Like jazz, spirituals and gospel come from America. Both of these genres embody highly spiritual creative expression through choral singing, a combination of different voices, heightened emotional performance and heartfelt lyrics that are invariably dedicated to God. This energetically strong music has conquered the whole world and for many performers it has become an excellent vocal school from an early age.
Spirituals and Gospel: Origins
Spirituals- the oldest movement in music, Christian songs that were created by African slaves in the United States at the beginning of the 17th century. During those difficult times for black people, they were enslaved and turned into forced laborers. It is not surprising that creativity helped slaves maintain their own morale, and they helped slaves survive life’s hardships and hardships by turning to the Lord. Initially, spirituals were a kind of speech-prayer, which was pronounced at Christian services in local churches, then it began to be performed with the help of several voices, from which entire choirs were formed.
African American sacred music, also known as spirituals, is one of the largest and most significant forms of American folk song. The genre remains a mainstay today, especially in small Baptist churches in the American South.
Spirituals inspired more and more believers and developed, thanks to which gospel- a new musical genre of Christian music. The creation, performance, meaning and even definition of this music varies depending on the culture and social context. Gospel music emerged for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure and the expression of religious or ceremonial ideas. Gospel music tends to be dominated by vocals (often with strong harmonies) and lyrics with Christian themes. Most churches built rhythm by clapping hands and stamping feet to form a live accompaniment.
Gospel music was most often performed a cappella, and the first official use of the term "gospel music" appeared in 1874. The advent of radio in the 1920s greatly expanded the genre's audience.
Gospel blues is a form of blues music (a combination of guitar and Christian lyrics). Progressive “Southern Gospel,” a music genre native to the southern United States, has gained great popularity over the past few decades. There is also Christian country music, which is sometimes referred to as a subgenre of gospel, which reached the peak of its popularity in the mid-1990s.
Gospel in Russia
In Russia, gospel and spirituals can most often be heard during tours, master classes or lectures of American Christian choirs, which often visit our country. Due to the fact that this music has a pronounced spiritual message and the energy of a completely different culture, gospel music is not particularly developed among Russian musicians, however, there are pleasant exceptions. There is an ensemble in St. Petersburg Total Praise, singing gospel music, the peculiarity of which was the performance of texts in both English and Russian. The choir participates in church music services, evangelistic concerts, conferences, and many other various events. 
Among the band members: vocalists (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), drummer and bass guitarist, all active Christians from different churches. The choir often visits America and European countries to perform and regularly participates in St. Petersburg musical events.
In the capital you can listen to gospel music performed by a choir Moscow Gospel Mass Choir, formed in 2010, in which church parishioners from different countries sing.
Many of them are students: doctors, journalists, engineers, and there are also people who come to rehearsals after their main job. As the choir's drummer, Michael Amirika Tufur, says:
We sing gospel, or Christian music. With its help, we help people recognize and glorify the Lord. We sing in our church every Sunday morning. A lot of people usually come: last time all 200 seats in the hall were occupied.
Founder of the choir Eben Ezer Dion performs Christian compositions on the organ in Côte d'Ivoire. Several years ago he studied at the Russian Academy of Music. Gnesins. The Moscow Gospel Mass Choir consists of 15 people who often participate in gospel festivals and Christian services in Moscow, which a large number of people come to listen to.
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Ragtime(eng. ragtime) is a genre of American music, especially popular from 1900 to 1918. It is a dance form in 2/4 or 4/4 time in which the bass is played on the odd beats and the chords on the even beats, giving the sound a typical "march" rhythm; the melodic line is highly syncopated. Many ragtime songs consist of four different musical themes.
Ragtime is considered one of the predecessors of jazz. Jazz inherited from ragtime the rhythmic sharpness created by the discrepancy between the rhythmically free, as if “broken” melody. For some time after World War I, ragtime was again fashionable as a parlor dance. Other dances originated from him, including the foxtrot.
The originality of the rhythm of this form is very widely used in professional music - works by Antonin Dvorak on an American theme (the symphony “From the New World” and the string “American Quartet”), as well as “Ragtime” (1918) by Igor Stravinsky for eleven instruments.
