"SLAVE SCALE" ??
THEOldMan
whose name I didn't catch. He gave a little talk about Negro
spiritual songs being played on the "slave scale" which he said are
only the black keys. They would make a pentatonic scale ... this I
understand. He played, with one finger, a negro spiritual song and
then Amazing Grace, only on the five black keys, this along with the
story of John Newton? the writer of Amazing Grace. It was very
interesting and I decided to find out more about the so called "slave
scale". There is no references to that name on Google. Is anyone
familiar with "slave scale" <--- that name, that is.
Thanks,
dd
DanLemke
The singer was Wintley Phipps.
On the topic of John Newton, PBS ran a Bill Moyers documentary on "Amazing
Grace" quite a few years ago, which I happened across at Blockbuster Video.
It was an interesting look at the song, its origins, and its widespread
acceptance.
--
"Don't just make a statement; make a difference."
"THEOldMan" <ddal...@aol.com> wrote in message
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BigUn
statement?
"THEOldMan" <ddal...@aol.com> wrote in message
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Neal
from a technical music perspective search for "pentatonic scale". I don't
know that that will lead you to any historical info about the "slave scale"
though.
"THEOldMan" <ddal...@aol.com> wrote in message
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David Bruce Murray
"BigUn" <manws...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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> No, but can you imagine the public outcry if a white dude used that
> statement?
Especially since it was just the "black notes" on the keyboard.
Of course, the same scale can be played on the white notes, but that
distinction would be lost on all non-musicians and probably even on some
musicians who have only a marginal theoretical idea about music.
I've never heard it called a "slave scale" before Phipps presented his
explanation. The fact that "Amazing Grace" can be played on a pentatonic
scale is hardly proof that Newton heard slaves singing that particular tune
on his ship. It's possible, I suppose, but I think that's a major stretch.
MANY melodies use only five notes from the pentatonic scale, especially
melodies of oriental origin. Phipps is a great storyteller though, and I
think that's what this is . . . a story that sounds good to an audience. You
could use the same lack of logic to say John Newton must have known some
Chinese people who sang the melody to him.
FWIW, _The Celebration Hymnal_ doesn't even credit Newton as the composer of
the melody, just the lyrics. It's called a "traditional American melody from
Carrell and Clayton's _Virginia Harmony_, 1831."
--
David Bruce Murray / dmur...@NOSPAMrfci.net
---Making hay while the sun shines---
"I know a pagan piano riff when I hear it." ---Dr. Bobby Clark
written May 7, 2003 by "The Original Tenor of the Cathedral Quartet"
Larry Davis
was mightily moved by Mr. Phipps rendition. His premise, however, is
utterly wrong because Newton wrote the words to Amazing Grace but he
was not the person who set them to the tune that is (more or less)
currently used. That tune was an American folk tune. So the idea of
the slapping of the waves on the ship and the moaning of the Negro
slaves is romantic but simply not true.
The original version of Amazing Grace, with the 1835 notes and
structure, is not the same as what appears in the hymnals. The only
place I know that it is published is in the Sacred Harp songbooks.
As far as "slave scale," a five-tone scale such as is used in Amazing
Grace is not an unusual scale. It is used in the Orient for most of
their music. I have already pointed out that the tune for Amazing
Grace is not African in origin. I have studied African music for
years, have read Ven Vechten, and in particular James Weldon Johnson's
(he ought to know) "American Negro Spirituals". I have also studied
extensively the work of Jackson, Waters, Ford-Smith, and others. I
have never heard of a "slave scale". I would suppose that Johnson's
book, and maybe Marshall Stearns "The Story of Jazz" would be the most
authoritative books on American Negro music (African-American if you
will). Neither of them mention a "slave scale".
Also, a cursory glance at the various Negro spirituals immediately
reveals that the majority of them were not written in a pentatonic
scale.
None of which, of course, detracts from the power of the presentation
on the Gaither video, the tragedy of slavery and oppression, and the
nobility of the slave sorrow-songs.
