Transcript The African American Influence on the United States

The African American
Influence on the United
States
World Cultures 8
Influences
 How did African slaves influence the
United States?
 What areas were influenced?
 How were they influenced?
Government
 Civil War
 was it just about slavery?
Civil War
 was about
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Slavery
Tariffs
“Manifest Destiny” - ???
State’s rights
Divergent world views
Manifest Destiny –
belief of westward
expansion of the U.S.
(occupy coast to coast)
Tariff/duty – tax
on imports
Civil War
 Many new ideas from Africa and Europe
mixed together to create new and unique
ideas
 Art: photography
 Music – realism + romanticism + folk songs
Musical Background
 Africans who were brought to colonial
America as slaves found themselves in a
totally alien world. They had been
removed from their land, their
possessions, and all that was familiar to
them.
Musical Background
 Although they could not carry with them
their drums and other instruments, they
did bring a most important instrument –
the human body. Thus, they had voices
with which to sing; they had hands and
feet with which to create percussive
sounds and rhythmic movement.
Musical Background
 Slaves who were not allowed to talk
among themselves often communicated
through song. Music became an
important means of adapting to a new
language, a new religion, and a totally
foreign way of life.
Musical Background
 Black people continued to pour out their
innermost feelings through music, as
they and their ancestors had done for
centuries in Africa. And as they did so in
this new world, some completely new
kinds of music began to emerge.
Music
 polyrhythm
 call-and-response – 1 person does
something and another person “responds”
 think “cheerleaders”
 new instruments
 banjo
 Blues
 Jazz
 Rock
Music
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Rap
R&B
Hip Hop
Gospel
Spirituals
Field Hollers
 Slaves working in the corn fields or
cotton fields often communicated through
song with calls, “cries,” or “hollers.” Some
were for help; others for water or food.
Some were signals to others. Some were
simply expressions of inner feelings of
the moment. Sometimes the calls were
answered, in the African tradition;
sometimes they were not.
Field Hollers
 The calls of the field were usually
fragments, or bits of melody. The same
kinds of song fragments were heard in a
new setting after the Civil War, when
blacks moved to large cities and began to
sell goods in the streets. Wares and
services offered by street vendors were
many and varied.
Field Hollers
 http://youtu.be/brdpGv_EYCQ
Blues
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Came before jazz
helped “invent” jazz
late 19th century or 1800’s
came from field/work songs
 also from prison songs/chain gang chants
 Form of folk music
 came from the people (weren’t really
professional musicians)
Work Songs
 The work songs of early black Americans
were much like those they had sung in
Africa. Most of these early songs were
sung by slaves as they worked in the
fields.
Work Songs
 After President Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation in 1863,
blacks began to seek new kinds of jobs.
Many who had been farmers started to
work on boats, in mines, in lumber
camps, in factories, and on railroads. As
they worked, new songs were born.
Some of these were sung during work, to
help pass the time, and to coordinate
movements. Others were about work
and workers.
Work Songs
 http://youtu.be/7lDlfDtJYF8 (RR)
 http://youtu.be/oNrZFC7RgwU (Mt)
Blues
 The “blues” are musical expressions of a
person’s troubles. While spirituals
emphasized the hope of a better life after
death, blues deal with the realities of life
here on earth.
Blues
 Blues songs were at first a very personal
kind of music, of greatest importance to
the singer. After the Civil War, however,
when blacks found themselves in a new
social and economic situation, the blues
changed and gradually became popular
as entertainment.
Blues
 listening and repeating
 couldn’t read music!
 oral traditions  changes it!
 mostly recreational
Blues
 Famous Blues musicians
 BB King
 Howlin’ Wolf
 Muddy Waters
Ragtime
 Part of the African heritage of blacks who
had been brought to this country as
slaves was a love of dancing. Dancing
during free time, at work festivals, or for
the entertainment of owners was usually
accompanied with clapping and footstomping. Gradually blacks made or
gained access to fiddles and banjos,
which were added to the
accompaniment.
Ragtime
 Following the Civil War, blacks had
increasing opportunity to play small
organs and pianos. The music they
began to play was similar to music they
had used for dancing on the plantations.
