"
These represent a third step in the development of the slave
song, of which "You may bury me in the East" is the first,
and songs like "March on" (chapter six) and "Steal away"
are the second. The first is African music, the second Afro-
American, while the third is a blending of Negro music with
the music heard in the foster land. The result is still distinc-
tively Negro and the method of blending original, but the
elements are both Negro and Caucasian. One might go further
and find a fourth step in this development, where the songs of
white America have been distinctively influenced by the slave
songs or have incorporated whole phrases of Negro melody,
as "Swanee River" and "Old Black Joe." Side by side, too,
with the growth has gone the debasements and imitations--
the Negro "minstrel" songs, many of the "gospel" hymns,
and some of the contemporary "coon" songs,--a mass of
music in which the novice may easily lose himself and never
find the real Negro melodies.
In these songs, I have said, the slave spoke to the world.
Such a message is naturally veiled and half articulate. Words
and music have lost each other and new and cant phrases of a
dimly understood theology have displaced the older senti-
ment.
Pages:
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335