Dialect and Messages of Negro Spirituals

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Dialect and Messages of Negro Spirituals

• Presented by
• Clarence Jones

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NEGRO SPIRITUALS EMANATED

• From the hearts of the Ante-Bellum Slaves
• The House/Field Negros
• Religious Passion Overflowing
• Faith in God
• Oral Tradition One Generation to Another
• The Invisible Church

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THE PRE-LITERATE ERA OF SLAVERY

• Preaching Inspired These Songs
• Singing Sacred Songs
• 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 Ive
  Seen
• Minstrel Songs Cotton Pickin Songs
• Religious Songs Were You There When They
  Crucified My Lord
• Negro Spirituals Steal Away

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CONDITIONS THAT INFLUENCE NEGRO SPIRITUALS

• Negative
• The Blind Man Stood on the Road and Cried
• Degrading
• Master Going to Sell Us Tomorrow
• Dyer Conditions
• 6,000 Independent Spirituals Exist Today

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HANDED DOWN SPIRITUALS SPEAK OF

• Life Scandalize My Name
• Death I Want to Die Easy, When I Die
• Suffering Ive Been Buked
• Sorrow A City Called Heaven
• Love God is God! God Dont Never Change!
• Judgment In That Great Getting Up Morning
• Grace Fix Me, Jesus
• Hope Heaven, Heaven
• Justice Didnt My Lord Deliver Daniel
• Mercy Standing in the Need of Prayer

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SPIRITUALS WERE

• Songs of A PEOPLE WEARY AT HEART
• Songs of UNHAPPY PEOPLE
• BEAUTIFUL EXPRESSION of Human Experience

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AFRICANS LIVES CELEBRATED THOUGH MUSIC

• Marriage Marry a Woman Uglier Than
• Birth Mary Had A Baby
• Death Im So Glad Theres No Dying Over There
• Work Children, Dont 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
• Derived From Particular Event
• Content Mood Dictated Instrumentation Use
• Ex. Hand clapping

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NEGRO SPIRITUALS TELL OF

• Exile Let My People Go
• Trouble I Been in the Storm So Long
• Strife Aint 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

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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

• Call Response
• Chant Response By Choir
• Syncopated
• Fast Tempos
• Body Movements
• Rhythm That Swings
• Slow Sustained
• Long-phrased Melodies
• Slow Tempos
• Long Sustained Phrases, Nostalgic, Dignified

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SPIRITUALS ARE

• Vocally Diatonic
• Highly Ornamental
• Plaintive
• Nostalgic
• Dignified
• Beautiful
• Appealing

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TYPES OF SCALES USED IN SPIRITUALS

• Conventional Major Minor Scales
• Pentatonic Scale
• Mixed Modal Scales

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• Flatted Thirds
• Flatted Sevenths
• Flatted Sixths
• I, IV, and V7 Chords

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MUSICAL TEXTUTES

• Horizontal Melodic
• Vertical Harmonic
• Monophonic
• Single melodic line without accompaniment
• Polyphonic
• 2 or more simultaneous melodies
• Homophonic
• Single melody with accompaniment

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VOCALIST/SOLOIST

• Most vital factor
• Techniques Had No Bounds or Rules
• Chants
• Hums
• Wailings
• Shouts
• Glides
• Turns
• Groans Moans
• Word Interjections

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IMPROVISATION

• Main Stylistic Feature/Tool of Folk Songs
• Permitted in Lyrics
• Words of the Negro Spiritual
• Generally represent the feeling of the songs

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HOWARD THURMAN SUGGESTS Majority of Text Came
From

• Old Testament of the Bible
• Go Down Moses
• Didnt My Lord Deliver Daniel
• New Testament of the Bible
• 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
• Deep River
• Roll, Jordan Roll
• The Promised Land
• Heaven
• Over Jordan

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• 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

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• Release in death sometimes
• became the ultimate hope and goal.
• Steal Away
• Swing Low Sweet Chariot
• I Want to Die Easy, When I Die

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• HILDRED ROACH informs us that despite the
  overabundance of biblical words used in the
  majority of spirituals, their functions were not
  purely religious.

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FUNCTIONS OF BIBLICAL WORDS USED IN SPIRITUALS
(According to Hildred Roach)

• 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

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SPECIALIZATION IN MESSAGE OF SPIRITUALS

• God is a God
• God dont never change!
• God is a God
• An He always will be God!

