An upcoming workshop at the Manitoba Conservatory of Music & Arts is delving into a centuries-old style of singing that is at the root of most styles of popular music today.
The three-part African-American Spirituals workshop, led by award-winning jazz vocalist Adele M. Wilding, is a look back at the multifaceted oral — and aural — tradition of songs that were brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
“When the enslaved arrived on American shores, they were not permitted to engage in their own languages,” Wilding said.
“They were stripped of their languages and their cultures, but they weren’t forbidden from singing, so the spirituals became vehicles for them to endure, and overcome the conditions in which they found themselves.
“The songs are about resilience and hope and some despair, as you might imagine.”
The workshop, which runs from March 9 to 23, is aimed at local singers (age 16-plus) who want to engage with the rich history of spirituals, but also to step outside of their comfort zones and experience an organic art form without the type of written music or formal notation they may be used to.
“The main form of sharing music in that tradition, in the West African tradition, is the aural and the oral method,” Wilding said.
“Somebody is singing or sharing something, you internalize it, and then you repeat it and share it with your community … and that gets repeated throughout the generations as well.
“It’s very important to remember those roots, honour them, and pass them on.”
Those roots aren’t as distant as they may seem. Wilding said their effect can be heard in — one of many examples — the blues-influenced rock guitar of the 1960s, which eventually developed through the decades into the modern rock of today. Those guitarists were influenced by traditional blues players of the early 20th century, who performed songs with direct inspiration from spirituals.
Wilding said the workshop participants will take on a series of specially chosen spirituals — not only songs of resilience and hope, but also songs that were used to transmit important messages to enslaved people longing for freedom, which, in many cases, meant escaping to Canada.
“Spirituals were (also) used as code and hidden messages to help them plan their escape from the southern United States, through the Underground Railroad, and then eventually up through the northern United States and, eventually, Canada.”
More information about the spirituals workshop can be found on the Manitoba Conservatory of Music & Arts website.
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