Refuting the myth that Black American music/culture is "Europeanized".

[Dreadknox77]

What the exactly are the "European" influences that are in the music/culture??

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Thanks for educating me on this.

I'm one of those that always felt that most black-american music is a bit too Europeanized. Im sorry but that's the way it sounds to my ears when i hear it
And dont get it twisted, so is Caribbean and Latino music. Dont let them fool you. Some more than others, of course. Reggae, Socca, Zouk, Konpa all have significant dosages of european influence

But for the longuest i always felt the music had way more european influence IN COMPARISON to other black and still do. BUt thats the beuty of it, tho. Black americans have had access to and managed to blend the best of both world in their music thus why some american genres are so popular in europe and africa

Like I said the African influence on AA music largely comes from a different sources from Africa compared to others of the diaspora. Which is why some peopke think it sounds "European".

 

[Magic 8 Ball]

It is the other way around. The European culture is being influenced by black and non whites. Of course they don't like to admit it.

 

[Poitier]

Less Angolan slaves, More Senegal/Mali/Gambia slaves

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Thanks for educating me on this.

I'm one of those that always felt that most black-american music is a bit too Europeanized. Im sorry but that's the way it sounds to my ears when i hear it


Not saying you got your culture from whites. Just that IN COMPARISON to that of caribbean blacks and some black latinos, African-American music/culture/customs tend to be have more influence from european cultures. But in the end they all have high dosages of european culture in them because they were all colonized. Thus the scarlett letter we all wear with our English/Spanish/Portuguese/French last names

It is the other way around. The European culture is being influenced by black and non whites. Of course they don't like to admit it.

Exactly! What many people are forgetting is that Black American music is/was the most globally appropriated music and the most influential region on popular global music outside of Black America/American South, is the pop music of the British Isles (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin all the way down to Adele) which is mainly based on Black American music. This blurred the lines between Black American music and global pop so instead of sounding like real British Isles music




you got white UK folks sounding like this



because they've been listening to this

 

[K.O.N.Y]

It is the other way around. The European culture is being influenced by black and non whites. Of course they don't like to admit it.

Exactly.

In the 21st century its safe to say European/American music is more African(AA) influenced than vice versa

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Take for example the white artist, Hozier

When I first heard his song, "Amen", I knew right away he was trying to tap into that Gospel-Blues-Negro Spiritual sound







And then I read up on him...

Everything You Need to Know About Hozier

Irish origins: Don't let the Americana-sounding, gospel-crooning tracks off his record fool you: Hozier's not from the Deep South or any place that banks on bluegrass and classic country. He's from Ireland's County Wicklow, which sits just above Dublin. He was also born on St. Patrick's Day, which is a point everyone probably makes when they meet the poor guy. (We can't pick up on the accent when he sings, either.)

Hozier's inherited blues roots: Hozier grew up with an appreciation for traditional Irish music, but blues was the soundtrack in the Hozier-Byrne house. His dad played the blues in Dublin when Hozier was a kid, and he followed in his footsteps as a music student at Trinity College before dropping out to record the demos that would eventually lead to his big break. The two EPs he dropped prior to Hozier showcase some of the standout tracks from the album ("Take Me To Church," "Cherry Wine," etc.), so fans have had their hands on versions of these songs for about a year now.

http://www.fuse.tv/2014/09/everything-you-need-to-know-about-hozier

There is a lot of Americana and blues in your music, but you're from Ireland.

I was essentially raised on blues music. My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me. Then I discovered Motown and gospel and Delta blues and jazz, so a huge amount of my influences are all African-American music.

Do your influences affect your lyrics?

Blues is a very physical music. It's often about sex, whether it's through innuendo or not. It's often about the relationship between two people. So in that sense, in a lot of my songs, there's a lot to do with the interaction between two people.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/03/qa-hozier-on-gay-rights-sex-good-hair.html

Buzzworthy: In “Take Me To Church,” I could definitely hear a lot of choral background training. How much of that consciously goes into what you’re creating now?

Andrew Hozier-Byrne: Quite a bit, to be fair. I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties. I spent quite a bit of time in choirs growing up, and in the world-touring music group, Anúna. It’s a sound with very rich texture, voices singing together.

BW: I also heard a very American-style gospel singing. Was that intentional, too?

