Gospel Music

 

Gospel music or rather African American gospel music was an outgrowth of Christian hymnal music that was forced upon the African American community of the 17th & 18th centuries. The gospel church brought forth a certain kind of hymn called “the spiritual”, a form of African American music that was key in the development of polyphonic gospel music.

 

The Vocals

The lyrics are words of love, hope, salvation, words to uplift relying heavily on the Christian Bible. Contemporary gospel, urban contemporary gospel (black gospel), southern gospel and, modern contemporary Christian music all share sacred lyric. Later on, some gospel music especially after Ray Charles’s “I Got a Woman”, became less sacred in lyrics department and featured more of the music of gospel which went on to influence R&B and soul.

Gospel music utilizes the “call & response” vocal techniques used most often by the preacher and the choir, usually with a band accompaniment. Along with call & response, gospel shares many characteristics with the blues as with R&B and soul. Although gospel shares characteristics with the blues, many gospel music purists consider the two forms of music on opposite poles.

The music is a powerful force of vocals usually featuring several talented vocalists who can use advanced vocal techniques. The choir and the separation of polyphony or rather harmony among the voices (usually soprano, alto, tenor, and bass) is crucial to the overall sounds of gospel music.

The lead vocals or the preacher in gospel music utilize vocal techniques that can consist of vibrato (a regular pulsating change of pitch); coloratura (or the coloring of a melody with runs, trills, leaps and other voice projection techniques); sostenuto (the sustaining of a note over a long period); singing in legato, subtly connecting notes and phrases in a smooth manner; and melismas (the singing of one syllable while moving between different notes in succession).

 

Gospel’s Development

Gospel music started to change or cleave off of the older hymnal and spiritual music by becoming more rhythmic and dependent on the foundation of a sizable band. Many of the worshippers could now join in with the music by singing and clapping along and using any kind of percussion instrument.

A lot of gospel music features a band (organ, guitar, bass, drums), sometimes with horns (sax, cornets, trombones) and strings. The tempo is very fast starting around 120 beats per minute to 150 beats per minute or higher, which can induce many interesting effects on one’s person.

Gospel music especially of the 20th century becomes very transcendental in nature by using a very fast pulse and rhythm in order to induce a trance-like state of euphoria and connectedness. Many would look forward to Sunday morning for the release of energy and expression of religious love in the music.

 

The Popularity of Gospel

Along with any other kind of music, there are always complaints of commercialization. With the modernization of the recording music industry, gospel music has become a very commercially successful genre in its own right in the later-half of the 20th century and early 21st.

Gospel music gives you an uplifting feeling you get when the lead singer is giving the final crescendo at the apex of an old modernized spiritual. It’s electrifying, the thrill of pins & needles when it truly feels like a spiritual “phenomenon”.

The nature of gospel music can conjure up strong emotional feelings that reflect an expression of the human state, unlike other genres. The trance-like state of euphoria that music, in particularly gospel and dance music, can induce is central to the development of human spiritualism and expression going back to the hunter-gatherer campfires.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing Gospel music in several groups and I can’t deny the feeling that overcomes you when playing Gospel or soul music. The only way to describe it is as spiritual. Gospel is a lot of fun to play, especially with a great choir, the music goes by so fast and then after, you realize how much fun it was and that you received a good workout physically, mentally and of course spiritually.