II

The discussion of the negroes' claim to the title 'American' would be perhaps out of place at this late date, and particularly in this place, were it not that a considerable class of American citizens has denied to them not only social equality but equal consideration and opportunity as a native citizen of the country. The preponderance of European blood in the nation hardly justifies this any more than it would justify the exclusion of the large number of Americans that are of anciently oriental origin. In contrast with this the name 'American' is never denied to the Indian, but priority of settlement can hardly be argued in his favor, for by such reasoning the negro has superior claims over some of the 'elect' of the white elements among Americans. Negroes were sold into slavery in Virginia before the landing of the Pilgrims in 1790. The first census of the United States showed 759,208 negroes, and to-day they constitute nearly 13 per cent. of the entire population. Their intellectual powers have been amply proved by the achievements of individual members of the race, in science, in education, and in the arts. It is hardly necessary to name such men as Booker T. Washington, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Dr. Burghardt DuBois in support of this. Mr. Krehbiel, however, does well in quoting the last-named of these in proving the present contention:

'Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought three gifts and mingled them with yours—a gift of story and song, soft stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third a gift of the Spirit. Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation's heart we have called all that was best, to throttle and subdue what was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice have billowed over this people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right....'

The negroes' songs are sung in the language of the country—or a dialect of it; and, while they do not voice the sentiments of the entire population—no song in a country so heterogeneous could do that—they are American songs by the same right that the peasant songs of Russia are Russian or the song of any other class of Americans would be American.

In order to prove the originality of the negro folk-song it has been necessary to combat the opinion of so learned a writer as Dr. Wallaschek,[63] who has contended that these songs are 'unmistakably "arranged"—not to say ignorantly borrowed—from the national songs of all nations, from military signals, well-known marches, German students' songs, etc., unless it is pure accident which has caused me to light upon traces of so many of them.' This radical statement, while it has the force of scientific deduction, is erroneous in the premises upon which these deductions are based. Dr. Wallaschek has relied too freely upon the testimony of travellers whose musical knowledge is doubtful and he has evidently confused genuine slave songs with imitations of them, such as the so-called minstrel tunes written by whites. Besides, as Mr. Krehbiel very plausibly remarks, 'similarities exist between the folk-songs of all peoples. Their overlapping is a necessary consequence of the proximity and intermingling of peoples, like modifications of language; and there are some characteristics which all songs except those of the rudest and most primitive kind must have in common. The prevalence of the diatonic scales and march-rhythms, for instance, make parallels invariable. If the use of such scales and rhythms in the folk-songs of the American negroes is an evidence of plagiarism or imitation, it is to be feared that the peoples whose music they put under tribute have been equally culpable with them. Mr. William Francis Allen—with Charles Pickard Ware and Lucy McKim Garrison the compiler of the most famous collection of negro songs[64]—while admitting that negro music is partly imitative of the music of the whites, says that 'in the main it appears to be original in the best sense of the word, and the more we examine the subject, the more genuine it appears to be.' Only in a very few songs does Mr. Allen trace strains of less familiar music which the slaves heard their masters sing or play. In spite of this, the songs themselves prove that they are the spontaneous utterances of an entire people. As in the case of all folk-songs, their first germs were uttered by individual spokesmen, but these germs were such genuine reflections of sentiments common to all and were subjected to such modifications in their travels from lip to lip as to assume the character of a composite expression of the race. They are indeed 'original and native products. They contain idioms transplanted hither from Africa, but as songs they are the product of American institutions, of the social, political, and geographical environment within which their creators were placed in America; of the joys, sorrows, and experiences which fell to their lot in America.'

Having established the 'Americanism' and the originality of the negro folk-song, and having stated the presence of an African as well as European element, we may now attempt to point definitely to instances of both. Generally speaking, the African characteristics consist of rhythmic and melodic aberration, while the European ingredients find expression in the harmonic structure and the style of the melodies as far as they are influenced by that structure. But this statement is subject to qualifications. While the African, like every other exotic race, is generally innocent of harmonic science, travellers have brought evidences of a genuine natural feeling for harmony among the African tribes. Thus a German officer recounted to John W. D. Moodie[65] how his playing of an aria from Gluck's Orfeo on the violin was immediately imitated with accompaniments by the native Hottentots. Peter Kolbe, writing in 1719, testified to the Hottentots' playing of their gom-goms in harmony, and Mr. Krehbiel records the singing of a Dahoman minstrel at the World's Columbian Exposition (1893) to the accompaniment of a Chinese harp as follows: 'With his right hand he played over and over again a descending passage of dotted crotchets and quavers in thirds; with his left hand he syncopated ingeniously on the highest tuned string.' According to the same writer, another investigator, Dr. Wangemann, transcribed a hymn by a Kaffir in which the solos were sung in unison but the refrain in full harmony. These instances should give some clue to the extraordinary ability of negroes to 'harmonize,' that is, improvise harmonies to a given melody.