Martin Luther King said, in his great sermon (not political) "A Knock
at Midnight", that the Bible asks a question, "Is there a balm in
Gilead?" He said that the Negroes, suffering under the oppression of
slavery, with nothing to look forward to every day but rows of cotton
and the lash, did an amazing thing. As Dr. King said, they
straightened Jeremiah's question mark into an exclamation point and
declared, "There IS a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole, there
is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul."
Wonderful.
Larry Davis
Atlanta, GA
Ruthfro...@webtv.net
children of men who are in prison. He does a wonderful recitation of a
poem on another Gaither video called "Go Down Death".
Claire Byerley Plunk
questions about the so called "Slave Scale."
http://www.thebluehighway.com/history.html
"THEOldMan" <ddal...@aol.com> wrote in message
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David Bruce Murray
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> This site might clear up a few things for the people who might have
> questions about the so called "Slave Scale."
> http://www.thebluehighway.com/history.html
Or generate more questions and/or confusion. Read the "Conclusion" section.
In typical educated-ese, Baker cites a reference that says the blues can't
be defined or even agreed upon by musicologists. His article is called a
"brief history," but is mostly an exercise in theorectical discussion.
Actually, it looks like the guy read a few sources and parroted them back,
pointing out discrepancies of opinion between the sources. It's a decent
college report. I'd give it an A if I were the teacher, but I wouldn't quote
him as an authority on the subject.
Music theorists love to find differing ways for explaining the same music.
The point of a theorist is not to define music in the one and only way it
can be defined, but to explain it in a consistent, methodical manner. Any of
those explanations COULD possibly work. None are definitive.
It's clear from listening to traditional blues artists that they like to
sing between the cracks in the piano. It's thus clear that, although blues
music typically has a tonal center, the twelve note Western scale is at
most, a suggestion to the performer . . . not a guide. Obviously, a modern
blues artist who chooses the piano as his instrument is going to be limited
to those twelve notes and make do with minor third tonalities and/or grace
notes. Singers and instrumentalists who have the liberty of bending pitches
still take advantage of that option, though.
Larry Davis
didn't find it to be all that academic. I don't know if the guy was
writing down to people who don't know anything about music or if he
just didn't know now to talk about things in a musicological way. The
book I recommended earlier, The Story of Jazz, has a much better
discussion on the issue. Also, there is some low-key discussion in
parts of "Just Mahalia Baby," the monumental biography of Mahalia
Jackson.
Anyone interested in musical structure should try to obtain from your
local library, directly or by loan, the Norton Lectures on music by
Leonard Bernstein. Maestro Bernstein was able, despite his profound
musical knowledge, to show how music is constructed in a way that a
child can understand it. I recommended this series to an old gospel
singer in his 70's who started singing when he was 15. He said to me
later, "I wish I had seen this when I started, I'd have had a better
understanding as to what we were doing and why it worked."
The western musical scale is a tempered chromatic scale (more or
less), whereas African music is in a diatonic scale. What happens that
makes blues and the kind of black gospel done by Mahalia Jackson,
Ethel Waters, and Willie Mae Ford Smith work so well is that they've
been able to marry the two types of music.
Mahalia, for instance, is always better in her recordings live in a
black church rather than the studio Columbia recordings or even live
before a white audience. It's always interesting to see her get
carried away in front of a white audience and start that hollerin'
kind of singing that she was best at, when the Spirit would get hold
of her. It's really not the Mahalia that most people know.
Now, when you engage in harmony, 4- or 5-part harmony, like say, the
Fairfield Four, the diatonic aspects have to be more muted because of
the harmonics, but the Fairfields, well the old guys who are mostly
dead now, could really do some of that stuff better than you would
think possible. If you don't have the recording, "Wrecking the
Church," which is an old live recording, well, you should get it.
Anyway, we are talking here about two different approaches to the
structure of music, and the attempts to join them together in blues,
jazz, some popular, even some classical, and certainly, the older
black gospel. It's exciting to make this kind of music. Of course, the
African-American version of white music, adapted to their style, can
also be stunningly creative and interesting. I played for an
African-American lady who sang old-fashioned gospel and it was quite a
challenge, musically, to get into her groove, so to speak, and let it
carry me. We had a great time making music together.
