jazz Music
A Wealth of Materials used by Great
Composers
They Articulate the Message of an Oppressed
People
An Artful Expression that Enhanced
Christianity
Patience
Love, Freedom
Faith
Hope
IN CONCLUSION…
The slaves were NOT simply
singing a song;
they were
expressing a point of view:
“Go Down, Moses; Way Down in
Egypt Land. Tell Ol’ Pharaoh to Let
My People Go.”