That thread (and several others you will enjoy browsing through) are all linked in the African-American Spirituals Permathread,

HERE.

See you there!

~Susan

I'd call a hymn a set of words in strophic form meant to be sung expressing religious sentiments. The hymn writer may or may not have a particular tune in mind. In the English hymn singing tradition, the word/tune pairings are not written in stone. Most hymns have at least 3 verses, some of the old writers could go on for a dozen, but 6 is probably a maximum now days. They frequently express fairly complex theological ideas. The music can be of almost any style & comes from many time periods.

There's a sense in which 'gospel' means jsut religious text to a popular musical genre. One of Susan's recent posts has a long definition that includes Anglo-American Protestant evangelical hymns from the 1870s to the present; also gospel hymns, gospel song. The style of these gospel songs is very much in the popular parlor song style of the late 19th century. As a musical style people kept writing the religious music that way even when it was no longer much used in other popular music. I tend to see them as a sub-set of hymns. They have a lot more choruses, which makes them good for group singing. They are almost always in major keys, and they can tend to be more self referential than other more standard hymns. I have several hymnals 1890's to 1930's where hymns and gospel songs are separated. The distinction can be sort of in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. I know some straight hymns that have been turned into gospel songs by the addition of choruses.

Spirituals means almost solely the music of US slaves. A more general term might be spiritual song. I think of those as very simple songs, easy to learn by just listening. They are frequently just a chorus with no real verses. I'd class a lot of the music done at a Promise Keepers rally as a spiritual songs.

I've been at bluegrass festivals with Sunday morning 'Gospel' where I'd personally call some of the selections just hymns, some gospel songs and some spiritual songs. All done in a bluegrass arrangement.

If you run across holiness or sanctified references, the song would be from a Pentecostal setting. They are a lot like the spiritual songs in simplicity but also frequently refer to the Holy Spirit.

The role of churches in all of this is the topic for another post.

Form

Function

Content

Origin

Application

Audience

Mode of transmission

... and stuff like that.

~S~

I've always thought that "Way Over Yonder" by Carole King was a spiritual. What practical reason is there for me not to?

Alex

Any time signature & can even change.

The OED definition:
1.A composition, in prose or verse, sung antiphonally, or by two voices or choirs, responsively; an ANTIPHON. Obsolete or arch.
2.A composition in unmeasured prose (usually from the Scriptures or Liturgy) set to music.
3. loosely in poetry: A song, as of praise or gladness. Also used of the English 'National' or 'Royal Anthem,' which is technically a hymn.

Everything I read online about anthems had to do with choirs. It seems the early athems has double choirs so the antiphon term was used. Also a text from Scripture or BCP does not have to have the rhymed verse structure that almost everything I think of as a hymn has.

~S~

Please be patient while we get our files in order to post, OK gang?

Each of us has the piece we have experienced, but all the pieces have been researched. Let's see what that shows and then add what we know, instead of debating from our own views.

~S~

WHAT ARE SPIRITUALS?

And another group's discussion of these genres appears here, by their permission: WHAT ARE AFRICAN-AMERICAN (NEGRO) SPIRITUALS?

~S~

As far as the term "spiritual" goes, in different cultural contexts, I am suggesting that perhaps from within each cultural perspective (white and black), it might have been perfectly natural to call the music "spirituals", and that it is when people look at it from the outside that the distinction necessitates the different terms.

Yes, in most contexts "spiritual" means music arising from slavery, on the slave-side. But every time one uses that term (here) without referencing the experience of whites, one ignores an equally rich, though not as well publicized, heritage.

I'm just suggesting that since the work has been done to sort it all out so that ALL of the perspectives are surveyed, arguing with one another about what is "THE" correct answer is probably somewhat limited by individual views. And that the musical history of a number of divergent cultures is probably not served well by short, snappy, "definitive" statements.

One of the more compelling passages I am sure you will find interesting is the material about how the two musics met and mixed-- white and black-- in the context of what was happening in their time. Not just that they did-- we talk about that in these discussions easily. But HOW... I don't recall THAT being discussed with some research having been done to support it. And I am eager to present it so that we can add detail and experience to bring that picture into clearer focus. It's frusrating to have to wait for the proofing to be done.

You said, But, of course, they have a different definition in Pennsylvania, and that's the valid one. Excuse my impertinence.

Joe, that was not worthy of you. It has nothing to do with Pennsylvania, and there is no need to make it personal.

