CHAPTER 4

Make A Noise: African American Music Before The Civil War

Outline
I.

Slavery
A.
Arrival to Virginia in 1619
B.
Americas economic engine
C.
Democratic contradictions, immorality, and evils
D.
Revolts
E.
African origins, related cultural expression, sense of community
F.
1850 census: one in six Americans of African descent
1.
3.6 million: 15 percent of population
2.
434,000 free
G.
Notion and attitude of inferiority must be kept in mind in any discussion of black
music making before the Civil War.
H.
Parallels to limited oral and written history documentation by whites of early
Native American culture
I.
African Americans skilled in Western instrumentation not entirely unusual
J.
Black dance musicians were meeting a need in white society and must have been
skilled, for only their success could explain why an institution as unbending as slavery
would allow blacks the role of entertainer.

II.

The African Roots of American Music

A.
African-based oral traditions survived against seemingly overwhelming obstacles
of Western indoctrination and cultural imposition.
1.
Music as part of everyday life
2.
Close interaction between performers and spectators

3.
Call and response
4.
Emphasis on voice and percussion
5.
Polyrhythm
B.
Traditional African American music making
1.
Lewis Paines 1841 account
a)
Patting juba
2.
Frederick Law Olmsteds 1853 account
a)
Field holler
b)
Work songs
3.
Frederick Douglass and make a noise: slaves were generally expected
to sing as well as to work
4.
Stevedores, work songs, and later Alan Lomaxs 1959 recording
5.
Listening Guide 4.1: Carrie Belle (anonymous)
a)
Syncopation
C.
Regional differences in antebellum black music making (and adapting the
congregational singing practices of white churches)
1.
The Northern United States
a)
Sacred music in the North
(1)
Christians generally favored conversion of blacks.
(2)
1741: New Yorks Trinity (Anglican) Church instructed
forty-three Negroes in psalmody.
(3)
First all-black congregations were formed in the South in
the 1770s and 1780s under Baptist preachers.
(4)
In the North, blacks began in the 1790s and 1780s to
establish separate congregations, chiefly under Methodist
sponsorship.
(5)
1816: African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church founded

D.

(6)
1801: modeling after the Bay Psalm Book format, Reverend
Richard Allen published first hymnal assembled by a black author
for a black congregation.
(a)
Refrains
(b)
Lining out
b)
Listening Guide 4.2: Am I a Soldier of the Cross? (Anonymous)
c)
Holiday music in the North
(1)
Election Day celebration
(2)
Pinkster celebration
(3)
heterogeneous sound ideal
2.
Greater Virginia
a)
1730s and 1740s: Great Awakening and African American
conversion
b)
Spread of Christian faith seems to have done little to restrain the
black populations holiday celebrations.
3.
South Carolina
a)
Blacks heavily outnumbered whites.
b)
1739: Stono Rebellion and use of music practice
c)
Colonial efforts to Christianize slaves reached very few.
4.
Louisiana
a)
Many blacks were slaves; some were not.
b)
Legal and social distinctions were less sharp and increased the
possibilities for a merging of culture.
c)
This openness also made it possible for blacks to assemble
together for dancing and music making in public.
d)
Congo Square and Benjamin Latrobes 1819 account of
performance practices
The music of black worship
1.
Spirituals as religious expression and calls for action
2.
Shouts and sacred dancing
a)
Ring shout
b)
Songster
c)
Habanera
d)
Shouters
e)
Listening Guide 4.3: Jubilee (Anonymous)
3.
Camp-meeting hymns
a)
Welcoming to blacks and their habits of religious expression
b)
Interdenominational gatherings that set religion above race

III.
1819: Methodist Error by John F. Watson singled out African music traits in attack on
camp-meeting hymns.

Heterophony is a texture in which:

multiple voices simultaneously vary a melody
The __________ has clear West African antecedents.
Banjo
Before the end of the American Civil War brought freedom to slaves,
free blacks in the North had been finding niches in the American music
business.
True
By all accounts, slaves were generally expected to sing as well as to
work.
True
The African American spiritual served a dual purpose as both a
religious expression and a call to action.
True

1
2
3

Which of the following is NOT an expressly African musical trait or

practice?
music as part of everyday life
call and response
emphasis on voice and percussion
Western European harmonic sensibility
The limited nature of early oral and written African American histories
most closely parallels the documentation of what North American
minority?
Native American
By 1800 New Orleans was a multiracial society with less rigid
stratification than anywhere else on the continent.
True
The transatlantic slave trade started soon after Columbuss discovery
of the New World in 1492.
False
4.3

Jubilee is a very interesting and powerful tune. Its Latin rhythms of

habanera make it stand out among the rest of the tunes in this chapter. It is
bright and exciting and allows the tempo to move forward. The use of the
broom emphasizes the upbeat rhythm, allowing listeners and participants to
get up and dance along. The song is similar to Carrie Belle in that they are
both duple meter and are call and response. In Carrie Belle, the people
respond simply with huh, while in Jubliee they respond with the repetition
of My lord. This piece has very distinct and concrete rhythms unlike Am I a
Soldier of the Cross, in which the pace is rather slow, and singers are not all
together. The Soldier song claims to be call and response, however lacks
the obvious responses that Carrie and Jubilee have.