John J. Sheinbaum
© 2004 by The Spirituals Project
No portion of this material may be reproduced by any means without written permission from the author.
The repertory of spirituals is incredibly rich and varied. This extends from the hundreds of songs themselves to the many different meanings one can find in them, and to the many different perspectives one can take when trying to understand them. Whether a student, performer, scholar, or listener, our experience of spirituals can be enlivened by confronting some of the important issues that have arisen throughout their history.
This section sketches a number of binary oppositions, “either-or” ways of thinking about spirituals that have, for better or worse, shaped our culture’s response to this music. Some see spirituals as a “pure” African-American music, and others highlight the extent to which spirituals may be derived from mixed sources. In a related orbit, some choose to concentrate on spirituals as a form of folksong, while others focus on spirituals in an art song or choral format, the mode of performance that brought spirituals to most listeners’ ears. There are also distinct differences between trying to understand spirituals in their historical and cultural context, and trying to understand them through “the music itself.” This section also includes a discussion of how spirituals have been performed and understood differently over time. Click on one of the links below to explore one of these areas:
It seems quite clear that spirituals rarely fall entirely on any single side of these issues. And indeed, few people deeply involved with this music argue for one position to the exclusion of the other. But such binary oppositions often underlie many approaches, and this is in no small part related to the history of race in the United States. Instead of searching for clear resolutions, for a single right answer or definitive statement that one approach is better than the other, I would suggest that these issues are provocative cruxes, areas of tension that can lead us to further investigation and fruitful thought. The contradictions and complexities bound up in spirituals and in the ways we have tried to understand them are a distinct source of their depth and power.