This is about respecting others' work, and bringing that work into the Mudcat to fit alongside all of our personal opinions and experience.

It's not about you wanting to tangle with me.

~Susan

~S~

=========================================================

2. THE CAMP-MEETING SPIRITUAL. The camp-meeting spiritual is closely related to the folk hymn but is characterized by simplicity, frequent repetition, refrains, and tag lines. Its music is related to existing folk tunes, but is not entirely derivative. It resulted from a new wave of revivalistic activity beginning in 1800 in the areas of pioneer settlement (the Great Revival).

The camp meeting, an open-air religious service lasting several days, brought together thousands of settlers of all denominations. At similar Baptist services as early as 1770 hymns with added refrains were sung, although James McGready was credited with organizing the first camp meeting in 1800 in Logan County, Kentucky. Diversity of belief and practice was secondary to the religious fervor that permeated the preaching, singing, baptisms, and Communion rites. The event was primarily social, giving settlers a release from the isolation and hardship that characterized their daily lives; it provided occasions for religious frenzy, fed by evangelists of all persuasions and by the constant singing in the encampment. Out of this came the camp-meeting spiritual, directly prompted by the emotional fervor of the participants, and as varied in texts and tunes as the diverse religious practices represented in the meeting.

Within the camp, particularly in the southern states, Blacks, both slaves and freemen, mingled with Whites, but conducted their religious meetings separately. The similarity of texts and tunes between white and black spirituals indicates a free exchange of musical elements and influences.

In the camp meetings, texts by Watts and texts from the collections of Joseph Hart and John Rippon, as well as from Smith's Divine Hymns, were fragmented and supplied with tag lines and refrains. Tunes of the simplest order were improvised by the congregations. Participants drew on the musical resources of their denominations, but the religious expression of the Separatists, now institutionalized among Baptists, prevailed. Methodists, who were newcomers to the frontier, readily adopted the practice. The musical characteristics of the camp-meeting spiritual were those that made it amenable to improvisation, extension, and variation, and to rapid assimilation by large bodies of people limited in reading ability, musical performance, and cultural experience.

Repetition of text was one characteristic:

Where, O where are the Hebrew Children!
Where, O where are the Hebrew Children!
Where, O where are the Hebrew Children!
Safe in the promised land

Refrains were often added to existing texts:

Whither goest thou, pilgrim stranger
Passing through this darksome vale
Knowest thou not 'tis full of danger
And will not thy courage fail

I am bound for the kingdom
Will you go to glory with me
Hallelujah, praise the Lord.

Tag lines were frequently inserted into a couplet:

I know that my Redeemer lives,
Glory hallelujah!
What comfort this sweet sentence gives,
Glory hallelujah!

A couplet was sometimes followed by a refrain:

O when shall I see Jesus
And dwell with him above
And shall hear the trumpet sound
In that morning
And from the flowing fountain
Drink everlasting love
And shall hear the trumpet sound
In that morning

The repetition, tag lines, and refrains provided for participation in "call-and-response" performances between evangelist and people. The most popular forms were four-line arrangements of AAAB, and the couplet with tag line, A (tag) B (tag). Refrains followed similar arrangements, and often used the melody of the verse or a new tune with a higher range.

The texts of the camp-meeting spiritual appeared first in pocket "songsters" without music, compiled by ministers and enterprising laymen and sold on the site. Camp meetings became a community tradition in the 19th century and still occur in isolated areas of the southern states. After the Civil War there were only two significant publications for camp meetings: the Revival and Camp Meeting Minstrel (1867), popularly known as "The Perkinpine Songster," and Joseph Hillman's The Revivalist (c1868).

The tunes of the folk hymns, religious ballads, and spirituals persist in the rich oral tradition of the southern states (described by Jackson, Cecil Sharp, and others in the early 20th century) and they retain much of the modal character of the original secular melodies. Printed sources of the folk hymns and spirituals are the shape-note tunebooks of the rural singing-school choral tradition. Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second appears to be a link between the music of the New England Separatists and the shape-note singers. The Repository was the first in a series of tunebooks used by itinerant music teachers who composed works in the style of Billings and others, and in imitation of their models added treble, alto, and bass parts to the melodies they transcribed from common usage (see ex. 3, taken from the Original Sacred Harp, Denson Revision, where the tune is in the tenor part and is in the 'natural minor' or A mode; the harmonization even the alto part added in the early 20th century stays within this modal scheme, and emphasizes two-note rather than triadic harmony, particularly open 5ths and octaves).

