WHAT
IS THE NEGRO SPIRITUAL?
Other
Articles
The
true musical _expression in song of the enslaved African
assuaging the sorrows of the horrific situation he endured
in his every day existence.
Additional
readings below will provide more definitive research of
the meaning of these complex expressions in song.
LUCY
McKIM GARRISON: (1842-1877)
As
to the Music, I have done the best I could to reduce it
to notes - but I fear I have not expressed the melody truly
-.....Perhaps by fancying the rich tones which a colored
congregation can throw into their musical performances,
and the various embellishments of Appoggiaturas & after
notes they are so fond of - especially of making a decided
fall on the last note of the air - "
F.
Bremer: (1850) Cincinnati, Ohio
"I
found in the African Church African ardor and African life.
The church was full to overflowing, and the congregation
sang their own hymns. The singing ascended and poured forth
like a
melodious
torrent, and the heads, feet and elbows of the congregation
moved all in unison with it, amid evident enchantment and
delight in the singing.....
The
hymns and psalms which the negroes have themselves composed
have a peculiar naive character, childlike, full of imagery
and life. Here is a specimen of one of their popular church
hymns:
"what
ship is this that's landed at the shore
Oh,
glory halleluiah!
It's
the old ship of Zion, halleluiah,
It's
the old ship of Zion, halleluiah,
Is
the mast all sure, and the timber all sound?
Oh,
glory halleluiah!
She's
built of gospel timber, halleluiah,
She's
built, etc."
"Would
your marster allow you to hold prayer-meetings on his place?"
"No,
my child; if old marster heard us singing and praying he
would come out and make us stop.... Marster used to say
God was tired of us all hollering to him at night.".....
None of us listened to him about singing
and praying .... Sometimes when we met .... we would put
a big wash-tub full of water in the middle of the floor
to catch the sound of our voices when we sung. When we all
would sing easy and low, so marster could not hear us ...
Aunt Jane used to sing, "Jesus! the name that charms
our fears"...... [and] "Guide me, O thou great
Jehovah"......
Fredrika
Bremer observed the evening worship of the Negroes of Columbia,
south Carolina, in May, 1850:
One
evening..... I was present at the evening worship of the
negroes, in a hall which that good, right-thinking minister
had allowed them to use.....{It was not} until the singing
of one of the hymns composed by the negroes themselves,
such as they sing in their canoes...that the congregation
became really alive. They sang so that it was a pleasure
to hear, with all their soul and with all their bodies in
unison; for their bodies wagged, their heads nodded, their
feet stamped, their knees shook, their elbows and their
hands beat time to the tune and the words which they sang
with evident delight. One must see these people singing
if one is rightly to understand their life.
I
cannot more than indicate the chorus attending every effective
pause [in the exhortation]; a curious monotone vocal symphony,
which, like some long-drawn congregational "Amen!"
responded in a sort of humming chant. The rhythmic melody
of this low refrain of mingling voices cannot be realized
without a hearing of it. It is not so much an audible of
syllablizing as a suppressed hum, like inward singing.