Of course, the strongest musical accomplishment of the African is his extraordinary command of rhythm. As is the case with most primitive music, the rhythm of the African music is determined by the native dances. The drum, which marks the rhythm, is the most important instrument of the African, and his ability upon it is nothing short of marvellous. He has developed a 'drum language' which he uses in signalling in war time and for communication at long distance. 'The most refined effects of the modern tympanist seem to be put in the shade by the devices used by African drummers in varying the sound of their instruments so as to make them convey meanings, not by conventional formulas but by actual imitation of words.'[66] Their ability to use cross rhythms and intricate effects of syncopation is evidently inherited by the American negroes, whose prowess in that direction may be verified in a thousand dance halls. Syncopation and the peculiar form of it which Mr. Krehbiel refers to as the 'Scotch snap' is indeed the outstanding characteristic of all negro music. The short note on a strong beat immediately followed by a longer one on a weak beat, and the consequent shifted rhythm popularly known as 'ragtime' is scarcely ever absent in negro folk-music. That it is a heritage from Africa seems to be conclusively proved by the recording of such melodies as these:

Drum Call from West Africa.

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Hottentot Melody.

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Next to their rhythmic snap, the most radically outlandish characteristic of the negro songs is their frequent variation from the diatonic scale. This most often takes the form of a raised (major) sixth in a minor key (while the seventh is not varied or is omitted altogether); the raised seventh in the minor scale, or the flattened seventh in the major. Besides these 'wild notes,' as Mr. Krehbiel calls them, there are omissions of certain notes of the scale that produce a decided exotic effect. Thus we have the major scale without the seventh or without the fourth, and the minor scale without the sixth. The major scale with both the fourth and the seventh omitted, in other words the pentatonic scale, familiar in all primitive and exotic music as well as in certain folk-tunes, notably the Celtic, is also present in negro song. There are, moreover, examples in the so-called whole-tone scale.

The effect produced by these aberrations constitutes the most beautiful quality of negro music. We cannot refrain from quoting here an example or two. The raised sixth in the minor scale is most exquisitely shown in the famous 'spiritual' 'You May Bury Me in de Eas',' which we quote in full, without harmonization:[67]

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You may bur-y me in the East, You may bur-y me in the West; But I'll
hear the trump-et sound In that morn-ing. In that morn-ing, my Lord,
How I long to go, For to hear the trump-et sound, In that morn-ing.

Another instance is seen in the second section of 'Come Tremble-ing Down,' the first part of which is in C major, turning into A minor with a striking disregard of harmonic convention, and proceeding as follows:

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Come trem-ble-ing down, go shout-ing home, Safe in the sweet arms of
Je-sus, Come Je-sus, 'Twas just a-bout the break of day, King Je-sus stole my
heart a-way, 'Twas just a-bout the break of day, King Je-sus stole my heart a-way.

Such examples contain nothing that is imitative. Their disregard for the natural progressions of diatonic melody leave no doubt that the negro possessed, to begin with, a wholly independent sense of tonality, which sense he has in some measure retained or compromised. As an instance of the minor seventh in the major scale take 'A Great Camp Meetin'.' We quote only the last three measures of the first section in order to establish the key:

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Don't you get a-weary, Dere's a great camp-meet-in' in de prom-ised land,
Gwine to mourn an' neb-ber tire,——— mourn an' neb-ber tire,
mourn an' neb-ber tire;— Dere's a great camp-meet-in' in de prom-ised land.

And, as a last example of tunes that have little in common with any other kind of folk-song, a melody worthy of the sophistication of an ultra-modern composer, let us add 'O'er the Crossing':

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Bend-in' knees a-ach-in', Bod-y rack'd wid pain, I wish I was a child of God, I'd
git home bime-by. Keep-prain', I do be-lieve We're a long time wag-gin' o' de
cross-in'. Keep pray-in', I do be-lieve We'll git home to heav-en bime-by.

There are many, many more.[68] Melodic imagination of a high order would be required to produce consciously such melodies as these. There is in them little that is trivial, nothing that is frivolous. Even the 'rhythmic snap' never sounds cheap in true negro music, as distinct from worthless imitations and so-called popular music—'coon songs' and the like. Note the following as a noble example of its use:

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No-bod-y know's the trou-ble I see, Lord, No-bod-y know's the trou-ble I see;
No-bod-y know's the trou-ble I see, Lord, No-bod-y knows but Je-sus.
Broth-ers, will you pray for me, will you pray for me,
Brothe-rs, will you pray for me, And help me to drive old Sa-tan a-way?

