| Ballads:
A song that tells a story. |
|
| Call
and Response: Comes from song leaders and choirs in West
Africa. Song leader calls out a phrase and choir responds with
a musical phrase. Can also occur between a singer and instruments. |
|
| Field
Holler: A musical verse sung over and
over, often used during work. |
|
| Groit:
Western
African social cast of singers and musicians. Traveled from
village to village singing the oral history of the people. Often
accompanied by an instrument that closely resembles the banjo. |
|
| Minstrel
Show:
Starting
early in the nineteenth century, white men with burnt cork smeared
on their faces to make them look black performed song, dance
and comedy routines loosely based on plantation life. Although
most of the minstrel's songs and skits make fun o the slaves,
they did spread a version of black music to a white audience
that had previously been completely ignorant of it |
|
| Powwow:
A north American Indian gathering to affirm and celebrate
tribal values through drumming, singing, dancing and feasting.
|
|
| Spirituals:
African American religious folk music
that contributed to blues. |
|
| Songster:
Traveling musician of the late nineteenth and early twenty centuries
whose repertoire included blues, ballads, spirituals and popular
tunes. Also
a pocket-sized book of song lyrics. |
|
| Work
Song: Field songs of slaves on plantations. |
