Composition: Textual Rhyme Scheme

There are several definitions of the religious-based African American folk musicA term used to describe music of the common people that has been passed on by memorization or repetition rather than by writing, and has deep roots in its own culture. Folk music has an ever-changing and varying nature and is deeply significant to the members of the culture to which it belongs. that first came to the general public's attention in the late 1860s. One scholar described spirituals as "Musical poems, not attributable to any specific poet or composer, of the early Afro-American's view of life which, through the evolution of their fame and usage, acquired set arrangements of melody, form, harmonic treatment, and text" (Tyler 1980, 15).

From a textual standpoint, John Lovell, Jr., characterizes them as possessing "a careful organization of a vivid first line, a middle refrain line, and a chorus. The repetitions are mainly singing devices, memory aids, and means of enlisting and holding the group's support. These methods appear in many folk songs, but in the spiritual they are generally meshed with originality and taste" (Lovell 1972, 215). Southern adds the distinguishing characteristic that most spirituals feature four-line stanzas in the aaab rhyme scheme (three repeated lines and a refrainA verse which repeats throughout a song or poem at given intervals.) or the aaba format (two repeated lines, one new line, then a repeat of the first). On some occasions, but less frequently, the rhyme scheme used is the abcd form (with no repetition of text) (Southern 1997, 188-190):