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SPIRITUALS WITH DUAL OR DECODED MEAINGS

• Theres a Great Camp Meeting
• Walk Together Children
• Children Dont Get Weary
• Steal Away
• O Mary, Dont You Weep, Dont You Mourn

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SPIRITUALS WITH AMAZING MEANINGS OR WORD
PAINTINGS

• Hush, Hush, Somebodys Calling My Name
• Keep A-Inchin Along
• Somebodys Knocking at Your Door

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RELIGIOUS SONGS WITH SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE

• De Gospel Train
• Get on Board Little Children
• Steal Away
• Didnt My Lord Deliver Daniel
• Deep River

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EARLY SPIRITUALS

• Not Just Songs
• Unceasing Variations on a Theme
• Religious ( Social) Songs
• Sung by group of people
• Expressions of Feelings
• Miniscule regard for sound effect, vocal beauty,
  or proper harmonic progression

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SPIRITUALS BEYOND THE ACT OF EMANCIPATION

• The Fisk Jubilee Singers
• Artistic metamorphosis in 1870s
• Became permanent American art form
• George L. White
• Caucasian music instructor at Fisk
• Organized, trained, and named original
• Fisk Jubilee Singers
• The Invisible Church
• Praise house songs artistic concertized in
  choral form in U.S. and beyond

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• The Hampton Institute Singers
• Guidance of R. Nathaniel Dett
• Became extremely popular
• Black Colleges Churches
• Sacred music of the painful past
• Anthemizes Spiritual
• Developed by black composers musicians who
  studied in conservatories

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• R. Nathaniel Dett
• 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

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BLACKS WHO SING, FOLLOWED TRADITION HELPED
DEVELOP THE FORM

• Marian Anderson Camilla
  Williams

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Dorothy Maynor
Mattiwilda Dobbs
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Paul Robeson
Leontyne Price
Roland Hayes
George Shirley
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Shirley Verrett
Todd Duncan
Simon Estes
Robert McFerrin
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BLACK COMPOSERS OF VOCAL INSTRUMENTAL SPIRITUAL
ARRANGEMENTS

• Edward Boatner
• Native of New Orleans, LA
• Music Director, National Baptist Convention
• Harry T. Burleigh
• Erie, PA
• Singer, Composer, Arranger
• Clarence Cameron White
• Clarksville, TN
• Taught at West Virginia State Hampton Institute

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• Willis Laurence James
• Montgomery, AL
• Music Educator, Violinist, Musicologist
• Alabama State, Fort Valley State, Spellman,
  Leland College
• Hall Johnson
• Athens, AL
• Composer, Arranger
• Conductor of Famous Hall Johnson Choir
• Wrote Music for Green Pastures Run, Little
  Chillun

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• William Dawson
• Annestomn, AL
• Composer, Arranger
• Conductor of Famous Tuskegee Choir
• John W. Work
• Tullahoma, TN
• Fisk Jubilee Singers Director
• Frederick Hall
• Atlanta, GA
• Director of Music at Clark, Morris Brown, Alabama
  State, and Dillard Universities

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• R. Nathaniel Dett
• Drummondville, Ontario
• Taught at Lane College, Lincoln, and Hampton
  Institute
• Eva Jessye
• Coffeyville, KS
• Composer, Conductor
• James Weldon
• Rosamond Johnson
• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

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• William Grant Still
• Woodville, MS
• Conducted Major Symphony Orchestras
• Florence Price
• Little Rock, AK
• Conductor, Arranger, and Composer for
  Instrumental Vocal Ensembles
• Margaret Bonds
• Chicago, IL
• Pianist Choral Arrangements

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• Undine Smith Moore
• Jarrat, VA
• Music Educator, Composer, Arranger
• Taught at Virginia State an VA Union
• Lena McLin
• Chicago, IL
• Composer, Arranger, Music Educator

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WHITE SYMPHONIC COMPOSERS

• Anton Dvorak
• Czechoslovakian composer
• Greatly influenced by student -
• Harry T. Burleigh
• George Gershwin
• American Composer
• Porgy Bess
• First successful American Opera
• Written about the life of blacks
• Written in style of the Spiritual

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SPIRITUALS INFLUENCE DEVELOPMENT

• Messages Emotions
• Penetrating in Popular Classical Music
• Minstrel Songs Jazz
• Blues Country Music
• Popular Songs Ring-Game Songs
• Swing White Rock
• Soul Music Gospel
• RB Rap

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OUT OF RESERVOIR OF NEGRO SPIRITUALS CAME

• Freedom Songs of
• The Nonviolent Movement
• Songs that Demonstrate Justice Human Dignity
• The Foundation for Black Music in U.S.

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SONGS of the SOUL AND OF THE SOIL ENRICHED
AMERICAN MUSIC

• 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

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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.