Challenge: Work Songs, Spirituals, and The Blues
Challenge: Work Songs, Spirituals, and The Blues
A short film showing a long distance trip on a wheelchair hand-cycle. The YouTube description says “It helps to have strong up beat music in your head when going up those hills”.
An Adidas advertisement showing someone wearing headphones and pushing himself to the limit.
The opening of the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, with Vangelis’ famously ‘modern’ electronic theme tune.
Questions
Why do so many runners listen to music?
How can music motivate people and help overcome physical obstacles?
Has anyone in your class ever used music to help them run a long distance?
What kind of music would be best for running?
What effect does it have on you? Can you think about why?
What qualities in this music can help you face a challenge?
What kind of music would not work for running?
Hint: Broadly speaking, music helps people overcome challenges in two ways...
By increasing positive feelings about the challenge they face By coordinating actual physical exertion with a musical pulse.
Listening to positive music with a strong beat while running is an illustration of both of these ways of overcoming challenge.
What do you think of when you hear the phrase ‘work song’?
Work songs developed as a means of helping the monotony and physical challenge of labour. They were used as a way of overcoming the physical and psychological barriers to completing the task at hand.
Listen closely to two or three of these work songs from around the world:
Tomazo na prale – a Haitian Work Song. The web page also has a translation of the text and some helpful pointers in listening to work songs.
Haul Away Joe (Sea Shanty). Lena and Urra - Sea Shanty from Sicily from the album Traditional Music & Songs from Italy, by Alan Lomax, USA.
The track is available as a download on iTunes. Work Song from a Texas Prison (1966).
Singing Fisherman of Ghana (the whole film can be found at www.folkstreams.net).
Musical Questions
How many singers can you hear?
Can you hear anything other than singing in these recordings?
Discuss how duration (rhythm) is used in work songs to help the workers be more efficient. Refer to Syncopation, Beat, Ostinato, Phrases, Call response.
Note the very clear strong and weak beats: work songs need a very definite and regular rhythm. The strong beats coordinate the work – the ‘heave’ of the oar, the blow of the hammer, the march of the right foot – helping with efficiency and stamina.
Note the short, simple phrases: these songs don’t aim to tell a story or express any deep thoughts. Workers don’t want to be thinking about words or melodies as they work; they simply want to keep going, work as efficiently as possible, and stay positive.
Syncopation is an accent that falls where we don’t expect it – a strong beat where we expect a weak beat, or a weak beat where we expect a strong beat.
Syncopation manipulates our urge to move on a strong beat and the surprise has an interesting effect on the human brain.
Bernstein’s theory was that when a strong beat is missing, we feel the need to fill it with a movement, which is why we clap or dance.
In the case of work songs, workers place their actions (hammering, pulling ropes, rowing, sawing, etc.) on the strong beats of the song.
This is a common structural element for work songs.
The ‘call’ could be issued by the work leader
The ‘Response’ means the workers could join in without thinking too much about the song.
Call and Response patterns gives ‘inertia’ to the workers, they keep working to stay on beat and helps them get into a rhythm.
How can music help to make a difficult job easier?
When do you use music to support you through challenges?
How is music used to express politically controversial or dangerous messages? Give an example.
How does music aid people in pushing through barriers and increasing possibilities?
Can you think of a contemporary musician who expresses challenge in his or her work?
Think of a musical challenge you have faced. How did you overcome it? “By breaking down skills into manageable targets, you can overcome even significant musical challenges.”
Can you think of an instance where this was true for you?
What possibilities opened up for you as a result overcoming this challenge?