AHB: Absolutely. My influences are heavily based in the roots of African-American music, so gospel, blues, Delta blues. [What you heard] would absolutely be gospel. I was raised on blues. My dad is a blues musician in Dublin, so all the music I heard as a child was Chicago blues, stuff like that.

http://buzzworthy.mtv.com/2014/03/14/hozier-interview-take-me-to-church-video/




Why Is Hozier's 'Take Me To Church' So Popular?

I spent a few hours reading this article and following the links. I don’t know how long you spent writing the piece but reading it was enjoyable. When I first heard this song I couldn’t help but wonder if the songwriter had spent time in the U.S. South listening to Baptist choirs. Why? The phrase “Take Me to Church” and the melody of the “Amen, amen, amen, amen”, that’s stuff I heard growing up in the south and attending predominately black churches. I don’t know why but I like idea of some Irish guy being influenced by gospel music.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmessitte/2014/12/03/on-hozier-why-is-take-me-to-church-so-popular/


This kind of thing is blurring the lines of certain ethnic sounds/musical approaches belonging to certain ethnic groups. Similar to how Puerto Ricans/Nuyoricans adopted so much Afro-Cuban music (most of the roots of Salsa) that many aren't aware of the debt Puerto Ricans owe to Cuban music.

 

[K.O.N.Y]

@IllmaticDelta

Do you have any examples of American music before the black American influence(blue note,callresponse,negrosprirituals,blues etc) came in.

To the best of my knowledge America was simply imitating Europe. Before blacks gave this country original American genres to be proud of

Im guessing it was mostly European classical mixed with marching band type music. Like some star spangled banner type shyt.

I ask this because.
People keep saying black American music is Europeanized not realizing that old western/euro music sounds nothing like our early genres(blues jazz etc)

 

[Bawon Samedi]

@IllmaticDelta

Do you have any examples of American music before the black American influence(blue note,callresponse,negrosprirituals,blues etc) came in.

To the best of my knowledge America was simply imitating Europe. Before blacks gave this country original American genres to be proud of

Im guessing it was mostly European classical mixed with marching band type music. Like some star spangled banner type shyt.

I ask this because.
People keep saying black American music is Europeanized not realizing that old western/euro music sounds nothing like our early genres(blues jazz etc)

Like I said in another thread early American music would sound like this:


It commonly known that slaves in general brought rhythm to the new world.

 

[Poitier]

You have to remember recorded/studio music is a 20th century invention.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

@IllmaticDelta

Do you have any examples of American music before the black American influence(blue note,callresponse,negrosprirituals,blues etc) came in.

Matt Brown & Jessica Ziegler have a show entitled, "Over the Hills and Far Away: A Journey Through Irish and Old-Time Music." In it, they feature melodies that are shared between Irish and old-time music. Here is the same tune played first as an old-time reel and then as the antecedent Irish hornpipe

To the best of my knowledge America was simply imitating Europe. Before blacks gave this country original American genres to be proud of

Im guessing it was mostly European classical mixed with marching band type music. Like some star spangled banner type shyt.

Yep. See my above vids

 

[IllmaticDelta]

When the European fiddle met the African banjo, Old Time or String Band Music was born. To hear the purest form of Anglo-Celtic fiddling in the Americas, you to have to go where the least African influences were

Blacks, whites and Southern old-time music


"
When Sparky and Rhonda Rucker played a Prairie Grapevine concert recently at Springfield's Unitarian Universalist church, they combined southern Appalachian and African American musical traditions. But they were following in a tradition that's literally as old as the hills. Well, at least the people from outside who came to the hills, black and white alike, and displaced the Cherokee people who had been living there originally. We think of Appalachian culture as being Scots-Irish, the source of modern "redneck" America, but it's more complex than that.

"Unfortunately, when people think of Southern Appalachian music, they often neglect to recognize that there have been plenty of African Americans in Southern Appalachia since the 1600s, and that these eople have made their own contribution to what we think of as Southern Appalachian culture today," Rhonda Rucker wrote in the liner notes to their 2007 CD The Mountains Above and the Valleys Below. "Without these 'Affricalachians,' we would be without such gems as 'John Henry,' 'John Hardy,' and all the Brer Rabbit tales. And where would Southern Appalachian music be without the banjo, which of course has its origins in West Africa."

