Music of African Americans

á          The first black slaves in Western Hemisphere brought by Spanish to Caribbean; tobacco plantations in Virginia used slaves from Caribbean. By 1620 slaves were imported directly from West Africa

á          First Generation: Early African-American Music characteristics

á          Rhythm was dominant characteristic: 1) strong beat, 2) complexity, 3) kinetic (inseparable from dancing); 4) corresponds to dominance of percussion instruments

á          Little harmony (opposite trend to Euro music)

á          Major emphasis on melody, also lots of heterophony (also opposite to Euro)

á          Purposes of African songs:

á          Oral history, story telling, praise singing

á          Work songs

á          Spiritual/ritual

á          Instruments: extremely diverse, many different effects than those found in western European music, e.g. secondary sounds like buzzing in sympathy with main sound source. All categories represented:

á          Membranophones: Drums (including talking),

á          Idiophones: e.g. rattles, bells, gourds (guiro type), marimbas, mbiras etc.

á          Chordophones: Stringed instruments 

á          Aerophones: Wind instruments

á          Black Spirituals:  blacks often participated in camp meetings, sang white spirituals/camp songs, but also developed their own distinct style. Spirituals became prominent after many slaves converted to Christianity. 

á          Songs were simple and folk-like

á          Wide range of affect: joyful to sorrowful.

á          Spirituals were relatively informal, more of a response to church service: after services they would have a shout: stand in a circle, sway, clap hands

á          During and after Civil War, northerners became familiar with black spirituals; first collection published in 1867 (Slave Songs of the United States); included Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

á          Black Secular Music

á          Work Songs: coordinate group labor, also lift spirits

á          Even some spirituals were used this way, e.g. Michael Row the Boat Ashore

á          Prevalent during slavery, also after emancipation used esp. on railroads. 

á          Minstrel Shows

á          Arose from English tradition of putting African characters in theater: they sang (non-authentic) ÒNegroÓ songs; characters usually played by whites in blackface.  Charles Mathews was English actor who had fascination for Africans.  Came to America in 1822, saw black entertainers first hand, learned their songs, dialect, and subject matter for his own skits.  Mathews and George Washington Dixon and Thomas ÒDaddyÓ Rice solidified some stereotype characters:

á          Plantation Hand: poor but in high spirits, very funny

á          Northern Urban Dandy: fashionable, pseudo-sophisticated, malapropisms

á          The stereotypes are in similar to commedia dellÕarte ; both traditions also used stock situations, stereotypical costumes, singing, dancing and skits.

á          Blacks later exploited/perpetuated these stereotypes in Ethiopian Theaters; but at first Minstrel Shows were whites impersonating blacks.

á          In 1843 Daniel Emmett staged an Ethiopian Concert, billed as Òthe novel, grotesque, original and surpassingly melodious Ethiopian Band, entitled the Virginia Minstrels.Ó 

á          Virginia Minstrels were 4 musicians: fiddle, banjo, bones (castanets) and tambourine; dressed in tattered costumes, wore blackface; introduced comic dialogue, acted out ballads and danced in parody of plantation style

á          Form of Minstrel Shows:

á          Many portions done with performers in semicircle: interlocutor (only member in whiteface) in the center; he has conversations with End Men, Mr. (ÒBrudderÓ) Tambo and Mr. Bones (playing tambourine and bones respectively).  Middle Men (2 on each side) varied but sang and played melodic instruments rather than percussion.

á          2-Part Structure: progression from Speech to Song; Song to Dance; Dance to Parade and Group Finale

á          First Part: begins with Interlocutor having humorous dialogues with performers on either side. Primarily comic dialogue

á          Second Part or Olio: variety show with quartet singing, soft shoe and clog (predecessor of tap) dancing; acrobatic acts, and skits.  Skits were often parodies of popular plays or Italian operas.  This part was primarily music but probably had a Òpompous oration full of malapropisms by one of the end menÓ late in 2nd part.

á          Show ends with Grand Finale, General Ruckus, or Walkaround; everyone except interlocutor dancing using grotesque steps with hand clapping, caricature of dances of the black slaves.

á          Best-known ÒwalkaroundÓ is DixieÕs Land by Daniel Decatur Emmett (1815-1904).  Other songs by Emmett: Turkey in the Straw, Old Dan Tucker. 

á          Most famous Minstrel Troupe was ChristyÕs Minstrels.  Founded by Edwin Pierce Christy from Philadelphia. 

á          Dan Emmett and Stephen Collins Foster (1826-64) were major contributors of newly composed songs for minstrel shows.  Foster had almost no musical training, though he wrote lots of parlor music as well as songs for minstrel shows.

á          FosterÕs songs for Minstrel Shows: Some of these songs were popular both in Minstrel shows and as parlor songs, like Old Folks at Home (1851, originally published as the work of E.P. Christy).  History remembers Foster as writer of Plantation songs, but he never visited a plantation or lived in the south.  But he did try to evoke Black American music in about 30 of his songs:

á          Subject matter

á          Dialect in lyrics (MassaÕs in de Cold Ground)

á          Melodies sometimes imitating Negro Spiritual melodies or other traditional Black melodies

á          Accompaniments sometimes suggest banjo picking (ÒO, Susanna!Ó)