African-American Spiritual Music

As native Africans were forced ashore to the United States for hard labor in the fields, they brought with them sounds of their ancestors. This music became a way of adapting to a new language, a new religion, and a new, but difficult way of life. Often, the songs were a means for them to communicate with each other and express their troubles and hopes for a better life, and even to signal the flight to freedom. African-American music has been a fundamental part of the black experience in the U.S., primarily due to the cruel system of slavery. It then evolved into what we refer to today as gospel music.
The goal of this paper is to answer the following questions: What are the origins of African-American religious music and how did it

Music that was considered of a non-ceremonial type included work songs, boat songs, hunting songs, and simple music for entertainment purposes. The most “common form of music performance involved an ensemble…all persons were actively involved in the music-dance performance…” (Southern, 12). This cultural characteristic places its emphasis on the communal activity. To these native people, the sound that is produced from their instruments and voice is more than a product of creativity of a group of musicians, it is a gift from the Gods which has high symbolic meaning and serves a communal purpose, which has undoubtedly played an important role in the creation of African-American religious

These folksongs were improvised and often included multiple contributors, such as lyricists, rhythmist, and vocalists. There is record of approximately 6,000 spirituals or sorrow songs (Lovell, 36); however, the oral tradition of the slaves’ ancestors, and the prohibition against slaves learning to read and write, meant that the more accurate number is unknown. Some of the best known include: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen,” “Steal away,” “Go Down, Moses,” “Every Time I Feel the Spirit,” and “Wade in the