Sacred music, of course, was influenced heavily by the camp meetings of the 1800s, which were attended by blacks and whites alike. is especially But we also find the African American influence in songs like "C.C. Rider" and "Reuben's Train." Sparky and Rhonda say "C.C. Rider" originally stood for "Country Circuit Rider," by the way. I've been hearing "C.C. Rider" since Chuck Willis' version was on the R&B charts in 1957, and I never knew that. Rhonda said the heritage is mixed more often than not.

"There are some instances in which a particular song has a predominantly white or predominantly black origin, but in many cases, the two traditions are often inextricable," she writes. "For example, in researching a song that people often associated with the 'white tradition,' we would find numerous sources that told how African Americans had been singing the song for so long that it was unclear who first sang the song (and vice versa)."

According to Alan Jabbour, old-time southern Appalachian fiddle virtuoso and former director of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, the influence runs deep. Here's how he explained it in a lecture on "Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier" at Indiana State University in 2001. He said as he collected fiddle tunes from the upper South, especially Virginia and Maryland, he noticed they were different from Scotland, Ireland and the northern U.S.:

Many of them used bowing patterns in which were imbedded elaborate forms of syncopation. Now it should be stipulated that syncopation has many forms. Any performance that establishes one rhythmic pattern, then superimposes a different pattern in contradistinction to the original pattern, is using syncopation. But the syncopated bowing patterns of my fiddling mentors were precisely what we all think of as “American syncopation,” appearing in jazz and popular music and commonly presumed to be an African American contribution to our musical heritage.I think Jabbour argues convincingly, both at Indiana State and elsewhere, that: (1) the influence is African American; and (2) it runs deep. Very deep. He cites his mentor in old-time fiddling, Henry Reed of West Virginia

He used this syncopated pattern constantly – so much that it can be described as imbedded in his fundamental style. It is not an added feature or an ornament, but a basic feature of his playing. One could say that he couldn’t avoid using it. One can find the same identical pattern in the playing of older fiddlers from Virginia to Texas whose style took shape before the advent of recordings and radio. Such a broad distribution among fiddlers who learned their art before the turn of the century can best be accounted for by supposing that the pattern spread with the settlement of the trans-Alleghany West during the 19th century.While Jabbour doesn't find the same pattern of syncopation in British and northern American fiddle playing, he does find it in all kinds of African, Arabic and South Asian music. Here's his hypothesis:


Casting our net even wider, we may encounter the same precise syncopated pattern from Africa and the Mediterranean to musical styles as far away as India. But it seems clear that it came into the fiddling of the Upper South through African American influence. If one examines the historical record from the Upper South more closely, it becomes clear that the fiddle in places like Virginia was the favorite instrument of Black as well as White instrumentalists in the later 18th and early 19th century. One comparative study of runaway slave posters by banjo scholar Robert Winans notes that the instrument mentioned far more often than any other instrument in describing the capabilities of runaway slaves was the fiddle. (The Africa-derived banjo and the flute are tied for a distant second.) Fiddle and banjo continued to be central to the African American tradition of the Upper South till the end of the 19th century, when piano and guitar began to replace fiddle and banjo as the most favored instruments.

So we know that Whites and Blacks were all playing the fiddle in the Upper South during the Early Republic period. In fact, they were playing it in roughly equal numbers, and we also know from historical accounts that they were often playing it together or in each other’s presence. It was a revolutionary period, and the evidence seems to me compelling that African-American fiddlers simply added this signature syncopation to the bowing patterns on the fiddle. White fiddlers quickly embraced it, and it quickly moved from being an ethnic innovation to being a regional standard. The pattern could have been present as an abstract pattern in African tradition, and also (though quite recessively) in European tradition.
Once it had become a regional hallmark, shared by Black and White fiddlers, it spread in three ways. First, it spread directly through western migration – to a degree by Blacks but, more importantly, by Whites who had incorporated the syncopated bowing patterns into their own playing and cultural values. Second, it spread into wider popular consciousness through the minstrel stage of the 19th century. And third, African American musicians transferred the same patterns to other instruments, like guitar and piano, thus reintroducing the patterns in all the successive waves of folk-rooted popular music, including ragtime, blues, and jazz in the 20th century. By the mid-20th century it had become a general American pattern of syncopation, and by later part of the 20th century all the world would recognize the pattern as a stylistic hallmark of American music."

http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2009/09/blacks-whites-and-southern-old-time.html

Here goes a nice video on this:

Alan Jabbour's hypothesis on (syncopated) fiddle tunes from the old frontier

He gives examples of the older British Isles styles and then the modern "American" styles

@0:53:00 to about 1:03:00......Jabbour talks about syncopation from 58:00 to 1:02:10.






