AM 211/411: Voice Studio Class

To make sense of the immense impact spirituals have made on music, culture, and society, this bibliography cites writings from a multidisciplinary perspective. This annotated bibliography documents articles, books, and dissertations published since 1902. Of those, 150 are books; 80 are chapters within books; 615 are journal articles, and 150 are dissertations, along with a selection of highly significant items published before 1920. The most recent publications included date from early 2014. Disciplines researched include music, literature and poetry, American history, religion, and African American Studies. — excerpt from publisher description

This work catalogs commercially produced recordings of Negro spirituals composed for solo concert vocalists. More than 5,000 tracks are listed, with entries sourced from a variety of recording formats. Arranged alphabetically, entries variously identify the accompaniment in concert spiritual recordings. The voice types of soloists are included, as is the level of dialect used by various performers. The composers, publishers and format information are also listed when available. While structured like a discography, this guide extends beyond solely providing historical context and encourages the use of the recordings themselves. — provided by publisher

With their rich and complicated history, spirituals hold a special place in the American musical tradition. This soul-stirring musical form is irresistible to singers seeking to diversify their performance repertoire, but it is also riddled with controversy, especially for singers of non-African descent. The author, a singer and historian, welcomes singers of all backgrounds into the style while she explores its folk song roots and transformation into choral and solo vocal concert repertoire. Profiling key composers and pioneers of the genre, the author also discusses the use of dialect and other controversial performance considerations. Contributed chapters address elements of collaborative piano, studio teaching, choral arrangement, voice science, and vocal health as they apply to the performance of spirituals. — from catalog summary

This book investigates the use of the African American English (AAE) dialect in the musical genre of the spiritual. Felicia Barber explores AAE's development during the African Diaspora and its correlations with Southern States White English (SSWE) and examines the dialect's perception and how its weaponization has impacted the performance of the genre itself. She provides a synopsis of research on the use of dialect in spirituals from the past century through the analysis of written scores, recordings, and research. She identifies common elements of early performance practice and provides the phonological and grammatical features identified in early practice. This book contains practical guide for application of her findings on ten popular spiritual texts using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It concludes with insights by leading arrangers on their use of AAE dialect as a part of the genre and practice. — provided by publisher

Understanding the Spiritual, the first of the book's two sections, includes an exploration of the beginnings of the spiritual, its role in society and its transition into art music. Issues of interpretation-text, diction, rhythm and tempo-are addressed in the second section, Performing the Spiritual. In addition to interviews with noted conductors Dr. Anton Armstrong and Prof. Judith Willoughby as to matters of performance and selection, the centerpiece of this section is Dr. Thomas's personal reflections on several spiritual arrangements, including his rehearsal techniques (with specific examples and measure-number references to the included scores), as well as an insightful look into his decisions of interpretation. — from Amazon

Although slavery and Spirituals have been the subject of many books, this is the first to place the music squarely within the reality of slave life. In addition to surveying the musical styles, performance practices, and melodic and rhythmic characteristics of Spirituals, Dr. Guenther's account weaves a succinct history of slavery in America into the role of singing and religion in the lives of the enslaved. This book directly correlates slave narratives and interviews to the themes of Spirituals and the times and places that gave birth to them. With this indispensable context for the informed interpretation of Spirituals in concerts and worship services, performers, conductors, and listeners will be motivated to look anew to Spirituals for encouragement and inspiration today. — publisher's description.

This book celebrates spirituals as an art form and as unique and powerful cultural expression. For those with little knowledge of the tradition, it provides a wealth of information. For those who know and love the spirituals, it offers a fresh perspective and an invitation to deeper understanding, spiritual transformation, and social renewal. Jones juxtaposes songs with historical accounts and decodes the language of resistance in songs used to signal uprisings or share information about escape routes. He describes a music that blends Christian themes from the West with themes, rhythms and the call-and-response pattern from Africa, linking the slaves who created it to a tradition and identity that predated slavery. — from publisher's description

Cone explores two classic aspects of African-American culture--the spirituals and the blues--and tells the captivating story of how slaves and the children of slaves used this music to affirm their essential humanity in the face of oppression. — from Amazon.com summary

The essays of James Weldon Johnson have been a key resource for the performance of spirituals. Johnson’s interpretations of African American spiritual traditions have served to aid performers, arrangers, and educators over the past century. His treatise on spirituals appeared in the prefaces of books, most notably The Books of American Negro Spirituals (1925). In The Books of American Negro Spirituals, Johnson adroitly delineates the origin, artistic character, and historical significance of the spirituals. — excerpted from Amazon.com summary

"This book provides practical approaches for singers and singing teachers who wish to intentionally study, perform, and amplify composers from the African diaspora. It will help them to not only program music by underrepresented composers but also to create brave spaces in which to facilitate critical discussion on race, equity, and American music"-- Provided by publisher.

Included articles about the philosophy, aesthetics, history, and criticism of black music

Included articles by musicologists, ethnomusicologists, historians, composers, and performing artists

First published in 1867, Slave Songs of the United States represents the work of its three editors, all of whom collected and annotated these songs while working in the Sea Islands of South Carolina during the Civil War, and also of other collectors who transcribed songs sung by formerly enslaved people in other parts of the country. — from catalog summary

"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." Thus speaks W.E.B. Du Bois in "The Souls Of Black Folk," one of the most prophetic and influental works in American literature. In this eloquent collection of essays, first published in 1903, Du Bois dares as no one has before to describe the magnitude of American racism and demand an end to it. Of particular interest to the singer is Chapter XIV: The Sorrow Songs, an essay by Du Bois on the nature and importance of spirituals. — from Google Books description

This book explores the relationship between the African and African-American vernacular traditions and black literature, elaborating a new critical approach located within this tradition that allows the black voice to speak for itself. Examining the ancient poetry and myths found in African, Latin American, and Caribbean culture, and particularly the Yoruba trickster figure of Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey whose myths help articulate the black tradition's theory of its literature, Gates uncovers a unique system for interpretation and a powerful vernacular tradition that black slaves brought with them to the New World. Exploring signification in black American life and literature by analyzing the transmission and revision of various signifying figures, Gates provides an extended analysis of what he calls the "Talking Book," a central trope in early slave narratives that virtually defines the tradition of black American letters. — from publisher's description