African American Folk Music Research Paper

Spirituals are religious folk songs that were created and first sung by African Americans in slavery around the 1860’s and passed along from one generation to the next. As the song(s) is (was) passed on, it starts to change. The changes that take place become a part of the original song and eventually the music takes on a different form. In the time of music making, Americans fought and won a war for independence while the rapidly expanding Black population remained enslaved. All of the African American communities placed functional music at the center of their daily lives. Music was used as a response to the happenings in their daily lives. The routines of daily work, social activities and major life events were all put into music with
As the director of the National Conservatory of Music, he thought it was important to study and establish folk music. When writing, he did not use specific spiritual melodies, but stayed within the framework and used original material. Such originality can be heard in his “New World” Symphony, especially with the English horn. His favorite student at the time was Harry T. Burleigh, who he spent many hours with just listening to him sing folksongs, and discussing the ideas of using the folk tunes as a basis for his compositions. Another African American composer, William Grant Still (1895-1978), created a milestone in African American music. He wrote a symphony that was, for the first time, played by an American symphony. He was the first African American to use jazz and blues elements in his symphonic works. His work uses the elements of spirituals, shout songs, ragtime, and jazz, but the prevalent themes are based upon the blues. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) became interested in the African American folk song after attending a concert of the Fish Jubilee Signers. He wrote a collection of 24 melodies around 1904, which became popular with