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Overview

The African American musical genre known as the antebellum folk spiritual assumed an identiﬁable shape sometime after the arrival of African slaves on the North American continent but long before the American Civil War. In her initial analysis of the genre, Maultsby writes: "As a form of religious expression performed primarily in contexts free of White control, antebellum folk spirituals were outside the boundaries of consciousness for the vast majority of the White American public" (Maultsby 2015, 60). Unfortunately, before the advent of audio recordings, researchers can only surmise what these early sounded like by using extant descriptions and a few recordings made decades later in isolated churches throughout the South. Still, what has survived gives us an idea of what the spirituals said and a hint of their music.

Be ready to:

Define the term etymology and use of the term "spiritual" as found in the publications Slave Songs of the United States and Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands.

List at least three types of standard musical (melodic) scales used in the spiritual.

Explain the term heterophony and demonstrate its use with another student.

List the eight characteristics of a spiritual and discuss a selected spiritual focusing on one of the eight spiritual characteristics.

Describe the difference between folk spirituals and arranged spirituals.

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The Dissemination of the African American Spiritual in America and Europe: Jubilee Hall

Jubilee Hall, built with the funds from the Jubilee Singers' performances, is an excellent local example of Gothic Revival architecture and is the oldest academic building on the campus of Fisk University. Construction started in 1873. At its completion in 1876, it was the university's first permanent building. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974, in recognition of the university's place as one of the first Historically Black Colleges and Universities to be established after the American Civil War. It presently serves as an undergraduate residence hall. In 2017 the Tennessee Historical Commission installed a marker honoring the Jubilee Singers, whose 1870s European tour raised funds to pay for the building's construction.

The Jubilee Hall still stands on the Fisk University campus, a tribute to the Jubilee Singers who saved the school.

Jubilee Hall Image Credit: Evula

The folk spiritual, which was "created as an expression of African American culture and religion, was now transferred to the concert stage." Ethnomusicologist Mellonee Burnim goes on to state that:

While the repertoire of these new arrangements was identical to that of the folk spiritual, this change in function-performing before paying transracial audiences-was accompanied by a change in performance practice. The hand clapping, foot stomping, and individual latitude in interpreting the melodic line that had characterized the folk spiritual were replaced by a degree of formality and reserve that distanced this new version from its predecessor. The aesthetic values that characterized George White's own musical identity were now being superimposed on to the Negro spiritual. As Louis Silveri argues, 'Singing spirituals in the field was one thing, singing them to sophisticated audiences [read White] was something else.'

(Maultsby 2015, 62)

Down in the Valley

We'll run and never tire
We'll run and never tire
We'll run and never tire
Jesus sets poor sinners free

Maya Angelou

History, despite its wrenching pain
cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage,
need not be lived again.