Eskew (1966) traced the history of these publications, identified the folk hymns and spirituals in each, and described their movement into the southern states. In particular, he documented the work of Ananias Davisson, who published the Kentucky Harmony (1816, suppl. 1820). William Walker's The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (1835) and Benjamin F. White and E. J. King's The Sacred Harp (1844) are especially rich in folk hymns and spirituals. Levi C. Myers's Manual of Sacred Music (1853) shows a strong preference for camp-meeting songs.

An attempt to publish camp-meeting songs and other music for revivals in the cities of the northern states was made by Joshua Leavitt with The Christian Lyre (1830), but white spirituals never became popular in urban areas. From 1875 the main impetus of the revival movement was provided by the urban crusades of Dwight L. Moody and Ira Sankey and, later, the work of Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver. The musical products of this era of revivalism, gospel hymns and other songs (see GOSPEL MUSIC), were popular in style, and, in many instances, their music was taken directly from contemporary theater and parlor songs.

A revival of interest in folk hymns and spirituals among choral directors and composers in the mid-20th century is evident in the increased number of choral arrangements and orchestral works in which the tunes are used; and compilers of hymnals, particularly those of the Baptist and Methodist denominations, have made use of many of the tunes and texts in their publications.

*G*

~S~

Let's talk about that, not argue over points.

For instance I want to know what those backs were doing at the camp meetings... had most of them gone as slaves, with their masters, and got to visit with slavs from other places?

And what were the freedmen doing at these camp meetings?

How did a separate-but-equal camp meeting get to be? How could the whites have allowed the slaves that degree of contact with others, if they meant to perpetuate slavery?

And how did that affect the music, and how did the music affect escapes?

I am not suggesting anyone has the final word on anything, not a book, not you, and for sure not me. I hope I make it clear I am a student, nothing more. But I am saying, let's see what IS known, and then take off from there, not rehash all the small pieces we think we know as though they are gospel. (*G* get it? Gospel!)

And how about fixing my HTML Joe? It's just one missed cancel-italic I think.

~Susan

~S~

Even the OED defines spiritual as a noun as = Negro spiritual. 1866 Harper's Mag. Maum Rina flavored all her dishes with these 'spirituals', as they are called among the negroes. 1926 A. NILES in W. C. Handy Blues 9 These songs [sc. the blues] were woven of the same stuff as the other overlapping items in the long list,the work-songs, love-songs..; yes, and decidedly the spirituals.

Joe is not narrowing the term, others have tried to expand it & succeeded in academe, but not in the general understanding of the word. The use of 'white spiritual' for what white folks were singing was coined by George Pullen Jackson. He was trying to show the relationships discussed in the stuff WYSIWYG quoted above, but notice that source has changed it to camp-meeting spiritual. Notice especially that the books referred to don't call their contents spirituals either.

Spiritual song has been around a lot longer & is a perfectly good term for revival songs, camp-meeting songs, and (ducking for cover) contemporary praise songs. The people who care to can look for the inter-relationships. BTW, all the texts quoted above come from the Sacred Harp, but don't get me started.

I think in our PC world we forget that white history can be denigrated or ignored as well as black-- when the issues of classism are taken into account. And I think we must be careful not to revise a culture's history when a term NOW comes to mean, to so many, "black folks music."

We had another thread where someone pointed out that a LOT of music-mixing had gone on in his family, across racial "barriers." He recounted tune-swapping musicians sharing music freely and with no need to define it, just PLAYING. Maybe these were "spirituals" in the purest sense we can find.

I can tell you, according to European contributor Mr. Jean Sturm, who initiated an extensive international discussion of these terms (linked in one of my posts above), that the whole debate is as confusing in Europe as it is here. But he says that in Europe, the debate is somewhat simplified-- they stick with the term "Negro Spirituals" as accurate to the time they were created, and skip that PC African-American thing altogether. He says they have a hard time understanding why we obsess over it at all.

~Susan

For a database like DT, I'm inclined to think the less specific, the better. Let people know they need to search @religion & decide for themselves what other category they fit. I looked at the database & would probably quibble with gospel being on some of the songs & spritual on some others. Likewise, I'd personally add spiritual or gospel to some that only have religion. So what?

I'm a library cataloger. I learned a long time ago the number of terms one can apply can be endless at times, while for other things nothing seems to quite work. Do the best you can and move on.

