What Does Spiritual Mean In Music

which blended African cultural legacy with slavery experiences, first during the transatlantic slave trade—the greatest and one of the most brutal forced migrations in recorded human history—and then for decades through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals include “sing songs,” “labor songs,” and “plantation songs,” all of which evolved into church blues and gospel songs. All of these subcategories of folk songs were referred to as “spirituals” in the nineteenth century. While they were frequently based on biblical stories, they also highlighted the tremendous sufferings faced by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century to the 1860s, with freedom primarily changing the character (but not the continuation) of slavery for many. The spirituals songcraft spawned a slew of new musical genres.

What is an example of a spiritual song?

Negro spirituals are songs written by Africans who were abducted and sold into slavery in the United States. The masters could not take away this stolen race's languages, families, or customs, but they could not take away their music.

Over time, these slaves and their offspring accepted their owners' faith, Christianity. They reshaped it into a very personal response to their enslavement's oppression. The slaves' yearning to convey their new faith was reflected in their songs, which became known as spirituals:

From Genesis to Revelation, my people told stories in which God's faithful were the major protagonists. They were familiar with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, as well as Moses and the Red Sea. They sang about Joshua and the Hebrew children at the battle of Jericho. They could tell you all there is to know about Mary, Jesus, God, and the Devil. You could hear a song about the blind man seeing, God disturbing the water, Ezekiel seeing a wheel, and Jesus being crucified and risen from the dead if you stood around long enough. If slaves were unable to read the Bible, they would remember Biblical stories and turn them into songs. 1

Without their owners' knowledge, the songs were also utilized to communicate with one another. This was especially true when a slave planned to flee his or her bonds and seek freedom via the Underground Railroad.

Spirituals were made on the spot and passed down verbally from person to person. Folksongs were improvised according to the singers' preferences. There are roughly 6,000 spirituals or grief songs recorded; however, the real number of songs is unclear due to oral tradition of the slaves' forefathers and the prohibition against slaves learning to read or write. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” “Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen,” “Steal Away,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Go Down, Moses,” “He's Got the Whole World in His Hand,” “Let Us Break Bread Together on Our Knees,” and “Wade in the Water” are among the most well-known spirituals.

Most freed slaves separated themselves from the music of their captivity after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the end of the American Civil War, and the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution officially abolishing slavery in 1865. The spiritual seemed doomed to be remembered only in slave narratives and a few historical reports by whites who attempted to record the songs they heard. The 1867 publication, Slave Songs of the United States, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson's Army Life in a Black Regiment, which described the slave songs he heard the black Union troops sing, are two of the most important of these reports. The difficulties they experienced recording the spirituals they heard was explained in the foreword of Slave Songs by author William Francis Allen:

However, the best we can achieve with paper and type, or even voices, will only transmit a sliver of the original. The intonations and tiny variations of even one vocalist cannot be replicated on paper, and the voices of colored people have a unique quality that nothing can imitate. And I'm at a loss for words to describe the impression of a group of people singing together, especially in a complex yell like “I can't stay behind, my Lord” (No. 8) or “Turn, sinner, turn O!” (No. 48). There is no singing in parts as we know it, yet no two singers appear to be singing the identical thing—the lead vocalist begins each verse's words, often improvising, and the others, known as “bases,” strike in with the refrain or even participate in the solo when the words are familiar. 2

When a group of students from Nashville, Tennessee's recently created Fisk University began touring to generate money for the financially distressed school, spiritual performance was given a new lease on life. The musically trained chorus of the Fisk Jubilee Singers not only brought spirituals to sections of the United States that had never heard Negro folksongs before, but they also performed in front of royalty during their tours of Europe in the 1870s. The Fisk Jubilee Singers' success inspired other Black universities to develop touring groups. Professional “jubilee singers” traveled the world effectively as well. To suit public demand, collections of “plantation songs” were created.

Harry T. Burleigh, a singer and composer, was influenced by Antonn Dvoák, a Czech composer, while studying at the National Conservatory of Music. In 1892, Dvoák traveled to the United States to serve as the conservatory's new director and to inspire Americans to create their own national music. Dvoák became aware of the spiritual through his interactions with Burleigh, and subsequently stated:

Inspiration for really national music could come from African-American melodies or Indian chants. I came to this conclusion partially because the so-called plantation songs are among the most stunning and enticing melodies yet discovered on this side of the Atlantic, but primarily because most Americans appear to recognize it, albeit often unintentionally. ………………………… Certain of the so-called plantation tunes and slave songs, all of which are characterised by peculiar and nuanced harmonies, the likes of which I have found in no other songs save those of old Scotland and Ireland, are, in my opinion, the most potent as well as the most beautiful among them.3

Burleigh composed the song “Deep River” for voice and piano in 1916. He had written a few vocal and instrumental works based on the plantation melodies he had learned as a child by that time in his career. However, his arrangement of “Deep River” is regarded as one of the earliest works of its sort to be produced in art song form and intended for performance by a trained vocalist.