The origin of the word "ragtime" is still unclear. Perhaps it comes from English. ragged time (“torn time”, that is, syncopated rhythm).
Spirituals, spirituals (English Spirituals, Spiritual music) - spiritual songs of African Americans. As a genre, spirituals took shape in the last third of the 19th century in the United States as modified slave songs of African Americans in the American South (in those years the term “jubiliz” was used).
The source of Negro spirituals are spiritual hymns brought to America by white settlers. The theme of the spirituals was biblical Old Testament stories, especially those related to the theme of liberation (Moses, Daniel). Pictures from the Book of Revelation were often used. The songs were adapted to the specific conditions of everyday life and everyday life of African Americans and were subjected to folklore processing.
They combine the characteristic elements of African performing traditions (collective improvisation, characteristic rhythms with pronounced polyrhythms, glissand sounds, untempered chords, special emotionality) with the stylistic features of American Puritan hymns that arose on an Anglo-Celtic basis. Spirituals have a question-and-answer (responsor) structure in the dialogue between the preacher and the parishioners. Often, singing was accompanied by clapping, stomping, and, less often, dancing.
Blues(from the English Blues or Blue Devils - melancholy, sadness) - a musical form and musical genre that originated at the end of the 19th century in the African-American community of the Southeastern United States, among people from the plantations of the Cotton Belt. It is (along with ragtime, early jazz, hip-hop, etc.) one of the most influential contributions of African Americans to world musical culture. The term was first used by George Colman in the one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). Since then, in literary works the English phrase. "Blue Devils" is often used to describe a depressed mood.
The blues was formed from such manifestations as the “work song”, holler (rhythmic shouts that accompanied work in the field), shouts in the rituals of African religious cults (English (ring) shout), spirituals (Christian chants), shants and ballads (short poetic stories).
In many ways he influenced modern popular music, especially such genres as “pop”, “jazz”, “rock and roll”, “soul”.
The predominant form of blues is 12 bars, where the first 4 bars are often played on the tonic harmony, 2 on the subdominant and tonic, and 2 on the dominant and tonic. This alternation is also known as a "blues grid". The metrical basis in blues is 4/4. The rhythm of eighth triplets with a pause is often used - the so-called shuffle.
Spirituals
Important role in the formation of African-American music
played the process of converting those brought to the Christian faith
from Africa slaves. Blacks did not object to communion
to a new faith, because it gave them hope for liberation.
This is exactly how the dogmas of Christianity were perceived, adapting to the realities of slave existence. The Church was interpreted by them and how
the opportunity to escape from the terrible real life.
For these and other reasons, the music played in the black church
carried in itself the features of canonical European church
chants and all kinds of elements of pagan cults,
who came from their historical homeland. Penetration rate
aesthetic and musical elements of African origin in
Temple music depended on the variety of Christianity.
As you know, Catholicism flourished to a greater extent in the South of the United States
(Spaniards and French), gravitating towards cult symbolism, theatricality
ceremonies and, on the other hand, more tolerant of atavisms
\African cults. Manifestations of paganism were treated more strictly
Protestants, especially Puritans, dissatisfied with any manifestation
frivolity.
It is no coincidence that the special development of African-American genres
Sacred music was received precisely in the southern regions of the USA.
Spiritual chants of North American blacks, the so-called
"Spirituals" originated in the USA already in the 2nd half of the 18th century
due to the conversion of blacks to Christianity. Their original
the source was religious hymns and psalms brought to
America by white settlers and missionaries. Spirituals
combine distinctive elements of African
performing traditions (collective improvisation,
characteristic glissando rhythm, untempered
chords, special emotionality) with stylistic features
Puritan hymns. At the same time, they are less
African and more European than the rest
African American music. They represented the African as
thinking human being and were the first and most
expressive means, thanks to which the whole world
got acquainted with black music.
The religious music of American blacks is very diverse
and includes such types of songs as:
- “ring-shout” (the song is “performed” by the whole body during the dance of all participants
in a circle counterclockwise);
- "song-sermon" (sermon songs)
- "gospel" and
- "Jubilee Songs" (worship songs with short,
rhythmic melody)
-actually “spirituals” with a long, smooth, continuous melody.