P.S. I noticed @shapednote on only one. I'd get rid of that because there are actually lots more & labelling just one is the same problem as the 'only' 18 spirituals.

Other sites run the gamut in how they classify. I don't think it matters that much how we do it as long as we are consistent-- so users can figure out the logic. And since there is a growing index of those that are purported to be spirituals (negro), if someone really wants to look them up by genre they won't be too hard to find.

Anyway Dick asked for info and he shall have it, as he and I have discussed offthread, and I am sure he will make a good decision. Why worry over it?

Nothing like a good music thread to get people arguing. It IS a music site; this definitely proves THAT one.

~S~

Dang old folk process... . Sure makes life complicated.

We do all these genres, all together, mix 'n' match.

Quite a brew.

~Susan

When I was a kid, my Father Called me Slewfoot.. my friends call me Jerry, Rasmussen. Being the leader of a gospel quartet that does almost all black gospel, I think that the definition of gospel as white is missleading. The definition that I've heard is that hymns are songs of praise, and gospel songs are songs about a personal relationship with God, or Jesus. There's somne general truth to that. Spirituals definitely come from the era of slavery, and are black. Ilead a black gospel quartet, even though I am white. The other members of the Gospel Messengers are black, and we do both black and white gospel. We don't have a CD out yet, but I'd gladly share a home tape... gospelmessengers@msn.com.

Rick

Jerry

I have doubts that what we are doing now in the threads, with these, will go easily into DT. Each thread will be able to show variants-- related songs-- similarly-themed songs-- and I am unclear how harvestors will be able to juggle what may turn out to be so many versions of each. It's my hope we can resolve that.

Also, when it comes to negro spirituals-- @religious? Maybe, but maybe not. In everyday usage they were also, in many cases yet to be nailed down, code songs. How we gonna handle that?

~Susan

In the rest of the world, the music I am focusing on "negro spirituals."

should read:

In the rest of the world, the music I am focusing on is called "negro spirituals."

I have really hard time with the way 'gospel' gets modified. Thomas Dorsey was certainly the leader in the development of what's called black gospel.

'Gospel' unmodified was in use from at least the 1890's for the kind of music that now gets called white, southern, bluegrass, whatever gospel. I guess maybe old-time gospel is the only term that really works for me. Blacks do & have sung this form of gospel right along. Isn't that the reason for one of the complaints about looking at hymnals from primarily black church denominations-the hymns are the same? The publishers and singers of this music were all over the country. If you include Sankey singing in England as well so southern is not accurate either.

I think I have more to say, but my computer is acting kind of flakey so I'll quit here.

In it's basic underlying structure it remains a standard hymn. That does not stop anyone from performing it in whatever style they choose be it black gospel, bluegrass or on Scottish pipes. About the only type I'd deny it is the old-time gospel because there are musical differences that distinguish 'gospel' from earlier songs of similar content. Obviously any group that does mainly old-time gospel can & will perform it.

Who ever said a group could only perform music of one genre, or that because a group identified with a particular genre performs a particular piece, it must be defiend in that genre? Genre label are helpful but should not be impermiable boxes.

~Susan

The site has a nifty link at the end of each article that gives you the correct copy for citing the article-- copy, paste, boom!

~S~

Go SING!!! New York Convention Oct 20 & 21 in Barneveld, New York. PM me or go to the online singings schedule for help in finding one near you.

Burke

--Shana

To address some of the unaddressed points--

Joe, I don't think the definitions are, or should be, or can be rigid-- but that there are definitions that take into account the various cultural strains that have resulted in widely different cultural groups calling THEIR music "gospel" without any modifying words..... These terms work fine as they are, within each culture, but they need modifiying words as soon as the conversation leaves that cultural setting and people of other traditions are trying to talk together.

Dicho, did anyone address your "holiness" song question? I think that means "Pentecostal."

Now here is what they say at www.dovesong.com:

=====================================================

The term "Gospel music" applies to a body of music that was developed in the United States during the twentieth century primarily in the south-eastern part of the country and in portions of the Midwest and the East. It is a Christian music that was not necessarily developed by the body of churches, but independently. In other words, the singers and performers were primarily church-going, Bible-believing Christian people, but their music wasn't always directly an outgrowth of a church organization. There are three styles of gospel music that were developed. These styles were developed independently of each other because of racial and physical separation.