Concert performers and recording artists, both black and white, grew enamored of “Deep River” and other spiritual settings. It wasn't long before recitals ended with a set of spirituals. These songs become a part of the repertoires of musicians like Roland Hayes and Marian Anderson. In 1925, at the Greenwich Village Theatre in New York, New York, Paul Robeson is recognized with being the first to deliver a solo vocal recital of all Negro spirituals and worksongs.

Many composers have released arrangements of Negro spirituals expressly for performance on the concert stage over the years, and singers such as Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, and Simon Estes have recorded them for commercial distribution.

Spirituals are also arranged by composers for collegiate choruses and structured choral ensembles, as well as professional touring choirs. In September 1925, Hall Johnson founded the Hall Johnson Negro Choir to “show how the American Negro slaves–in 250 years of constant practice, self-developed under pressure but equipped with their inborn sense of rhythm and drama (plus their new religion)–created, propagated, and illuminated an art-form that was, and still is, unique in the world of music.” 4 From the 1930s to the 1950s, Canadian-born Robert Nathaniel Dett, William Levi Dawson, Undine Smith Moore, Eva Jessye, Wendell Whalum, Jester Hairston, Roland Carter, Andre Thomas, Moses Hogan, and many more choral composers adopted the spiritual as a source of musical inspiration.

The spiritual has also spawned a slew of other American music genres, including blues, jazz, and gospel. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, spirituals were essential in keeping protesters' spirits up. The songs acted as a rallying cry for individuals protesting against laws and policies that denied African Americans equal rights.

Both the performer and the accompanist are challenged to show off their technical abilities and musicality in these art tunes. More significantly, the songs require that the musicians tap into the same deep well of emotions that fueled the slaves of old. According to Hall Johnson:

True, this music came to us through humble means, but its root is the same as that of all great art: the insatiable, divinely human desire for a perfect embodiment of existence. It moves through all shades of emotion without overflowing in any direction. Its saddest lines are devoid of pessimism, and its lightest, brightest moments are devoid of frivolity. There is always optimism in its darkest expressions, and a continual reminder in its gayest measures. This music, which was inspired by the cries of a captive people who had not forgotten how to laugh, spans a wide variety of emotions. It is, however, always serious music that should be presented in the spirit of its original conception. 5

Spirituals must be sung with a knowledge of what drove such powerful melodies to come up from the souls of the men and women who wrote them, whether in a musical performance, congregational singing, or just singing to oneself. Although the unknown writers of those American folk songs are no longer with us, their yearning for independence and unwavering faith continue to flood our hearts every time we sing these deeply felt melodies.

“The singer who seeks to sing the spirituals without the holy spirit will be like the man who plants pebbles and expects them to bloom into lilies,” soprano Ruby Elzy said simply of the skill of singing spirituals.

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The Music

• A “leader” starts a line, which is followed by a choral response; generally sung at a quick, rhythmic tempo (“Ain't That Good News,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Go Down, Moses”).
• Songs with extended, expressive phrasing and a generally slower tempo (“Deep River,” “Balm in Gilead,” “Calvary”) are slow and melodious.
• Fast and rhythmic – Songs with a faster, syncopated beat (e.g., “Witness,” “Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit,” “Elijah Rock,” “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho”) that often tell a tale.

The songs were about Old Testament people (Daniel, Moses, and David) who had to endure immense adversity and with whom the slaves could easily connect. The slaves most closely connected with Jesus Christ, who they knew would help them, according to the New Testament “Hold on” until they were set free. Slaves sung about Heaven a lot, but the River Jordan—and the concealed reference to the Underground Railroad's destination, the Ohio River—was a recurrent topic in their songs.

Because the singers' songs' rhythm was so important, they would add or delete syllables in words to make them match the tune. Pioneers of spiritual art songs frequently used dialect in their settings, which is the way slaves pronouned words. Here are a few examples:

Early vocal renditions reflected pioneering composers' goals to preserve as much of the original sound as feasible “As close to the “felt” of the original spiritual as possible. Choral arrangements were best delivered a cappella, and solo vocal works permitted the vocalist to be accompanied by a keyboard. They mostly composed in a 2/4 or 4/4 time signature.

However, both the vocal line and the accompaniment have become more tonally and rhythmically complicated throughout time. Dialect is used less frequently. This far more regimented method gives the performers with more technical challenges, but it also limits their expressive interpretation options. This, however, lays a higher burden on the performers to be sensitive to the music's original aim and to express that intent to the listener.