In summing up the melodic and rhythmic characteristics of negro tunes we may state the apparently contradictory fact that the great majority of them are in the major mode, notwithstanding their almost ever-present note of sadness. Out of 527 songs analyzed by Mr. Krehbiel 416 are in ordinary major, only 62 in ordinary minor, 23 'mixed and vague,' and 111 pentatonic. Herein the negro folk-song differs from most other folk-songs. Its Southern habitat would, of course, seem to predispose it to major, and thus it bears out the argument in favor of climatic influence. Nevertheless the effect of sadness in the melodies does not escape us. Often it is produced by the aberrations of which we have spoken; but more often it is less tangible. In the words of Dr. DuBois 'these songs are the music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; and they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.'

Practically all of the songs are in duple and quadruple rhythm, triple time is extremely rare. The rhythmic propulsion is always strong. The persistent excitement of rhythm is evidently an African relic and the sense of it is so strong as to overcome the natural tendencies of the text. 'The negroes keep exquisite time,' says Mr. Allen, 'and do not suffer themselves to be daunted by any obstacle in the words. The most obstinate hymns they will force to do duty with any tune they please and will dash heroically through a trochaic tune at the head of a column of iambs with wonderful skill.'

The form of the songs is, of course, determined by the structure of the verse. They are composed of simple two-and four-bar phrases. Four such usually make up a stanza, while four more are comprised in the 'chorus' often placed at the beginning of the song and repeated after every verse. The stanzas of the older songs commonly contain an alternating solo and refrain; the second and fourth lines are usually given to the refrain and the first and third to the verse, the third being often a repetition of the first. In some cases the refrain occupies three lines and the verse the remaining one. 'The refrain is repeated with each stanza,' says Mr. Allen concerning the manner of performance, 'the words of the verse are changed at the pleasure of the leader, or fugleman, who sings either well-known words, or, if he is gifted that way invents verses as the song goes on.'[69]

Some difficulty was experienced by those who have transcribed the music of the negroes in reproducing 'the entire character' of the songs by the conventional symbols of the art. This is due in part to the primitive elements in the music, and in part to the peculiar manner of the performance. The characteristic improvisational style of the negro, the peculiar quality of the voices, and the slurring of certain values are all necessary in order to produce the proper effect. Moreover, the improvised harmony, simple as it was, had become an inherent part of the music not easily to be reproduced. The following description, taken from 'Slave Songs in the United States,' may be illuminating in this connection:

'There is no singing in parts, as we understand it, and yet no two appear to be singing the same thing; the leading singer starts the words of each verse, often improvising, and the others who "base" him, as it is called, strike in with the refrain, or even join in the solo when the words are familiar. When the "base" begins the leader often stops, leaving the rest of the words to be guessed at, or it may be they are taken up by one of the other singers. And the "basers" themselves seem to follow their own whims, beginning when they please and leaving off when they please, striking an octave above or below (in case they have pitched the tune too high), or hitting some other note that "chords," so as to produce the effect of a marvellous complication and variety and yet with the most perfect time and variety, and yet rarely with any discord. And what makes it all the harder to unravel a thread of melody out of this strange network is that, like birds, they seem not infrequently to strike sounds that cannot be precisely represented by the gamut and abound in "slides" from one note to another and turns and cadences not in articulated notes.'

A word should be added here regarding the instruments used by the negro. The one most closely identified with him is, of course, the banjo, which, in a primitive form, he is said to have brought from Africa. The 'banjar' to which Thomas Jefferson refers in his 'Notes on Virginia' was an instrument of four strings, or perhaps less at first, whose head was covered with a rattlesnake's skin, and which resembled closely an instrument used by the Chinese. (Cf. Vol. I, p. 54.) It is thought that the original banjo was a melodic rather than a harmonic instrument, which is the peculiar office of its modern off-spring, and, since the negro's music was at first purely melodic, it must have been accordingly played. The tuning, too, was probably very different from that of the banjo of to-day.

Besides this, the negro's chief instrument was the drum, as already indicated. There were two principal sizes, made of a hollowed log (the smaller one often of bamboo sections) over the end of which sheep or goat skin was stretched. These drums were played in a horizontal position, the player sitting on the instrument astride. Then there were rattles, some like the Indians', some consisting of a jaw-bone of an animal, across which a piece of metal was 'rasped'; also the morimbabrett, consisting of a small shallow box of thin wood, with several sections of reed, of graduated lengths, placed across it, the ends of which were plucked by the player. The familiar Pan's pipes, made from two joints of brake cane ('quills') and various noise instruments—'bones,' triangle, tambourine, and whistles—were all made to do duty. But when the negro had become thoroughly civilized the violin became his favorite instrument, and the 'technique' he achieved upon it without any real training has often astonished the white listener.