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The start of African American music
The earliest form of black musical expression in America, spirituals were based on Christian psalms and hymns and merged with African music styles and secular American music forms. Spirituals were originally an oral tradition and imparted Christian values while also defining the hardships of slavery.t -
After Civil War
After the Civil War Black hymnals began to include music, but most of the arrangements employed the rhythmically and melodically straightforward, unembellished style of white hymnody. -
New musical style
Most significantly, the hymns were syncopated—that is, they were recast rhythmically by accentuating normally weak beats. Among the first hymnals to use this modified musical style was The Harp of Zion, published in 1893 and readily adopted by many Black congregations. -
Lift every voice and sing
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" was communally sung within Black communities, while the NAACP began to promote the hymn as a "Negro national anthem" in 1917. -
Pentecostal churches
The immediate impetus for the development of this new, energetic, and distinctly Black gospel music seems to have been the rise of Pentecostal churches at the end of the 19th century. Pentecostal shouting is related to speaking in tongues and to circle dances of African origin. participation persisted, so that ultimately Black gospel reached the white audience as well. -
New Instruments
Taking the scriptural direction “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord” (Psalm 150), Pentecostal churches welcomed tambourines, pianos, organs, banjos, guitars, other stringed instruments, and some brass into their services. Choirs often featured the extremes of female vocal range in call-and-response counterpoint with the preacher’s sermon.