by Octavia Holland

Created on: February 24, 2008

I am a singer. I am a singer of African descent. I make sure that I feature the negro spirituals as a set in every recital performance that I do. I feel it is my responsibility to share this art with as many audiences a possible in order to assist in preserving the music.

From the soul of a people who had been stolen from their families, who had been beaten, their children taken, their very bodies bought and sold and disrespectedfrom this soul came the passionate protest of the Negro Spiritual. There are many parts to the spiritual its language, symbolism, and often dual nature. These areas work together to provide a holistic understanding of the Spiritual. Also referred to as slave songs, work songs, and plantation songs, Spirituals have been called songs of jubilee due to their religious tone of victory over adversity. Spirituals come in the way of secular and religious in topic, but always possessing religious language and imagery. These beautiful songs are imperative to the narrative of American history as they tell the story of the African in America.

When researching the Negro spirituals there are things that the student must be aware of as was noted by John Blacking: "The roots of variety in song are to be found in culture and not in the music, and the human organization of sound rather than its natural qualities. Thus the student of a musical tradition must know first know something about the culture which affects the lives and personalities of the humans who organize sound in order that he may know better what they set out to do when they perform, and why they do it in a variety of ways". In studying the spiritual it is important that we study the people and research the history of those that created it and find out why this form of language was needed. What is the text about? Why is a language in itself?

The Spirituals are a form of poetic expression that was created in the time of the enslaved. They are also considered by some scholars to be, arguably, the first original music to come out of the new American country. Spirituals were created over a two hundred year period, and yet most Americans of the dominant culture did not give credence to their existence until after the Civil War. While this music is very rich, expressive, and emotional, it is also a testament to the determination of the African people who, under dehumanizing conditions, adapted to, and enhanced American culture. Even today, Spirituals hold a firm place in American culture, music,

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