The ring-shout is considered the most ancient genre of sacred music.
(ring shout) - group dance of blacks singing in prayer.
At its culmination, this ritual reaches a high emotional level.
intense, its participants scream and fall into an ecstatic state. Musically, the ring-shout is characterized by a developed
polyrhythm, accentuation of the weak beat, question-answer form.
This music is typical for non-church ritual gatherings. At the same time, the spiritual genre, which has many similar features,
These are already church hymns, chants that have been subjected to
significant changes that came from the ring-shout.
As a rule, this is a collective prayer with the division of functions between the preacher and the parishioners. European genres,
which served as the basis for spirituals are primarily hymns,
secular and spiritual Anglo-Celtic folklore,
psalms with texts relating mainly to
without musical accompaniment, they existed,
as a vocal work for soloist and choir.
Later, in the second half of the 19th century,
concert samples of cult music written by
composers and transferred notes.
They were included in the first collection of Negro melodies,
which was called "Songs of the Slaves of the USA" (1867). Of course,
there is a big difference between purely folk
and the arranged, concert form of performing spirituals.
After the end of the civil war between North and South
and the abolition of slavery in 1865, when blacks first received
some right to go to study at institutes or universities
Fisk in Nashville in 1871 organized a Negro
vocal ensemble "Fisk Jubilee Singers", which
Soon he made his concert tours throughout the country and abroad.
Like all other African-American music, spirituals
are the result of a complex mixture of European
and African traditions. The main thing here was the folk
hymns of Anglican origin, foreign style
singing these hymns (based on biblical material)
at the same time, the role of the West African rhythm gradually
shortened, the melody lengthened and harmony developed.
Spirituals significantly influenced the origin, formation
and the development of jazz, many of them are still used by jazz
musicians as themes for improvisation. Most Popular
among them among jazzmen is “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot“,
"Go Down, Moses", "Nobody Knows The Trouble I"ve Seen" and
"Down By The Riverside" and the theme is "When The Saints Go"
Marching In" is simply a kind of anthem
traditional jazz (Dixieland).
Negro religious music still continues
serve as an inspiration for the entire jazz tradition
generally. An example of this is fragments from the opera "Porgy and Bess"
George Gershwin, Duke Ellington's Sacred Music Concerts,
"Jazz Mass" by Lalo Schifrin, etc.
Modification of spirituals as applied to the new century
became the gospel song genre. Its name comes from
English word "Gospel" (Gospel). Gospel based
on the Gospel texts, but the differences do not end there.
Many elements of jazz have penetrated into gospel music, including rhythm,
in vocal character, gospel singers often
accompanied by jazz musicians. This genre is represented
not only the magnificent
gospel singer Mahalia Jackson,
Mahalia Jackson
Not only the music is very interesting,
but also spiritual texts. They are most often based on biblical
texts, but often they have a certain subtext.
For example, among black slaves who worked in the South
plantations, spirituals about the prophet were very popular
Moses, who led his people out of slavery:
(the singer began) Lightning flashed, thunder roared,
And the Lord called from heaven:
"Oh My Prophet, be wise and courageous,
Don't stay here."
“Oh, no matter what happens,” the prophet replied, “
I won't stay here.
Let my road be hard -
I won't stay here."
(all the parishioners echoed: I will not settle here.
The singer sang in different modes, like Moses and his people
wandered through the desert, etc., and the community each time picked up: I will not stay here).
There were spiritual chants without “subtext”,
for example, about Samson and the beauty who killed him
Delilah, which began with the words:
“Dalila was a wonderful woman,
In spirituals, words and entire lines-phrases are often repeated,
like: “Where were you when our Savior was crucified on the cross?”
Charlie Haydon
And, as a rule, there is deep sadness in them, like
in the famous: “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child@
(Sometimes I feel like a child without a mother).
Pepper again repeated many times during the song
“Faraway, faraway is thy home” (Far, far away is your home
and encouraged people to strive there, and the parishioners echoed:
Believe it! (Believe it) by repeating these words many times.