1Velma No Man Can Hinder Me: The Journey from Slavery to Emancipation through Song (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001), 14. Maia Thomas, No Man Can Hinder Me: The Journey from Slavery to Emancipation through Song (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001), 14.

2Slave Songs of the United States, edited by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison (New York: A. Simpson, 1867; reprint, Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 1995), iv-v.

4Johnson, Hall “Notes on the African-American Spiritual” (1965). 277 in Eileen Southern's Readings in Black American Music, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), comp. and ed.

Thirty Spirituals: Arranged for Voice and Piano, by G. Schirmer (New York: G. Schirmer; dist., Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 1949),

6Ruby Elzy is a character in the Ruby Elzy series “Etude 61, no.8 (August 1943): 495-496, “The Spirit of the Spirituals: Religion and Music, a Solution to the Race Problem.”

What is a song with a spiritual content?

Both revival and camp-meeting tunes, as well as a small number of other hymns, are included in white spirituals. They came from a variety of sources, including the “laying out” of psalms, which dates back to at least the mid-seventeenth century. Where congregations could not read, a leader intoned (lined out) the psalm text one line at a time, with the congregation singing each newly provided line to a known melody. Slowly sung, the piece was embellished with passing notes, twists, and other graces, with each singer adding his own improvised decoration at whatever pitch level he felt comfortable with. (In isolated places in the twentieth century, this style can be found in both black and white churches.)

Is playing music spiritual?

Music has the ability to communicate with people from all walks of life. It possesses a one-of-a-kind ability to interact with you and link you to the Universe in ways that you won't find anywhere else.

Music often resonates on a level much deeper than cognitive knowledge; it penetrates your soul if you're open to its therapeutic qualities. Whether you listen to classical, grunge, pop, singer/songwriter, alternative, rock, bluegrass, country, or folk music, the music you listen to has a significant impact on your mind, body, and spirit.

Learning to appreciate the therapeutic advantages of music can help you enhance your overall well-being by creating a healing atmosphere that can affect you both physiologically and psychologically.

Open yourself up to these five healing benefits of listening to music the next time you turn up the volume in your car, plug in your earbuds, find your seat at a performance, or connect your record player to Bluetooth speakers:

How does music connect to spirituality?

Music and spirituality are two mediums that are frequently – almost universally – combined in cultures around the world with the goal of improving heavenly involvement. Music is employed in spiritual practices to enhance the transpersonal aspects of worship, meditation, and ritual. Similarly, musical experiences are blended with spiritually-based ideas and practices to present individuals with unique opportunities to connect with themselves and others.

This natural, reciprocal flow from music to spirituality may come as no surprise to many: both are pliable mediums that respond to the people who interact with them and the circumstances in which they interact. Amazing Grace, for example, might be led with a greater volume, increased pressure, and heightened resonance at a funeral in a church with a big crowd to match the congregation's intensity as they worship via singing. Amazing Grace, on the other hand, may have quieter, more spiritual elements when performed bedside in a hospital room with a patient and caretakers, with the intention of comfortingly holding the patient in their drained physical state and engendering close musical bonding.

As music and spirituality become more entwined, the line between the two blurs to the point that it's difficult to tell one from the other. Spirituality necessitates musicality, and musicality necessitates spirituality.

Individuals' health journeys have a similar degree of malleability. Objective health qualities, such as symptom acuity/chronicity, therapy dosage and frequency, and curative versus palliative outcomes, are subjectively experienced in relation to a person's values, morality, and illness trajectory. For example, one person's 6 out of 10 pain may be their daily baseline and thus manageable, whereas another's 6 out of 10 pain may be breakthrough and require treatment. Similarly, one person may value palliative care for its improved quality of life, while another may value curative therapies for their potential longer longevity.

Music, spirituality, and health all have dynamic, emerging features as a result of their cultural contexts. That is, the diverse cultures in which music, spirituality, and health are manifest have a direct influence on how they are perceived and engaged with. This raises a difficult but crucial question: if music, spirituality, and health are all complicated phenomena influenced by cultural influences, how do they interact when they come together in a single encounter?

In hospice, board-certified music therapists routinely deal with this situation. With six months or fewer to live, hospice is a philosophy of care that prioritizes quality of life, putting essential health issues at the forefront with limited time to permit resolution and closure. Spirituality can be a valuable resource for patients and families who are dealing with the present while also planning for the future at this time. The specific faith traditions of the patient – not just an identified denomination, but the explicit experiences patients engaged in as part of their spiritual practice – determine the type of resource spirituality can become (e.g., comfort in ritual, strength from scripture, or peace through prayer/meditation/worship).

Music therapists evaluate each patient's faith traditions and, in conjunction with a comparable evaluation of the patient's musical traditions, create music experiences that assist patients become aware of and connect with their spiritually-based resources. These culturally informed clinical music methods weave music, spirituality, and health together in a way that gives patients control over how they die. However, recent discussions in the music therapy literature have tended to phrase spirituality in such a broad and generic way that it makes it difficult for music therapists to discover spiritually-based resources in their patients.

