Black music from Scotland? It could be the gospel truth

[MarkRhodes]

Just a moment...

>>>>>[Afro-American professor of music at Yale Willie] Ruff, 71, a renowned jazz musician who played with Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie, is convinced the Florida congregation’s method of praise - called ‘presenting the line’, in which the psalms are called out and the congregation sings a response - came from the Hebrides.

Ruff explained: "They had always assumed that this form of worship had come from Africa, and why not?

"I said to him I had found evidence that it was Scottish people who brought this to the New World, but he just would not believe it. I asked him what his name was. He said McRae, and I just replied: ‘There you go’."
...."I have been to Africa many times in search of my cultural identity, but it was in the Highlands that I found the cultural roots of black America.<<<<<

[DawgBone]

My great great grandfather was a Scottish slave owner. There was plenty of "cross pollination" going on there in more ways than one.

[Bop Head]

Without being able to hear examples of what they talk about this theory is worth nothing for me.

[Doctor Jeff]

[Doctor Jeff]

I'm 55% Scottish and willing to assume the Scots had a role in a lot of stuff, but...

I believe it could have happened. Not familiar with Scottish church singing though.

There has always been a lot of cross-pollination. Slaves brought the banjo over from Africa, it was taken up by rural whites and became a bluegrass staple. A Belgian guy invents a new kind of horn, and it's taken up by early jazz players and made into the preeminent music of black jazz.

Mid-century rockers fused the blues--played on an instrument perfected by Spanish luthiers--with the country shuffle of white country and bluegrass musicians, inventing rock'n'roll.

[MarkRhodes]

[MarkRhodes]

[MarkRhodes]

[Bop Head]

Now I remember that Christian Miller once pointed me towards a typical example of Scottish call and response.

And thereby I can see now how the Scots influenced the whole of Africa.

[AKA]

Just a moment...

>>>>>[Afro-American professor of music at Yale Willie] Ruff, 71, a renowned jazz musician who played with Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie, is convinced the Florida congregation’s method of praise - called ‘presenting the line’, in which the psalms are called out and the congregation sings a response - came from the Hebrides.

Ruff explained: "They had always assumed that this form of worship had come from Africa, and why not?

"I said to him I had found evidence that it was Scottish people who brought this to the New World, but he just would not believe it. I asked him what his name was. He said McRae, and I just replied: ‘There you go’."
...."I have been to Africa many times in search of my cultural identity, but it was in the Highlands that I found the cultural roots of black America.<<<<<

C’mon. Everybody knows that the only thing that’s come from Africa is slaves. Right?

AKA

[Bop Head]

C’mon. Everybody knows that the only thing that’s come from Africa is slaves. Right?

AKA

I would say call and response is a universal human thing that was there already before the caves of Lascaux and before Stonehenge. You probably find it through all cultures on this planet.

[Stevebol]

Didn't the Scots invent Swiss cheese?

[MarkRhodes]

I would say call and response is a universal human thing that was there already before the caves of Lascaux and before Stonehenge. You probably find it through all cultures on this planet.

This would not surprise me.
In Ruff's case, he was not after the origin of call and response singing but of a particular kind of it (-line out Psalm singing) that he heard in the black churches of his youth in Alabama. He assumed it went back to Africa, but his studies and travels lead him to a different conclusion.
He traced it to Scotland and then traced the place in the US where the two cultures overlapped (Appalachia).

[Stevebol]

I never heard anything quite like that, expect for bagpipes. Celtic music goes back to India.

[ruger9]

Great article! Very interesting and thought-provoking!

[ggjaguar]

[RJVB]

The black humour that's halloween is also Scottish *) so why not black music.

*) And Irish, it appears.

As to black music in general ... you could print it in a different colour but that won't be as readable

[Stevebol]

Great article! Very interesting and thought-provoking!

No doubt. Celtic music is last ancient music in Europe.

[Bop Head]

No doubt. Celtic music is last ancient music in Europe.

Seems like you are not very educated regarding Europe's archaic music tradtions.

[Stevebol]

Seems like you are not very educated regarding Europe's archaic music tradtions.

With Scots-Irish music in Appalachia, music with harmonies would be considered to be 'showing off'. Modern.
Music of Northern India doesn't have harmonies to speak of.
By ancient I mean going back more than a couple 1,000 years.

[Stevebol]

Seems like you are not very educated regarding Europe's archaic music tradtions.

I suppose not but thanks for teaching Mexicans to play the accordian.
I'm working on my first album of Norteno songs about the trials and tribulations of drug cartels.

I live in cartel country. What do I know. This stuff is more popular in S. Arizona than it is in Mexico.

[Bop Head]

With Scots-Irish music in Appalachia, music with harmonies would be considered to be 'showing off'. Modern.
Music of Northern India doesn't have harmonies to speak of.
By ancient I mean going back more than a couple 1,000 years.

Why shouldn't the music I posted go back more than a couple of 1,000 years? And not only the Sami chants in the first video.

The thing that discerns modern (originally) European music from other music cultures is not harmony but the invention of modulation in harmony.

Harmony is implied in every single note you play through the overtones. Ever tried to sing more than one voice at the same time?

An there is also a theory that polyphonic music developed through the echo and reverb of monophonic music sung in churches. Which might again be an euro-american-Christian-centric view because people attending rituals in stone-age caves would experience echo as well.

[pauln]

A Study In Scarlet, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes returning from a concert...

"It was magnificent," he said, as he took his seat. "Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood."

[Litterick]

Cecil Sharp House Choir performing The False Knight on the Road, as collected by Cecil Sharp in 1916 from Mrs T.G. Coates at Flag Pond, Tennessee, in the Appalachian Highlands.

[Stevebol]

This would not surprise me.
In Ruff's case, he was not after the origin of call and response singing but of a particular kind of it (-line out Psalm singing) that he heard in the black churches of his youth in Alabama. He assumed it went back to Africa, but his studies and travels lead him to a different conclusion.
He traced it to Scotland and then traced the place in the US where the two cultures overlapped (Appalachia).

Jimi Hendrix sounds like classical music to me. I'm sure people in institutions and churches can explain why it's not but that's what it sounds like to me.