"Alan Jabbour, founding executive director of the American Folklife Center, hypothesizes that late 18th-century fiddlers in Virginia blended British and African American musical idioms into a hybrid style. The African American influence, a type of syncopation, was subtle but pervasive. (He also suspects Cherokee Indian influence in the contour of fiddle tunes that begin with the high course and go to the low course in the B part -- e.g. "Cripple Creek." Which isn't as off-the-wall as it might appear, when you consider Cherokee elder Walker Calhoun's clawhammer banjo playing, etc.) Jabbour doesn't use the word "creole" but he says the southern Appalachian style was different from the Irish and Scottish styles being developed at much the same time.

Jabbour's hypothesis in outline form: "Characteristic American bowing pattern: sixteenth-note grouping of two groups of three followed by two notes - produces shifting syncopation, occurs from Texas to Virginia, considered Appalachian but is used in both black and white fiddling and is African American contribution" [from notes to an interview with Alan Lomax, cited and quoted at greater length below].

"Irish, Scottish and Appalachian Fiddle Music: Talk and Demonstration." There is also a fascinating panel discussion on Appalachian, Irish and Scottish fiddle traditions in which he goes over some of the same territory with an Irish and a Scots fiddle player (he gets into his ideas on syncopation around 5-7 minutes).

Alan Lomax interviewed Jabbour for his Cultural Equity website. Here are unedited program notes, including the passage quoted above (which I'll put in itals):

:: Description :: Conversation between Alan Lomax, Alan Jabbour, and others about American fiddle music and dance in Upper South :: Project :: American Patchwork :: Date Range :: 01-01-1987 to 12-31-1987 :: Particpants :: Lomax, Alan Jabbour, Alan :: Subjects :: Fiddle playing in the Upper South Fiddle playing, Anglo-American - African American contribution of shifting syncopation to Fiddle playing, Anglo-American, possible American Indian influences on Solo dancing - Amerindian influences on dance in Anglo-America and the Upper South Cajun music - American Indian influence in Scots Irish Culture in the American Upper South Fiddle playing, importance of bow in

From notes, this excerpt gets into the creolization bit, although once again Jabbour doesn't call it that:

Alan Jabbour on the uniformity of American fiddle music and its origin in the upper South. Developments in fiddle playing occurred in the English speaking world in the late eighteenth century make its fiddle styles cousins with a common ancestor. Bow is key element in fiddling. Change of direction after each note (can appear virtuosity when done extremely rapidly) versus grouping of notes on the same bow (requires more skill). Characteristic American bowing pattern: sixteenth-note grouping of two groups of three followed by two notes - produces shifting syncopation, occurs from Texas to Virginia, considered Appalachian but is used in both black and white fiddling and is African American contribution. Occurs sporadically in Irish fiddling, predominates in America. Possibility of Native American contribution. Melodies in older repertoires typically have two parts, high and low. ... [and so on w/ Jabbour's theory about the high course leading in Appalachian idiom (Cherokee?), etc. ...]. "

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Old post that relates to this thread..

@IllmaticDelta

I made a thread saying AA music culture has been the most important in the modern age. Do you agree.

I agree.

And if so, why do you think that is. How did poor black southerners take the attention away from European classical music as the premier music of the world

White southerners/white americans in general didn't care that much about establishing classical music. They liked their folky roots music more. Black music in America took over because it provided something they weren't used to which was african syncopation.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

I ask this because.
People keep saying black American music is Europeanized not realizing that old western/euro music sounds nothing like our early genres(blues jazz etc)

It's because people come from the Western world of musical theory often don't associate "African" music with Harmony. They think it's all rhythm. Hence you get oversimplifications like...

• Timeline
• Jazz Images
• Important Firsts
• Resources
• Musicians
• Glossary
• Links
• Style Sheet
• Audio Snippets
• Jazz Education

Style Sheets


African Music

Function:
Music in traditional African societies functions as an integral part of everyday life. There is no concept, as there is in the west, of so-called "art" music. Similarly, there is no concept of music which is solely for listening; music is a participatory activity.

