A friends sent me a link that I found really remarkable, and I want to share it with you.
The thing about the video you will see (which I first viewed at http://pjcockrell.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/amazing-grace-just-the-black-notes) is that I doubt most are aware of spiritual songs created by African Americans during and after Slavery in the U.S. Sure many have heard of these songs, especially those in the South or the highly religious (and occassionally a movie or 2), but I doubt that most can name the songs let alone their composers. Or that White spiritual songs were based on the same style as the 'negro' spirituals.
Even sadder is the thought that I am sure that not one classroom outside of the few college courses on the subject ever discuss any aspect of the 5 black notes, pentatonic scale or 'slave scale'. Never once in a history class, not once in a history book, is there mention of the musical abilities of slaves - nor more importantly any other achievement of African Americans until well into the 20th Century. Yet reality differs from history in that there are many things that slaves created besides the foundations, buildings, roads, and agricultural trade that gave birth to and nurtured America. So many in fact that without them the America of today could not exist.
Still it is amazing to hear, to learn, of how much was made of something so simple by people denied so much.
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