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Epstein, Dena J. - Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the CIVIL War

Title: Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the CIVIL War
Description: Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1977. Hardcover. Pale green cloth boards with gilt spine lettering; white dj with green lettering and bw illustration; mylar cover; xix, 433 pp; bw illustrations and music. Prologue. The African heritage and the Middle Passage -- Early reports of African music in British and French America. La calinda and the banza ; Other African dancing -- More Black instruments and early white reaction. Drums and other African instruments ; The balafo ; Legal restrictions on instruments -- The role of music in daily life. Funerals ; Pinkster and other African clelebrations in the North ; Worksongs and other kinds of African singing -- The acculturation of African music in the new world. The arrival of Africans and their music ; Acculturation in New Orleans -- Conversion to Christianity -- Acculturated Black music in the thirteen colonies. The African jig, a Black-to-white exchange -- African survivals. Persisting musical and cultural patterns ; Black music in New Orleans, 1820-67 -- Acculturated dancing and associated instruments. Patting juba ; Drums, quills, banjo, bones, triangle, tambourine ; Fiddlers ; Instrumental combinations -- Worksongs. Field work and domestic chores ; Industrial and steamboat workers ; Boat songs ; Corn, cane, and other harvest songs ; Singing on the march ; Street cries and field hollers -- Distinctive characteristics of secular Black folk music. Whistling ; Improvisation ; Satire ; Style of singing ; Other secular music --The religious background of sacred Black folk music, 1801-67. Opposition to religious instruction of slaves ; Camp meetings ; Missions to the slaves ; Black religious groups ; Oppostion to secular music and dancing -- Distinctive Black religious music. Spirituals ; Attempts to suppress Black religious singing ; The shout ; Funerals -- Early wartime reports and the first publication of a spiritual and its music -- The Port Royal experiment. Historical background ; Earliest published reports ; Wartime publication of song texts and music -- Reports of Black folk music, 1863-67. Criticism of "this barbaric music" ; Recognition of a distinctive folk music ; The shout ; Worksongs ; Performance style ; Introduction of "new songs" by the teachers -- Slave songs of the United States : its editors. William Francis Allen ; Charles Pickard Ware ; Lucy McKim Garrison -- Slave songs of the United States : its publication. The contirbutors ; Problems of notation ; Assembling the collection ; Publication and reception -- Conclusion -- Appendix I. Musical excerpts from the manuscript diaries of William Francis Allen -- Appendix II. Table of sources for the banjo, chronologically arranged -- Appendix III. Earliest published versions of "Go down, Moses. VG-/VG- (Ex-library with stamps and labels on spine, inside front and rear covers, ffep and block. Overall light shelfwear. Pages are otherwise clean.) .

Keywords: Music ; African American Music ; ;

Price: US$ 50.00 Seller: Kevin Mullen, Bookseller
- Book number: 186029

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