In the African American context, there is seemingly a symbiotic and uncontested relationship between music and the Black religious experience. DuBois (1903) in his seminal text describes the characteristic features of Black religion as ‘The Preacher’, ‘The Music’ and ‘The Frenzy’, citing the music as ‘the most beautiful expression of human life’, (DuBois 1903: 178) and asserts an unquestionable relatedness between expressive culture and religious experience. The centrality of music is embedded in the historicity of
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that experience and numerous examples abound in regard to the use of music as a key identity marker and tool for liberation within this context. Notable texts include Ricks (1960), Cone (1972), Boyer (1973), Warrick et.al (1977), Boyer (1979), Burnim (1980a & b) Southern (1971 & 1983), Trulear (1985), Booker (1988), Lincoln and Mamiya (1990), Boyer 2000, Maultsby (1992) and straddle a number of different academic fields including Black religious studies, Black theology, anthropology and ethnomusicology. Rick’s (1960) work is noteworthy as one of the first PhDs written about musical participation in a number of different African American churches. It is also of relevance to this thesis insofar as he establishes a relationship between the musicological materials, belief systems and racial identity, arguing that the performative elements exhibit African retention traits.
Another notable study is that of Daniels’ (2008) who broadens the category of music to sound, arguing its role in challenging the Enlightenment’s privileging of the visual. Sound, including moans, shouts and spoken utterances are presented as definitive characteristics of Pentecostal worship. He defines early Pentecostal sound as ‘subversive’ buttressing the sanitized sound of the Protestants. While Daniels (2008) does not use the term ‘musical discourse’, his work nonetheless demonstrates the ability that music and sound have to communicate multiple meanings.
Other scholars refer to the roots of the gospel blues, emerging in the Pentecostal revival at Azusa Street25 (Boyer 1973 & 2000, Southern 1983, Allen 1991). Harris (1992) highlights the subsequent battle that occurred in some African American congregations inassuming a repertoire that was affirming of spiritual, artistic and social realities.26 A key
25The Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles took place between 1906 and 1913 and spawned a series of multi- racial meetings led by African American preacher William J. Seymour. These meetings, where several people spoke in tongues are often cited as the beginnings of Pentecostal movement (Burgess & Van Der Mass 2002). Kalu (2008: 13) however, disputes this historiography and states that similar activities took place in other regions.
26 When the mass migration took place from the rural South to the urban towns in the North, some leaders felt that the country folk needed to leave behind what they regarded as a lack of sophistication. The African
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aspect of this argument is the role of music in asserting and affirming a particular type of religious aesthetic rooted in a contested identity position.27
Furthermore, normative references are made to the link between Black Pentecostalism and the secular popular music industry and potential conflicts over differing worldviews. (Maultsby 1992, Abbingdon 2001, Reed 2003, Jackson 2004, Gallien (2011).28 This work is important in establishing African American Pentecostalism as a site where popular music is developed, negotiated and maintained. These scholars highlight the role played by African American Pentecostalism in the formulation of the popular music products and establishes its significance in terms of its musicological materials, psychological imperatives, and notions of a Black aesthetic. There is little in this work however that interrogates the musical activities inside of the churches.
Additionally, an abundance of literature identifies the importance of popular music as product and symbol of the Black church: key texts include Broughton (1985), Reagon American Church became a site of major cultural struggle. Urban mainstream churches maintained a diet of the Western classical musical tradition and the African American version of these churches were expected to conform to the same tradition. Harris (1992) explains that in the early part of the twentieth century, one could hear movements from Rossini’s Stabat Mater or Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Sunday morning worship services. It was felt by some African American leaders that adoption of the high art Western classical tradition would enable African Americans to more quickly assimilate into mainstream white society. Daniel Alexander Payne, the sixth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was one who fought tirelessly for what he viewed as a ‘higher standard of music’ (Harris 1992:8). His view was that by adopting the gospel songs- the blend of sacred texts and blues they would be: ‘hark(ing) back to the primitive “cornfield ditties” of enslavement’ (Harris 1992: xvii). Yet it would appear from the literature that despite the pressure from the leadership, few within the African American church were prepared to accept this cultural domination; and according to Harris (1992) it was only a short period of time before the gospel blues took over and spread like wildfire through the churches and gospel music was firmly rooted in the emergence of the new African American independent church. The style and character of the gospel blues suited the new church. Ricks states that the religion of the emancipated slave was characterized by emotional prayers, appeals to the Deity, an abundance of songs, an impassioned style of preaching, religious dance and the ‘phenomenon of possession’ (Ricks 1960:62). The phenomenon of possession almost certainly had links with African religions.