Larry D
Atlanta, GA
Kyle Ziglar
melody for Amazing Grace a "blues scale." Played the traditional way, it
does not sound that way to me.
dack jarvis
Gaither Tape, Wentley Phipps (sp?) seemed to have done his research.
When you say "played the traditional way", are you referring to the
original slave tune from Africa, or the church-ified version most of us
are familiar with?
Here's some interesting background links (may or may not seem helpful:
http://www.gamoravian.org/may_2003_music_notes.htm (referenced the
"Slave Scale", with suggestion of John Newton's hearing of it)
http://hem.passagen.se/daveo/roots_english.htm
http://www.faithalone.org/journal/1993ii/J11-93e.htm
http://www.margaretbrandman.com/arti.html
Kyle Ziglar wrote:
--
Dackleigh Robinson Jarvis III
"Democracy is not a faith-based initiative"
David Bruce Murray
news:10i2h1v...@corp.supernews.com...
> I've read the posts and actually learned a lot.
Well, brace yourself! 'Cause you're about to learn a lot more. :o)
> My question is, is the
> melody for Amazing Grace a "blues scale." Played the traditional way, it
> does not sound that way to me.
No, a blues scale will add at least one "blue note" (a half step) to a
pentatonic scale. That's what differentiates a blues scale from other
scales. A blues guitar player in the key of G will almost always play some F
naturals, for example, even though F is normally sharp in the key of G.
"Amazing Grace" can certainly be played in a blues manner, but the basic
melody itself is not blues . . . it's the simpler five note pentatonic
scale.
Also, Phipps' introduction to "Amazing Grace" on the _God Bless America_
Gaither video, while well told and potentially inspiring for gullible fans,
was based on misleading information. If he had done his research before
concocting his story, he would have revised it considerably.
John Newton wrote the lyrics to "Amazing Grace" and published them in the
_Olney Hymns_ in 1779 along with 280 other hymns he had written, plus 77
more written by William Cowper ("There Is A Fountain," "God Moves In A
Mysterious Way," Etc.). This is historical fact. "Amazing Grace" was number
41 in _Olney Hymns, Book 1_. The hymnal is online at the following link . .
.
http://www.ccel.org/n/newton/olneyhymns/olneyhymns/TOC.htm
The Preface makes for some interesting reading. Cowper suffered a nervous
breakdown and had to be committed to an insane asylum at one point. He also
attempted suicide. This is the struggle Newton refers to in the preface.
From all I can gather, the hymns were originally written in specific meters,
which could then be sung to a variety of tunes. I don't think there was any
music notated in the Olney hymnbook . . . just the lyrics.
"Amazing Grace, How Sweet The Sound" has six verses written by Newton.
Modern hymnals typically contain three or four of those verses today, plus a
fifth written around 1859 by John Rees ("When we've been there, etc.").
Newton is often portrayed as a man who became convicted that slave trading
was wrong after surviving a storm at sea, after which he wrote "Amazing
Grace" immediately and became a staunch abolitionist. Like the Phipps story,
that's not exactly true either.
_Olney Hymns_ was published MANY years after Newton's conversion from a
sinner/slave trader to being a Christian in 1748 at the age of 23. Newton
was a minister in Cambridge, England at the time the hymnal was published 31
years later. There's nothing that indicates John Newton ever sung the lyrics
of "Amazing Grace" to the tune we use today, yet Phipps would have us think
Newton remembered a tune from 30 years or so in his past and used it for
"Amazing Grace." It wasn't until 1785, that Newton began actively speaking
out against slavery. It was a gradual change, though, not immediate like the
legends would have you believe.
John Newton died in 1807, by the way.
See:
http://www.snopes.com/religion/amazing.htm
Now, that covers the lyrics and Newton . . . what about the tune? The first
record we have of the current tune for "Amazing Grace" is in the year 1831
when it was published in a tune book called _Virginia Harmony_. That's 52
years after the lyrics were written and 24 years after Newton's death. The
tune is considered to be a popular AMERICAN folk melody of that time, not a
slave melody. In fact, the Stamps-Baxter hymnals and others of the 1900s
used to attribute the melody to a man named William Walker, but all modern
hymnals reference the appearance in _Virginia Harmony_ as the first source
for the tune.
