Rather than continue a description of music in my childhood/youth Black Baptist New Jersey church and church music nowadays, I'd like to share this memory:

When I was in high school, my best girlfriend Francine and I, having adventurous natures, got up our nerves and decided to integrate that school's Bible club. It took some nerve for us to do so because although our large school [with 3,000 students] was made up of just about 50% Black students and 50 % White students, the Bible club had never had any Black members.

Outside of classroom interactions, this was our [and probably those students] first attempt at intercultural interactions. Perhaps because we were so young-it didn't go well at all. We were definitely not comfortable there, and I don't believe that the other students were comfortable with us..As I recall, it was almost as if these students doubted that we were Christian, as they constantly grilled us about our religious beliefs. I wonder where was the teacher who was responsible for that group, and why didn't he or she help this process along..but that's another story....

And if the students asking us questions about what kind of Christian we were wasn't bad enough, the music that those students sang made the experience worse for us..Though some of the titles & words of the songs were familiar to us, the WAY they sang the songs were not..I couldn't 'get into' the songs-they seemed somehow 'dryer', slower, less alive in some way I couldn't understand. In essence, it seemed to mehow with less soul..

Well, Francine and I didn't remain in that club, but we went to a couple of White church sessions afterwards. These brief furays into the White religous world confirmed for me that there was something different about Black and White church music. Many years later, I think it's not the text of the music that makes the difference as much as it is the performance of that text.

I think that we {African Americans} prefer percussive music, and that we make the music our own [put our own flava in the mix] rather than stritly adhering to the words. Even in my middle class church, members of the congregation did and still do sing along with the choir if they want to, and/or add interjections like 'Amens' and 'Yes, Lords'. Some people stay seated and clap along [even though few now will do the off beat clapping that is decidedly African]. Other people will stand up and clap along [a sign that the music has 'moved' them so much that they can't stay seated.] Sometimes people seated or standing will raise their right hand or both hands to the sky as as sign that they are moved by the music..

Also, usually the choir doesn't stand still but moves with the music sometimes clapping sometimes not...I didn't see this in the White Baptist churches that I attended in my youth though this worshop style is certainly done in the few White and mixed Black/White Pentacostal church services that I have attended.

To provide some sense of common past and present Black church experiences, I would like to share one excerpt from Samuel A. Floyd Jr's "The Power of Black Music, Interpreting Its History From African To The United States" that describes the ways that Black people respond to both religious and secular music:

"Essentially and most fundamentally, the African-American musical experience is both self-criticising and self-validating. As such experiences unfold, for example, listeners show approval, disapproval, or puzzlement with vocal and physical responses to, and interaction with, events as they occur. African Americans serve critical notice on inferior music making either by withholding their participation or, as in the case of New York's tough Apollo Theatre in the 1940s and 1950s, by addressing their cricism directly to the performers on stage. The culturally attuned are aware when the notes and the rhythms do not fit the context ans when the idiomatic orientation is wrong; they know when an ace is a Signifyin{g} one, when it is effective, and when it is not. Positive responses range from the more or less vigorous comments and declamations of "Oh yeah". "Cook", "Preach", "Uhn-huhn", and other such exhortings, to the approving nods, shakes of the head, finger snapping, shoulder hitchings, and hop switchings of a knwoledgable and sensitive audience, thus calidating the cultural and aestheti value of
Signifyin[g] acts. Their absence generally represents the withholding of approval, revealing 'confusion', 'annoyance', 'boredom', and 'indifference" {Murray, 1973, 87}.
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Azizi

{in recognition that this post and my preceding one may not directly speak to the subject of this thread, but as a means of sharing with any readers who are interested my thoughts/remembrances of one worship style and certainly not the only valid worship style.}