27 The essentialism of this position is not unrecognized. This understanding has to be located within the social, cultural and historical context. James Cone Black theologian assists in providing a cogent understanding of this background. In his seminal text “The Spiritual and the Blues” (1972), Cone has no difficulty in identifying certain styles and forms of music as expressively Black. These forms are Black because they are expressions and responses to the harsh realities and injustices of African American rural and urban experiences of white racist America. He describes the songs of the spirituals and the blues as being ‘essential’ components of Black identity and survival.
28 Gallien (2011) presents an engaging analysis of Sam Cooke, Donny Hathaway and Marvin Gaye exploring how the musical skill, fluency of communication and engagement with the Spirit gained from their
backgrounds in Holiness-Pentecostal churches contributed to their secular success, but also conflicted with them as they sought to reconcile what was viewed at the time as an insurmountable chasm between the sacred and the secular.
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(1992), Costen (1993), Collins, Power & Burnim (1989), Maultsby & Burnim (2017). However, apart from a few notable exceptions in a similar manner to the previous category, there is little focus on music in congregation settings and its contribution to corporate and individual identities. Exceptions reside in the field of ethnomusicology and these texts have been instructive in providing methodological frameworks for this study. Namely Hinson (2000), Butler (2000), McGann (2004), and Smith (2004). McGann (2004) uses an approach called ‘liturgical ethnography’ where an attempt is made to understand liturgical practice within the context of a community’s life, cultural heritage, social position and historical context. This rich ethnography uses music as a lens through which to explore the embodied theology of a Catholic29 congregation in Los Angeles. A theoretical focus on time, space, words, flow and embodiment using a Black hermeneutic locates the cultural production within the social and historical context. A similar approach is used by Hinson (2000) whose entire book undertakes the formidable task of describing one service in the life of an African American church. He focuses on their interaction with the Spirit – describing preaching, praying, testifying and singing to ‘explore the metaphysical and experiential worlds of the ‘saints’ (Hinson 2000: 7). Smith (2004) also focuses on a single African American Christian community exploring the interconnections between their religious belief and musical expressions. Butler’s (2000) work takes a corresponding approach in identifying the musical practices of a single congregation but problematizes the notion of a homogenous Black aesthetic. He addresses parallel concerns to this thesis which responds to the Africanisation of the UK Black church. Butler highlights the ‘transnational flow(s) relating to the Caribbeanization of Black churches’ (Butler 2000: 34) His concern however, is regarding a difference of aesthetic. Citing differences in musical styles between African Americans and West Indians, he critiques notions of how a Black church should sound. What these four theorists share in common is a privileging of the
29 Although the focus in this research is a Catholic congregation, the worshipping style described, is similar to that found in Pentecostal settings, demonstrating the impact that Pentecostalism has had on Christian worship.
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belief systems of the congregations through their musical analysis and an in-depth focus using ethnographic methods. Influenced by these scholars, I have adopted a comparable approach in foregrounding theological belief, alongside an analysis of the musical discourse using ethnography to portray the worship praxis. Nonetheless, my work differs in significant ways. Firstly, the historical, cultural and social context in which my work is located differs; but secondly and, more significantly, these scholars present the musical discourse as integral and emblematic of their religious praxis and therefore non- problematic and without contestation. By using Nattiez’s model of music discourse, my work seeks to understand congregational singing from an immanent, poietic and esthesic view point. This is, the experience of the music from an internal and external viewpoint. It is this external perspective that enables an analysis of the gaps, silences and ambiguities that may exist therein.