It became known as “rag music,” and
later, “ragtime.”
Ragtime
 http://youtu.be/pMAtL7n_-rc
Jazz
 Jazz was the first music that people
considered truly “American” music. Jazz
has its roots in the blues and ragtime.
Jazz
 Many characteristics of African music are
found in jazz. Among them are call-andresponse patterns, percussion
instruments, body-percussion sounds,
cross rhythms, and improvisation.
Jazz
 Improvisation is a basic ingredient of
most jazz. In jazz, the players make up
the music as they play it. Jazz is not so
much a kind of music as it is a way of
performing music. There are many types
of jazz.
Jazz
 born around 1900 in New Orleans, Louisiana
 1st great jazz soloist – Louis Armstrong
 Louisiana history
 French territory (European influence)
 Migration of all types of people
 Culture of slavery
 Bands from military marching (Europe) + field
hollers and blues music = JAZZ
 +spirituals and rag time
Jazz
 Original style = Dixieland
 folk and orchestral instruments
 Trombone, cornet, clarinet, banjo, piano, drums
 Call-and-response
 As it became more popular, it changed or
evolved
 new instruments
 guitar, saxophone, bass
 innovations
 vocalists
Jazz
 Dixieland  Big Band  Crooners 
Bebop  Cool jazz
 tradition of experimenting and being
spontaneous
Dixieland Jazz
 The early Dixieland band usually had a
cornet, trombone, clarinet, banjo, drums,
and sometimes a tuba. The band often
marched as it played. Later, the
saxophone, trumpet, and piano were
added.
Jazz
 Charles Mingus –used their music for
persuasion
 political issues of his time
 Fables of Faubus – racism and school integration
during Civil Rights movement
 No jazz = No hip-hop, no rap, no rock,
no Broadway, no Hollywood musicals
Gospel/Spiritual
 Christianity was forced on slaves who
were not always Christian
 slaves put their own traditions into the new
religion
 field holler  call-and-response
 Choral tradition
 Congregational singing
Spirituals
 The songs of the early slaves expressed
not only their troubles, but also their hope
of a better life and death. The music that
developed was a blend of the rhythms
and chants brought from Africa, and the
European hymn tunes of the whites. The
musical results was a unique kind of
song called the “spiritual.”
Spirituals
 A spiritual is what the name suggests – a
song that has a religious or “spiritual”
meaning. Although spirituals originated
with black people, there are also white
spirituals. It has been said that the
spiritual is one of the greatest gifts of
black Americans to the world of music.
Spirituals
 http://youtu.be/UEH7jyt1eoo (Whole
World)
 http://youtu.be/gtLcELU1brA (Ppl go)
Gospel
 Gospel songs are religious songs that
are more recent in origin than spirituals.
As black people found themselves in
busy, crowded cities early in the 20th
century the spirituals of earlier days did
not seem to adequately express the
religious feelings of the times. Gospel
music became the means of expressing
their religious feelings.
Gospel vs. Spiritual
Gospel
 Composer generally
known
 Instrumental
accompaniment
 Polyrhythms are common
 Melodies are more
complex
 Personal expressions of
today’s black Americans
Spiritual
 Folk songs (handed down
orally from the slavery
era)
 Usually “a cappella”
 Strong rhythms but not
overlapping
 Simple melodies (usually)
 Usually retelling of biblical
stories
Dance
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Latin America + U.S.
Salsa
Clave
polyrhythms
Bomba (from Puerto Rico) – Call &
Response
Dance
 Tango (from Argentina) – African +
Portuguese origins
 Plantation dances
Plantation Dance
Plantation Dance - Zudio
 http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/
afriam.arts.music.zudio/
Drama
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Oral tradition - ?
Creation myths
Trickster characters – Anansi, etc.
way to bring the culture with them from
Africa
Drama
 Slave tales
 cunning character
 outsmarts those who try to take advantage
of him
 rhythmic language
 great animation in the telling
Drama
 Can you see how any of those
points/ideas have influenced American
drama?
 TV shows?
 Movies?
 Plays?
Drama – Types of Stages
Drama – Types of Stages
Drama – Types of Stages
Drama – Stage Directions
Drama – Stage Directions