The Roots Of Tradition- Episode 1: Excerpts from the book "American Negro Songs and Spirituals".

This post is my Sound Story Project.   It is the application part of the Sound Editing and Podcast Exercise for Dr. ET's class as well.  I have chosen to title this, The Roots Of Tradition-  Episode 1: 

Culture and the arts are two of my deepest passions.  The pursuit of Knowledge, Consciousness, Spirit and Soul are driving forces in my life.  Respect for and understanding of diversity, along with appreciation of what and how we believe as individuals and societies is paramount for the possibility of knowing more of what our own beliefs are and for a lasting peace among ourselves.

The title of this post, The Roots Of Tradition, will be the home of searches and knowledge of traditions that have shaped individuals and cultures of our little planet.  I create it in hopes of learning more myself and sharing this knowledge with someone else along the way.  Enjoy!

On to Episode 1: Excerpts and Audio Examples from the book American Negro Songs and Spirituals. Below is a podcast I have created from an excerpt from the book I mentioned above.  You will hear my voice and some of the original recordings mentioned in the reading.  I found the recordings on Archive.org.  Because of time constraints of the class exercise, this is a shorter version than what an episode will actually be.

Below is the transcript for my podcast...
AUDIO INSERTS
Intro:

Thanks for dialing in to The Roots of Tradition. I am your host, Larry Cashion.  The Roots of Tradition, is a once-a-month podcast of content, dialogue and interviews surrounding the rich and diverse cultural heritages of our world.  

You are listening to Episode1: Excerpts and Audio Examples from the book titled American Negro Songs and Spirituals. There is no author acknowledgment in the book, but is edited by John W. Work of Fisk University. The book is a comprehensive collection of 230 religious and secular folks songs and contains seven chapters that are titled "Origins, The Spiritual, The Blues, Work Songs, Social and Miscellaneous, The Songs and Bibliography". 

I have chosen to read an excerpt starting on page 18 of the book, which explains the three basic types of traditional American Negro spirituals.  Here's that excerpt...

V.O.  - book reading pg. 18

Segue: - "The Songs"

Now we have a base of knowledge regarding the structure of the songs.  I did some digging on "the net" and found sound tracks of some of the songs I mentioned in the excerpt.

The first song is, The Great Camp Meeting and the second you'll hear is, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Both of these are examples of the "Call and Response Chant" category.  Let's listen to some short clip

(Insert SONG: #1 and #2)

The third song is, Nobody Knows the Touble I Seen, and is an example of the "slow, sustained, long phrase melody"
(Insert SONG: #3)

The fourth and final song is titled, Shout All Over God's Heab'n, and represents the "Syncopated Melody".
(Insert SONG: #4)

Outro:

That wraps the show for today.  I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll find your way back around to these parts again...

I'm Larry Cashion and again, thanks for listening to The Roots of Tradition.