Various ways in which music functions in traditional African cultures:

1. 
   
   
   • Political
   • Social
   • Economic
   • Religious
   • Historical
   • Communication/Language

Musical Considerations

1. 
   
   
   • Instruments - All of the following types are found in Africa:
     1. Idiophones (the sound is produced by the instrument itself by being beaten, shaken, or plucked.
     2. Membranophones (the sound is produced by a stretched skin)
     3. Chordophones (the sound is produced by a vibrating string or strings)
     4. Aerophones (the sound is produced by a vibrating column of air)
   • Instruments are generally used in a percussive manner. Often there is more concern for timbre (tone color) than there is for tonality (actual pitches).

Form
There are a number of form types common in African music, but the most important is call and response (sometimes called antiphonal song form). Two other forms are the litany (one or two phrases repeated over and over) and additive form (new sections of material are added one after the other with no reference to the previous material. There is also no attempt to develop the previous material, as opposed to developmental forms so common in Western art music).

Rhythm
Rhythm is the focal point of African music and is its most highly developed musical component. Often there is the simultaneous use of two or more meters, resulting in what A.M. Jones called a "constant conflict of rhythms" and described as "many levels of rhythm happening simultaneously." Richard Waterman wrote about what he called the "metronome sense," describing the knowledge of the basic beat in the minds of the participants, whether it is articulated or not. Rhythm is the most important component of all African and African-derived music.

Melody and Harmony
Melody and harmony are less highly developed in African music. They are, however, the highly developed focal points of western art music. This caused many scholars to label African music "primitive" because their point of reference was different, not taking into account the primacy of rhythm in African music as an alternative focus to melody and harmony.

Scale and Pitch Material
There is no peculiarly African scale. The music is diatonic (the sounds you can get from playing just the white notes on a piano keyboard). The so-called "blue notes" (the b3rd and b7th) can also be observed as well as the pentatonic (five tone) scale. In areas in East Africa there is a strong Arabic influence on the musical style and pitch material used.

Vocal Style, Tone Quality, and Ornamentation
The voice quality is usually open and resonant (although it is slightly tenser in areas of East Africa and in other areas where there is strong Arabic influence). There is a variety of tone qualities in both vocal and instrumental music. Often a percussive quality of sound is used. There are many common types of vocal ornamentation, including glissando, falling release, rhythmic grunting, bends, dips, shouting/singing, and the upward break.

http://www.jazzinamerica.org/JazzResources/StyleSheets

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Since this thread is back to being discussed, I thought I post something rather than music that proves AA's really do have a diverse culture.







And one of the many now extinct unique AA languages.

Negro/Jersey Dutch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Dutch
.

Afro-Dutch Americans, a history most people in America aren't even aware of


Afro-Dutch Folklore and Folklife

Despite the fact that the Dutch played a central role in the seventeenth-century slave trade, little attention has been paid until recently to the Dutch slaves in New York and New Jersey. Most studies of slavery in the Americas have dealt with the Caribbean, South America, and the American South. Few scholars have tested whether conclusions developed from these other areas hold true for New York and New Jersey. Even fewer scholars have used folklore as a source of information about the culture of slaves. The problem with most interpretations of the Dutch slave system is that they deal only with the New Netherland period from 1624 to 1664. The Dutch and their slaves did not disappear from New York and New Jersey after the English conquest. In fact, the institution of slavery did not begin to flourish until the eighteenth century.

Although English law applied, it is a mistake to think of the Dutch and their slaves as part of the English slave system. There is evidence in their folklore and folklife that a distinct free black and slave culture developed in the Dutch culture area of New York and New Jersey. This regional culture consisted of a synthesis of African cultural survivals with Dutch culture traits. This creole culture and the people who participated in it I term Afro-Dutch, in much the same way that Afro-American refers both to the culture and the people. Afro-Dutch culture was a regional subculture of African-American culture. In many ways it was similar to the creole cultures of South America and the Caribbean.

Included in this essay are the following topics: the Jersey Dutch dialect, the Pinkster celebration, the "Guinea Dance," a fragment of a slave song, a "Negro Charm," the Paas celebration, and an African-American cigar-store Indian from Freehold, New Jersey.

http://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Afro-Dutch

http://www.academia.edu/3726524/Afro-Dutch_Folklore_and_Folklife