1) The mountain gospel style developed in the Southern Appalachian mountains in Kentucky, Southwestern Virginia, Northeastern Tennessee, and Northwestern North Carolina. This music (in the past called "hillbilly music") sprang forth from a deeply religious people living deep in the hills. Bible-believing and devoted, religious music formed a major part in the life of these rural peoples not only in their worship services, but as a part of their daily existence also. For simplicity sake, the DoveSong website talks about two types of mountain music: 1) the traditional style that was passed down and developed during the twentieth century and 2) the bluegrass style that was developed by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, including Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt.

2) Black Gospel music originated in the final third of the nineteenth century with black "jubilee" groups that were formed in colleges primarily located in the Southeastern United States. These groups worked with quartet singing, with four-part harmony. One of the earliest and certainly the most successful of these groups was the Fisk University Jubilee singers. The jubilee style of singing continued, while evolving, well into the 1940s. Meanwhile, a tradition of church singing and composition was pioneered by such people as Charles Albert Tindley, Lucie Campbell, W. Herbert Brewster and Kenneth Morris, but reach a zenith with Thomas A. Dorsey who began using the term "gospel music" in the 1930s and in conjunction with such singers as Roberta Martin, Mahalia Jackson, Robert Anderson and Sally Martin, gave birth to a new style of gospel music that developed in Chicago and in other mid-western and eastern cities. Some jubilee quartets evolved into a harder singing style of the 1940s and 1950s. These were groups such as the Blind Boys of Mississippi, the Soul Stirrers and the Sensational Nightingales. During the 1970s, black gospel music moved primarily into another direction, pioneered by the great gospel singer James Cleveland. The style of gospel singing is called mass choir singing. This movement produced some great, and some not so great, music well into the 1980s when black gospel music began to more and more mimic the soul music of the secular world. Except for the few older groups that continued the older styles, what was originally black gospel music had been greatly obliterated by the 1990s, and now what you will find in the record stores, and called "gospel music," has little or no resemblance. The Positive Music Archives focus on the great black gospel music up through the 1960s, and those groups that have maintained these traditions.

3) The third category of gospel music is called Southern Gospel Music. This form of music originated at the turn of the century in the Southeastern United States with sacred quartet singing by white groups. The pioneer of this music was the Tennessee-resident James D. Vaughan, who created the first major white sacred quartet, then established a publishing company to make and sell books of the quartet music, including his own compositions. An offshoot of this company was the Stamps Music Company, and the Stamps Quartet. Quartets sponsered by both the Vaughan and Stamps companies began recording in the late twenties. From this nucleus, many other quartets were formed, often working for Vaughan or Stamps and using the name Vaughan Quartet or Stamps Quartet. However, in the 1940s, many new groups sprang up, some former Stamps or Vaughan groups. Thus a great tradition of quartet singing was perfected by the Blackwood Brothers, the Statesmen Quartet, the Rangers Quartet, the Harmoneers, and the Homeland Harmony Quartet. The quartet style of singing continued into the 1960s when another stream of southern gospel music developed best described as family groups. The first of these groups actually stem back to the 1930s with the Carter family group known as the Chuck Wagon Gang. In the 1940s, the Spear Family and the Chuck Wagon gang became very popular. The family group tradition came into full fruition and by the 1980s and 1990s was thriving in the Southeast United States. Family groups are gospel groups that may or may not sing four-part harmony, and are mainly groups comprised of family members (for example mom and pop, and the kids). This tradition fortunately still thrives today in the Southeastern U.S.

==================================================

The longer reference material I wanted to post is waiting for the Mudcat upgrade. I spent weeks trying to format what I had edited together from the best sources I had, and it would still not post right. It made it too hard to read the lengthy items in it. So it isn't in here yet. But it will be.

But really, that still will not "settle" it, nor should it. From all my exploring, what I seem to see is that any culture that has Christian music, or any genre that has a Christian-music subgenre, calls it, within their culture or genre, "gospel."

So to a Polish polka-music lover, CHRISTIAN polka music is just called.... Gospel. But WE have to call it POLKA Gospel, to keep from getting mixed up. When black folk talk about Gospel, they mean what THEY know as Gospel... but WE have to call it BLACK Gospel to keep from getting mixed up.

Maybe the simplest way to say this is, "Gospel" music is "my" Christian music..... each time someone claims it, it's about the music THEY know in their hearts.

~Susan

Jerry