To address this gap, my co-author (Cathleen Flynn) and I just published a paper that looked into a particular culturally informed music, spiritual, and health intersection: music therapy for Christian patients and carers facing death. We constructed a theoretical model establishing music therapy as a psychospiritual ministry allowing patients and caregivers access to a faith-based resource – the Holy Spirit – that supports with transcendence as end-of-life transitions approached, using this junction as a foundation.

Transcendence is a movement beyond the ordinary, easily available sensations that define our day-to-day to experience the self and others in new ways that push beyond our known thresholds, which is a challenging term to pin down. That transcendence is vertical for Christian patients who are about to die, an upward trajectory that brings them closer to an union with the divine as they move beyond the corporeal. For Christian carers, transcendence takes the form of a horizontal path, bringing them closer to mortal support structures that help them cope with bereavement. The Holy Spirit, who acts as a bridge between the mortal and heavenly worlds, is the faith-based channel via which these various but related transcendences take place. From this vantage point, the music therapist takes on a ministerial role, creating dynamic music experiences that promote patient and caregiver transcendence by facilitating contacts with the Holy Spirit.

Such explicit framing is morally problematic. First, we do not claim that using a Christian perspective is the “only” or “right” approach to do music therapy in hospice; rather, we present this theoretical model as a general framework for conducting spiritual assessments of patients of other faiths and traditions. Second, this is a person-centered model in which any integration of Christian theology into music therapy processes is initiated by the patient rather than the music therapist; this is an important feature because it avoids the perception that music therapists are using their privilege to proselytize patients. Third, there are multiple paths for ethical and successful therapeutic support of Christian patients and families at the end of life, and this model is meant to be an exploratory avenue that unlocks a myriad of new portals for providing psychospiritual care.

As the baby boomer population ages, it will become increasingly vital for healthcare systems to be prepared to deliver comprehensive end-of-life care that considers mind, body, and spirit as equal partners in whole-person health. For many people, music and spirituality remain significant components of their daily lives, and studying many permutations of music, spirituality, and health intersections can be a valuable contribution to this search of the good death.

“Selective focus photo of brown guitar on white pillow” by Kari Shea is the featured image. Unsplash provides royalty-free images.

How do you describe spiritual music?

Spirituals are a type of American folk song that expresses African Americans' misery, longing, and religious fervor throughout slavery and its aftermath. Spirituals were influenced by religious hymns, labour songs, as well as indigenous African rhythms and chanting patterns.

Folk music in the form of spirituals is a great example. The phrase “folk music” is now commonly used to describe nearly any genre of music performed on an acoustic guitar. Folk music, on the other hand, is not a style or genre of music; it is a method of creating and performing music. Folk music is generated over time by a community and must be understood in the cultural context in which it is jointly composed, altered, performed, and experienced by audiences, as folklorist Dan Ben-Amos has maintained. Spirituals are a tradition that perfectly fits into this category, and they must be understood in the context of the African American slave experience.

What do you mean by spirituality?

Spirituality is defined as the awareness of a feeling, sense, or belief that there is something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater total of which we are a part is cosmic or divine in nature.

Where did spiritual music come from?

A spiritual is a sort of religious folksong associated with the enslavement of African-Americans in the American South. The songs became popular in the final decades of the eighteenth century, leading up to the 1860s, when legalized slavery was abolished.

What is the vocal form of spiritual?

Spirituals are known for their skill of vocal mixing, timing, and intonation.

Spirituals were initially monophonic tunes with no accompaniment. Some songs' tempos may be slowed down—ritardando—at times, as in “sorrow songs” and/or to highlight the “beauty and blending of the voices.”

Songs may have “overlapping layers, and spine-tingling falsetto humming” in addition to the “solo call and unison response.”

African music, Christian hymns, Work songs, Field holler, and Islamic music are all stylistically related. “Spirituals were sung as lullabies and play songs,” according to a McGraw Hill publication for elementary school students. Work songs were derived from several spirituals.

“In black spiritual performances, microtonally flattened notes, syncopation, and counter-rhythms characterized by handclapping are used.”

It “stands out for the performers' stunning vocal timbre, which includes shouting, exclamations of the word “Glory!” and raspy, shrill falsetto tones,” according to the press release.

Many rhythmical and auditory features of spirituals may be traced back to African traditions, notably the pentatonic scale's prominent use (the black keys on the piano).

What music does for the soul?

Listening to music that is appropriate for your mood can also aid in the release of emotional tension. Listening to sad music while you're unhappy might help you feel understood and connected to other people on a deeper level, which can help you feel relieved and cathartic.