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Music and Dance
This week I decided to explore the spirituals in African American history. The songs sung during the Slavery years of the United States expressed the slaves deep desire for freedom, their strength, their struggle, but most of all their will to survive. The songs were also used to send coded messages to one another, for example the songs " Wade In The Water, and Deep River", warned the slaves to travel through the river to throw off their scent to the bloodhounds. African- American spirituals come from a combination of the institution of slavery, Christian influences, and African culture. Some off the songs recite phrases from the Old testament, for example"There Is a Balm in Gilead". Spirituals also stem from the " Ring Shout", which is a shuffling circular dance with hand clapping. When hearing the song you will noticed that most of them sound intense, slow, melancholic, and are typically sung in a call response form.

I listened to a song called " Nobody knows the trouble I've seen", by Louis Armstrong. In the song he is basically telling you that nobody knows the trouble he has seen besides Jesus. Armstrong was a well known Trumpeter and jazz singer. When he sung that song he sung with so much soul, his voice was smooth, and you could feel every bit of emotion with the words he sung throughout the song. That song is a great representation of the spirituals of African American history. I find it interesting to just sit back and listen to the songs that were sung back then, and hear all the emotion in the singer's voice. The songs were thought of as healing the soul, if a person can still sing and have faith through all the pain and suffering, I would think the same thing.