In our second module on African Diaspora we continue examining the impact that the cultural exchange brought about by the forced displacement of enslaved people has had in American music.
Our lesson this week comes from an open educational resource named Teachrock, and it’s called “Rhythm as a Representation of People and Place.” The main question around this class is: how does “the beat” of popular music reflect the histories of multiethnic populations and places?
The following excerpt was retrieved from Teachrock’s lesson:
At different times in American history, rhythm has been a contested issue. Within the cultural ‘melting pot’ of the nation, both the way people feel rhythms and musical meter and the instruments they use to express them have sometimes been interpreted as “dangerous.”
During the years in which slavery was a part of American life, the ships that crossed the Atlantic Ocean en route to the Americas, ships carrying African slaves, also brought the music and dance traditions of these people. Many of these traditions were rich with rhythmic complexity. Even today the rhythms we think of as ‘the beat’ in popular music carry traces of the West African music brought to the Americas by slaves, and nearly all of the music we hear now is the result of musical and cultural mixing between the many ethnic populations that have cohabited here since. Music has always been a meeting place, sometimes challenging the ‘official’ systems of social organization”
Read
Read the lesson below, until page 14, and respond to the questions asked in that page in your weekly submission.
Use this resource to gain a better understanding of the rhythm in Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”
Watch
Rhythm does more than “represent people and places.” in the troublesome history of America during and post-slavery, rhythm was a crucial component of work songs.
Stream a portion of Toshi Seeger, Daniel Seeger, Peter Seeger, and Bruce Jackson’s film: Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison (1966)
Read the text that accompanies the video for context (especially the quote from Bruce Jackson’s book) and respond: why were work songs important? what role did rhythm play in this music? is all music supposed to be for entertainment and leisure?
Explore
Take a look at the Timeline of African American music and identify the three main strands that make up the roots of most of what we listen today. Find the historical and stylistic relations of all music genres you discovered in this lesson, including work songs!
Spend some time reading about the importance of Spirituals and listening to the examples provided in this lesson by Portia K. Maultsby facilitated by Carnegie Hall. Take your knowledge one step further with this lesson from the Library of Congress.
Watch
Learn about the period of the “great awakening” and the ways in which music and hidden codes allowed enslaved people to communicate and give hope to one another.
Useful questions to guide your engagement with this video:
- Did African Americans adopt the religion of their oppressors as it was presented to them?
- How were they able to find ” a bible within the bible”?
- What is the symbolic significance and some of the performative aspects of the ring shout?
Extra credit for a plus: interview someone close to you and find out which rhythms are important to them and how those may represent who they are and where they come from.
