1. Dialect and Messages of Negro Spirituals
Presented by
Clarence Jones

2. 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”

3. 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 I’ve Seen”
Minstrel Songs – “Cotton Pickin’ Songs”
Religious Songs – “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord”
Negro Spirituals – “Steal Away”

4. 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

5. HANDED DOWN SPIRITUALS SPEAK OF…
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”

6. SPIRITUALS WERE… Songs of A PEOPLE WEARY AT HEART
Songs of UNHAPPY PEOPLE
BEAUTIFUL EXPRESSION of Human Experience

7. 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”

8. RHYTHM Important to Music Words Primary
Derived From Particular Event
Content & Mood Dictated Instrumentation Use
Ex. Hand clapping

9. 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”

10. “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

11. MUSICAL FORM OF THE NEGRO SPIRITUAL
Rhythm
Intricacy (of Rhythm)
Written in Quadruple & Duple Meter
Syncopation

12. 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

13. SPIRITUALS ARE… Vocally Diatonic Highly Ornamental Plaintive Nostalgic
Dignified
Beautiful
Appealing

14. TYPES OF SCALES USED IN SPIRITUALS
Conventional Major & Minor Scales
Pentatonic Scale
Mixed & Modal Scales

15. Flatted Thirds
Flatted Sevenths
Flatted Sixths
I, IV, and V7 Chords

16. MUSICAL TEXTUTES Horizontal – Melodic Vertical – Harmonic Monophonic
Single melodic line without accompaniment
Polyphonic
2 or more simultaneous melodies
Homophonic
Single melody with accompaniment

17. VOCALIST/SOLOIST Most vital factor Techniques – Had No Bounds or Rules
Chants
Hums
Wailings
Shouts
Glides
Turns
Groans & Moans
Word Interjections

18. IMPROVISATION Main Stylistic Feature/Tool of Folk Songs
Permitted in Lyrics
Words of the Negro Spiritual…
Generally represent the feeling of the songs

19. HOWARD THURMAN SUGGESTS Majority of Text Came From…
Old Testament of the Bible
“Go Down Moses”
“Didn’t 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”

20. The World of Nature “Deep River” “Roll, Jordan Roll”
“The Promised Land”
“Heaven”
“Over Jordan”

21. 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”

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

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

24. 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

25. SPECIALIZATION IN MESSAGE OF SPIRITUALS
“God is a God”
“God don’t never change!”
“An’ He always will be God!”

26. 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”

27. SPIRITUALS WITH AMAZING MEANINGS OR “WORD PAINTINGS”
“Hush, Hush, Somebody’s Calling My Name”
“Keep A-Inchin’ Along”
“Somebody’s Knocking at Your Door”

28. RELIGIOUS SONGS WITH SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE
“De Gospel Train”
“Get on Board Little Children”
“Steal Away”
“Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel”
“Deep River”

29. 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

30. SPIRITUALS BEYOND THE ACT OF EMANCIPATION
The Fisk Jubilee Singers
Artistic metamorphosis in 1870’s
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

31. “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

32. 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”
Became model for others

33. BLACKS WHO SING, FOLLOWED TRADITION & HELPED DEVELOP THE FORM
Marian Anderson Camilla Williams

34. Dorothy Maynor
Mattiwilda Dobbs

35. Paul Robeson
Leontyne Price
George Shirley
Roland Hayes

36. Todd Duncan
Shirley Verrett
Simon Estes
Robert McFerrin

37. 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

38. Willis Laurence James Hall Johnson 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”

39. William Dawson John W. Work Frederick Hall 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

40. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
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

41. William Grant Still Florence Price Margaret Bonds 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

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

43. 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

44. 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
R&B Rap

45. 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.

46. 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

47. 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.”