I've also heard the tune referred to as a Scottish melody, and it does sound
pretty convincing when performed on bagpipes. It may not be, but it holds
more water as Phipps' story historically speaking. You see it listed as a
"traditional Scottish tune" on a number of Scottish websites, while Phipps
is the only one I've heard claim it as a "spiritual." Also, the tune name
given when it was published in _Virginia Harmony_ in 1831 is NEW BRITAIN,
suggesting a possible Scottish origin. See:
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Amazing%20Grace
William Walker probably got credit for writing the melody because he was the
first to publish the tune and lyrics together. This took place in 1835 in a
tune book called _Southern Harmony_, four years after the tune first
appeared in _Virginia Harmony_.
Anothe problem with Phipps' story is that the five note pentatonic scale is
common in ALL forms of folk music, including folk music that came long
before John Newton's time. Even folk music of non-Western cultures adopt the
pentatonic scale or something very close . . . the Japanese, for example.
Yet Phipps would have you think the scale was unique by the slaves. I just
about laughed out loud when he played on the "black notes" to associate it
with black people. Then he said the white people were using a slave scale
when they compose music using just the black notes. Say what?? Then he said
all credible references to "Amazing Grace" call the composer "unknown," and
he wants to meet the slave named "Unknown" when he gets to Heaven. Then
Phipps sings the song "the way John Newton probably first heard it coming up
out of the belly of the ship."
You have to give him credit, though. The crowd loved it. Still, it's
historically inaccurate.
For further reading, see:
http://www.harpercollins.com/catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0060002182
quoted in part, below:
"The hymn made its way across the Atlantic to South Carolina, where the
lyrics were published FOR THE FIRST TIME (emphasis mine) with a tune.
Through the nineteenth century it appeared in more and more hymnals, and in
the twentieth century it rose to become a gospel and folk standard, then
exploded into pop music with Judy Collins's masterful 1970 a capella
recording, which took over the charts. The majority of the more than 450
recordings held by the Library of Congress were made after 1970 and include
versions by artists as varied as Elvis Presley, Ladysmith Black Mambazo,
Tiny Tim, A] Green, Johnny Cash, Rod Stewart, Chet Baker, and Destiny's
Child."
Also:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=260221086612352
And a funny take on it by a German:
http://www.grainger.de/music/songs/amazing.html
--
David Bruce Murray / dbmu...@NOSPAMmailblocks.com
---Making hay while the sun shines---
Classical Music at: http://virtualvirtuoso.iuma.com
For all my reviews and more, visit: www.musicscribe.com
---"I know a pagan piano riff when I hear it." (Dr. Bobby Clark, 5/7/03)---
David Bruce Murray
"David Bruce Murray" <dbmu...@NOSPAM.mailblocks.com> wrote in message
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> "Amazing Grace, How Sweet The Sound" has six verses written by Newton.
> Modern hymnals typically contain three or four of those verses today, plus
a
> fifth written around 1859 by John Rees ("When we've been there, etc.").
By the way, the reason the fifth verse became associated with the song is
because Harriet Beecher Stowe printed it the two hymn lyrics together in
_Uncle Tom's Cabin_. The verse by Rees was originally from a song called
"Jerusalem, My Happy Home." . . . it makes me think of other mixups and
misconceptions brought on by literature . . . like Faulkner when one of his
characters refers to "Benjamin sold into Egypt" in _The Sound And The Fury_
. . . I'm thinking the whole time I'm reading it . . . um, it was Joseph who
was sold into Egypt, not Benjamin. What a weird book to make tenth graders
read, BTW.
But I'm glad the Rees verse got attached to "Amazing Grace." It wouldn't
seem complete without it now.
I am annoyed, though, when I want to sing "Brethren We Have Met To Worship"
in the _Celebration Hymnal_ and find the lyrics have been revised to appease
feminists. If it's that offensive, why didn't they just leave it out? No,
instead they have to re-write it and confuse half the congregation who are
used to singing the older version.
dack jarvis
(which makes me glad I said "I'm not an expert..." in this thread!)
David Bruce Murray wrote:
> (lots of interesting information)