African american music and acculturation - Essay Example

African American Music and Acculturation Musical acculturation is the absorption of musical style by one culture from another via selection and modification. It is a common occurrence when cultures intermingle. This process is particularly apparent in the development of African American music, in which African sounds and social values mixed with those of Euro America and Caribbean cultures. Musical acculturation is mostly enabled by colonial or political domination along with the social unrest that follows. Musical acculturation has to do with that hybridization influence brought about by alien elements of music. This paper seeks to show the hybridizing influence of European musical elements on African American music. Despite the fact that West African music differed from one region to the other, all cultures within this region shared sufficient features that enabled them to constitute a heritage that was identifiable as African when they were trans-located to the New World (Jackson 25). From the accounts given by early traders and explorers, it has been deduced that music was a lifestyle of these West Africans. It was used to enhance rituals, worship, provide recreation, and as a means of communication. These cultures shared a characteristic feature in integrating music with dramatic elements and dance. When they were enslaved and stripped of their community and families, their rich stories, customs, traditions, and music remained with them and were passed the new generation. On arrival in the new world, they were designated as heathens and the clergymen of the time were compelled to convert the Africans to Christianity. This religious conversion acted as the first instance in which the Africans were exposed to European music with the singing of hymns and psalms (Jackson 25). They often gathered, on Sundays, to make music, sing, and dance. The first all the black worship churches were established in the 18th century with Reverend Allen Richard realizing the importance that music held for the people, publishing a hymnal for use by the Africans. These black churches provided the people with opportunities earlier denied to them, for instance the experimentation with religious music from set pieces to formal anthems and lowly spirituals (Jackson 27). The 18th century also saw the establishment of the camp meeting that was an interracial revival with all black meets being sponsored by the black churches afterwards. Camp members took to adding their own choruses or verses to traditional European hymns with the first documentation of the ring shout, an African religious dance ceremony with European infected lyrics, happening here. A number of white American writers described this ring shout in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Paul Marshall, in his description of a dance with European melodies accompanied by movement of feet that glided forward without leaving the ground (Jackson 28). To the accompaniment of European hymnals with added verses and choruses, the dancers would do a flat-footed glide that was punctuated by stamping, an African dance style. The influx of free blacks and slaves from Santa Domingo in 1804 during the Haitian Revolution carried with it the Voodoo practices. However, it is believed that these were in existence much earlier in Louisiana as an institutionalized ritual worship cult movement since there had been importation of slaves as early as the 16th century from the West Indies. These ceremonies were centered upon the worship of Damballa the snake god, also called Da, via dancing, singing, and spirit possession. One myth held by the Dahomeans held that Papa Legba was the chief of all the Voodoo gods; he became the first god to master the skill of music and that all human musicians took after him and were considered his offspring. The connections between papa legba and blues and jazz musicians have been found to be far reaching and complex (Jackson 36). In fact, there is very little doubt that Papa Legba has morphed into Pa Pa La Bas when it comes to Mumbo Jumbo. With the influx of these immigrants from the Caribbean came spirit possession and dancing, and this was absorbed into African American music. In his novel, “Mumbo Jumbo”, Ishmael Reed talks about African Americans in the South doing sensual and stupid things and being in an uncontrollable frenzy. In that they wriggled like fish and did a dance known as the Sassy Bump and the eagle rock and cutting what he referred to as a “mean moochie” while also lusting after relevance (Reed 19). He referred to this as Mumbo Jumbo and contended that, just like the 1890s flair up; this was the beginning of a new musical phase. Spirituals, narrative songs, and work songs that were made and sung by the slaves in the churches and in the fields in turn became the foundation of African American folk music. Created with European music as the starting point, such songs as “Down by the River Side”, were given an especially African feel. In the book “Uncle Tom’s Children”, this song is said to have begun with the elder Murray, a European, singing the first stanza prior to them leaving the Americas in a stolen boat (Jackson 44).      The next big movement in African American music was ragtime music, which can be mapped out from the beginning of the late 18th century. Perhaps one of the all-time greats of this ragtime music phenomenon was Scott Joplin. Piano keys are identified and associated with ragtime music a European influence that remained ingrained in African American music (Jackson 45). Describing ragtime music in his book “The Autobiography of an ex-Colored Man”, African Americans playing ragtime music ran their fingers up and down the piano in a way that was immediately recognizable from European opera music. This was done in a way that indicated that the player had exemplary technique and that as soon as he began playing, the African Americans in the crowd began to sway in a way that was undoubtedly African with the shuffle and wriggling (Johnson & Bontemps 27). Despite having undeniable European influence, the music, demanded a physical response that involved drumming of the fingers, patting of the feet, and bobbing the head up and down or at other times sideways movement of the torso in time with the beat. African American composers took European music and remade it in a more vibrant manner, absorbing the melodies while also infecting them with African drums that created a completely new type of music (Jackson 60). Ragtime music went from being a preserve of the African Americans to being a nationwide phenomenon. It possessed several strong elements, the most striking being its ability to appeal to the Europeans who could relate to its melodies. Not only did the white Americans fall in with the music but also so did the Germans, the French, and English. Ragtime was heavily influenced by European tempo and harmonies, although its syncopations marked it out as a new entry that was identifiable with African music. The music felt derived from rural banjo and fiddle players while possessing a European feel at the same time (Jackson 61). Blues music in America was popularized by Handy W.C. after which he fell upon the idea of using it in musical compositions in the early 19th century (Jackson 65). Handy fell upon his novel idea when he came across an African man playing a guitar by pressing a knife very close to his guitar strings. He also noticed that the Southern African Americans sang about almost everything, and accompanied themselves on any instruments that they could come across with a growing trend towards European instruments like guitars and away from the more African banjo. The use of broken bottleneck or even a penknife as an improvised slide intended to produce a wailing sound from the guitar was especially prevalent among African American musicians in the South and was quickly absorbed by white Americans, acting as a precursor to rock music. While this technique was associated with African American blues players, it was more centered on the Mississippi blues variety (Jackson 65). African American blues music has also had a profound effect on European values. This can be seen in Ralph Ellison’s classic novel “Invisible Man”, where the epilogue and prologue set the structure of the novel in a blues point of view (Ellison 50). The novel’s main character is down in a literal manner in his underground room, which is used as the stage for telling his story to the audience. He gives a story of humiliation and pain, and the story unfolds as the novel continues. Ellison is the novels central character, just as blues musicians made themselves the central characters of their music, standing back from the novel and establishing himself as the novels interpreter and narrator of events that had passed. By using his suffering to lead him to certain insights, he ensures that the narrative also takes the reader to these insights. The structure of the narrative in “Invisible man” duplicates the African American blues music structure perfectly (Ellison 51). While blues and ragtime music existed parallel to each other as African American music heavily influenced by European and Caribbean music and culture, jazz music came from the fusion of ragtime and blues music (Jackson 73). It also fused white American brass band music with the more African syncopated dance music, creating a form of music that was new. Blues and jazz held several similarities in that their core was significantly short with every player improvising their own part, which was reminiscent of opera music. They also added to the music’s basic structure that made it unique with continuous changing and movement. Each musician played differently for one musical piece like in opera music, but the same music was played differently every time the same musician played it. In the African tradition, this was common. Therefore, it is evident that both the European and African American cultures have greatly borrowed from each other in both music and art. Bibliography Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Barnes & Noble, 1952. Print. Jackson, Jeffrey. Music and history : bridging the disciplines. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2011. Print. Johnson, James. & Bontemps, Arna. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Hill and Wang, 1991. Print. Reed, Ishmael. Mumbo Jumbo. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Print.      Read More