Chapter 5:

Early American hymns	The English Pilgrims and Puritans who first settled in Massachusetts brought with them the practice of singing psalms. Both groups had fled religious persecution and wanted to establish colonies where they could observe their religion in freedom. The religious practices of these early immigrants included the unaccompanied singing of metered and rhymed versions of the psalms. Two widely divergent styles of psalm singing emerged during this nation’s first 100 years: a European, refined style found among the more urban and more musically literate populace and a less sophisticated folklike style found among rural people and the less musically educated. The refined style involved singing hymns in harmony from printed music. Psalm singing had a profound effect on the development of American religious music. The Puritans and the Pilgrims used English psalters, but the people who could not read music, particularly in the rural areas, did not benefit from this. To sing the hymns, many rual congregations practiced lining out, a technique that involved their own memory and the leadership of someone with a powerful voice; the leader would sing one line at a tome, and the congregation would sing it back.



Hymnody	The hymns of a time, place, or church.



Hymn books	The Puritans and the Pilgrims used hymnbooks called English psalters that provided settings of the psalms to be sung during worship.



Singing schools	Established to introduce and teach singing from musical notation. Their primary purpose was to improve the state of hymn singing in America, that is, to elevate the rural, folk-based hymn derived from oral tradition to the urban, European, notation-based hymn sung in a refined system.



Fasola system	A system in which the initial letters of four syllables-fa, sol, la, and mi-are placed on the staff, each representing a different pitch. The fasola system was used in nineteenth-century America to aid in the immediate recognition of scale degrees and to help people read musical notation.



Shape-note system	An aid in learning to read music popular in nineteenth-century America. Each pitch of a hymn tune was represented on the staff by a note whose head had a distinctive shape. Each shape represented a specific pitch of the scale.



Composers and writers	Three composers and writers that were important in the development of American hymnody were Williams Billings, Isaac Watts, and Charles Wesley.



Revival music-the old gospel songs	The gospel music sung at revivals and camp meetings in the early days of the second Great Awakening was to a large extent derived from the oral folk tradition. Familiar songs were adapted to religious poetry. Gospel music originally appealed to both white and black Americans, but by the second half of the nineteenth century distinct styles began to emerge, though mostly in performance practices rather than in the hymns themselves. The hymns were frequently the same, but the style of singing them became different. Tastes diverged dramatically in the second half of the nineteenth century. The revival created out of the oral tradition remained popular on the frontier and in rural areas.



Black gospel	In the mid-twentieth century, gospel music referred to style of music that emerged from black worshipers and the way they worshiped-the manner of religious musical expression. Black gospel music grew out of black congregations and had its origins in black folk music, but it became a music of professionals, with stylish similarities to modern soul music or black popular music. The roots of black gospel music lie in black spirituals, camp meeting hymns and songs, adaptations of Moody/Sankey revival hymn, the lively services of black churches, and the songlike, intense sermons of black preachers-all combined with cultural and performance qualities growing out of slave cultures and the black experience. The infusion of ragtime, blues, and jazz into the religious musical expression of African Americans in the early twentieth century created modern, black gospel music. This music combines passionate religious feelings with effective showmanship. The more popular black gospel music grew out of the Church of God in Christ and other “holiness” or “sanctified” churches. The texts of traditional black gospel songs are typically about suffering and surviving from day to day. Black gospel is emotional, vocal, physical, theatrical, and musically skillful, and it arouses an enthusiastic physical and emotional response in the audience. The sound of black gospel has been a dominant vocal influence in contemporary popular soul music. The father of modern black gospel music was Thomas A. Dorsey, a former blues singer. Black gospel music influenced the development of jazz, soul, and rhythm and blues, and became known worldwide, mostly because of the efforts of Dorsey, Mahalia Jackson, and later, Aretha Franklin.



Southern gospel	Gospel music became prevalent in the nineteenth century during the second phase of the Great Awakening, when itinerant preachers and evangelists stimulated a remarkable revival of religion. Present-day southern gospel music grew out of this tradition.



Popular contemporary styles	Gospel music today seems to have transcended, to some degree, the stylistic distinctions between white gospel and black gospel. A modern counterpart of the music of the revival movement, particularly southern gospel, is the music that is an integral part of the programs of television’s televangelists. Music that incorporates elements from popular, rock, and R&B styles is increasingly becoming a part of the contemporary church. The contemporary manifestation of white gospel music (southern gospel) can be found in the early gospel songs of many successful country artists, from Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash to the Statler Brothers and the Oak Ridge Boys. It has become acceptable to use popular culture to proclaim the Christian message. Contemporary Christian music is promoted largely through Christian bookstores and Christian programs on radio and television.

2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies.