音乐-美国黑人文化的灵魂.doc

美国黑人文化的灵魂—音乐与舞蹈
The Soul of Afro-American Culture——Afro-American Music and Dance

Abstract
Afro-American culture is one of the most important parts of American culture, which, though a non-mainstream culture, makes a great impact on the mainstream culture in America, and even all over the world. Afro-American culture is endowed with unique charm by its African factors. Music and dance, the soul of Afro-American culture, are the leading fashion, and play an important role in the international fashion circle. Afro-Americans have inherent talent for music and dance, and since they settle down in this new land, the arduous and bitter lives give them more inspiration to create many outstanding music and dance. Afro-American music and dance are unique with Afro-American root instead of an appendage of the mainstream culture, and truly demonstrate the history and social life of Afro-Americans. And the uniqueness of Afro-American music and dance is the root of the popularity of Afro-American culture. The paper aims at the exploration of the social lives of Afro-Americans through an analysis of Afro-American music and dance.
Key Words
Afro-Americans culture; soul; music; dance; mainstream

摘　要
美国黑人文化是美国文化的重要组成部分之一。作为非主流的黑人文化总是对美国乃至全球的主流文化有着非同一般的影响。美国黑人文化中不可抹灭的非洲文化因素为其带来了独特的魅力。音乐和舞蹈,作为黑人文化的灵魂,不仅在流行界占有重要的地位,更是流行趋势的主导因素。美国黑人在音乐和舞蹈方面极具天赋,而在美国这片新大陆上的苦难生活又赋予了他们更多的灵感,使他们创造出了许多非凡的音乐与舞蹈。他们的音乐和舞蹈因非洲黑人的文化根源而独具特色，而非主流文化的附属物，从而能真实地反映了美国黑人的历史和社会生活；反之，正是这种音乐和舞蹈造就了美国黑人文化的独特魅力。本文旨在通过对黑人音乐和舞蹈的分析来探讨美国黑人真实的社会生活状况。
关键词
美国黑人文化；灵魂；音乐；舞蹈；主流

Introduction
Afro-Americans are one of the most important parts of American society, and they have their own culture and tradition. The Afro-American culture, though the non-mainstream culture, has incredible influences on the mainstream culture. Music and dance are the soul of Afro-American culture and play an important role in the fashion circle; they even impose great influence on the artistic development of the whole world. Afro-American music and dance function as the mirror of the lives of Afro-Americans in the mainstream society.
The first group of slaves was sailed to Virginia colony as goods in 1619 by a Netherlanders’ ship. Since then, the cruel slave trade began, and more and more slaves were sold to America. Since the first group of slaves was sailed to America, the culture originating from Africa was also brought to this new land. It was just like a black seed sowed in this new land. Initially, it was buried in the deep soil, and no one cared about it. Gradually, this black seed germinated quietly. At first, the young plant was so weak that no one noticed it. But it still grew up quietly day after day, and it became stronger little by little. About a few hundred years later, the young plant became strong enough, and it was not weak any more, but it became so lush that it began to appeal to more and more people. In fact, the black people cultured this plant by their tears and blood so that it became pretty flourishing and charming. As the soul of Afro-American culture, their music and dance fully demonstrated the painful process of growth of Afro-American culture, the uniqueness of Afro-American culture and the real social lives of Afro-Americans.

I. Afro-American Music as the Soul of Afro-American Culture
The slave trade was the most significant event for the fate of Afro-Americans. The slaves brought African music to this new land, which later became the leading element of the development of pop music. Those slaves lived a miserable life in America. They were forced to work hard, and were treated cruelly by their owners. Their lives were arduous and bitter. But they were optimistic, and music became not only a tool of entertainment, but also a means to express their feelings and voices. Although their lives were full of difficulties, their desire of music was not worn away. They were talented in music and born to sing like their ancestors in Africa. In fact, music was not only the link with their hometown for those slaves, and but also a bridge to expand the old African culture to the new land. The slaves found various ways for music. When they were working, they sang; when they took rest, they also sang; when they felt happy or sad, they sang to express their feelings; when a new life came to the world, they sang a song to welcome it; when their friends passed away, they sang a song for farewell; when the sun rise, they sang a song to go to work; when the sun set, they got together to sing as if music could take off their tiredness.
Although Afro-American music originated from Africa, it developed and hit in America. In American music circle, except country music and Rock &Roll, most types of American music originated from Afro-American music. Blues, as one type of Afro-American music, had a wide effect on the music circle, and it was based on the work song of black slaves. With the development of the society, Blues met various challenges, and then some new styles emerged, such as Jazz, which was famous even now. It gestated the later music form in America There was no doubt that Blues and Jazz were the most important styles in music circle, and they had immeasurable impacts on international pop music. Spiritual song, which was the production of gospel, had inconceivable impression on people, and touched their heart and their soul. In the current international music circles, R&B and Hip-Hop were the undoubted mainstream, which were also the main styles of Afro-American music. Therefore, Afro-American music was always the core of American music, and also the leading fashionable factor, which dominated the international pop music.
A. The Popular Afro-American Music
By the early 1900s, Blues, which was influenced by African American spirituals, ballads, and work songs, had emerged as a category separate from folk. Because of sufferings from the oppression of the while people, the original style of Afro-American music was full of grief and plaintiveness, which was the keynote of Blues.
Blues belonged to the folk music of the black people, which came from the south of America, especially the Mississippi Delta. Now, nobody knows the exact time of its forming, but generally this kind of grieved melody followed the first group of black slaves to the new land. In the beginning, the slaves who lived in the south just got the inspiration from their African ancestors, and got the themes of Blues from their everyday life. Although it’s always so dolorous that it could moved everyone, the slaves just took it as one of the methods to express their feelings in the heart, but not as the way to get others’ sympathy. It was owing to this kind of attitude and purpose that Blues had such a strong vitality.
Originally, Blues only expressed the sentimental and depressive feelings of the black people. But when it stepped into the popular music circle, it began to express some sentimental and sorrowful feelings that all the human beings held. And its early themes concerned about hard life, unfair fate, undone dream and broken love affair of Afro-Americans. And later some new elements were added into it, which was the production of industrial civilization, such as the lonely soul, the pressure from the fast paced life, as well as the fear of death and the helpless feeling about life, and so on. In a word, sentimental and sorrowful feeling was the eternal theme of Blues. Generally, Blues adopted direct ways to reveal their feeling. It gave Afro-Americans more freedom to reveal their feelings so that it was very popular not only among black people, but also among white people.
In the 19th century, Blues was a pure Afro-American music. It was famous in the south of America, where most of the black people gathered. But the music traveled to northern cities along with the migration of black workers in search of jobs before and after the First World War. In the late 1930s, the electric guitar—a major contribution to rock music—made it easier for musicians “to cut the noise in ghetto taverns” and gave southern Blues its urban style. And since the 1960s, many talented white musicians have chosen Blues as their primary vehicle of expression—using the great black players of the past and present as their models. And so Blues became a popular music style not only among black people, but also among other peoples. Purists insisted that Blues was an expression of Afro-American cultural, inaccessible in essence to the white practitioner, but the opposition points to the universal spectrum of feelings—from sadness to joy—that Blues expresses.
What remained indisputable was the historical fact that Blues was developed entirely by the Afro-American, who over the years incorporated African elements of melody, rhythm, and phrasing with the European inventions of diatonic harmony and form. Both audience and players alike were predominantly blacks for that gestation period. The modern white players came later—to “discover” the authentic music and recast it. Some incorporated it with Rock & Roll, pop, folk and country music, while others faithfully covered gems of the classic Blues repertory. Regardless of the color or nationality of the players who were involved, it was universally acknowledged that Blues was a black music.
As sheet music grew in popularity, Jazz developed in New Orleans between the late of 19th century and the early of 20th century. As an improvisational and mostly instrumental musical form, Jazz absorbed and integrated a diverse body of musical styles, including African rhythms, Blues and Gospel. Jazz influenced many bandleaders throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Groups led by Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller were among the most popular of Jazz, or “swing” bands, whose music also dominated radio and recording in their days.
As to the development of Jazz Blues, as the main origin for Jazz, made an unspeakable contribution to it. The two famous kinds of music of Afro-Americans—Blues and Soul music were the primary source of Jazz. At the same time, Jazz, a popular music style, made great contributions to Afro-American culture, which was regarded as an important part of American culture.
Spiritual song, another style of Afro-American music, was famous in the 1960s. It absorbed the inspiration of gospel, and emerged in Detroit first. It siphoned off some performances, such as the improvisatory cadenza, shouting, sob and murmur, and so on. So it formed a gorgeous and free style. It was known that the first group of slaves was sailed to American in1619 from western Africa, and since then a great number of slaves were sold from western Africa. So music from Western Africa had a deep effect on the original Soul song. Ray Charles, the first Spiritual song artist combining gospel with R&B, developed this kind of powerful music style. The novel music style sucked the core of gospel, which was the production of religious music both from western African and American, and at the same time it also possessed the feature of R&B. These idiosyncrasies made Spiritual song powerful and impressive, which can touch the audiences’ soul. So it was also called Soul song.
The full name of R&B was Rhythm and Blues, and it merged urban Blues and big—band sounds. It was different from Blues in that it put stress on the sorrowful feelings. It paid more attention to the rhythm, featuring huge rhythm units smashing away behind screaming blues singers. R&B, which came from Blues and was regarded as one of the popular music of Afro-Americans, was also the origin of the current pop music Rock. In recent years, the famous music style—Hip-Hop and Rap originated from R&B, and kept some features of it. As for the origin of R&B, it could be traced back to the middle time of the 1940s. At that time, it was called Jump Blues. Jump Blues, which absorbed the performance style of horn-driven lineup and swing rhythm of Jazz, and also combined riff and string accompaniment of Blues, was a new style, and also could be considered as the product of Rhythm Jazz and Blues.
Although Jump Blues sucked the features of Blues in a great degree, Rhythm Jazz was the dominant style, which formed its final style. Compared with Jazz, Jump Blues put more emphasis on the faster rhythm and more raucous voice. As to the instruments, the performance of piano became more intense, and the performance of sax became sharper.
Originally, both the performers and the audiences were only black people, so Jump Blues was labeled as a pure black American music. But with the appearance of the important singer—Louis Jordan, whose lyrics were so humorous that it was fit for dance, the status of Jump Blues changed. More and more white people especially the youth were fond of it. And Jump Blues became all-pervading. In the 1950s, Jump Blues broke the limit of different races, owing to the great efforts made by those top musicians, which meant Jump Blues was no longer only the music of Afro-Americans. More white musicians and audiences took part in it. Thus, Jump Blues had “R & B” as its new name. Since then it held the champion in the Billboard, and kept the predominance for a long time, even now it was also one of the dominant styles in the pop music circles. Today, R&B becomes the symbol of black people’s pop music, though it was a specific music style that is different from Rap, Soul and Hip-Hop music. The early Rock & Roll was the extension of country music and western music, and was based on R&B. So, R&B was not only the significant transitional music style between Blues and Rock & Roll, but also the main embranchment of Blues and Spiritual song.
Hip-Hop, which was believed to have sprung from New York City in 1970s, specifically from the club DJs of the era, was a type of popular culture. The term appeared in the lyrics of some of the earliest rap hits, including “Rapper’s Delight (1979)” by the Sugarhill Gang. It included music, dance styles, graffiti art and fashion, hitting in modern American, and then all over the world. Break-dance became a very popular form of Hip-Hop dance in the 1980s.
The formation of Hip-Hop had some links with Rock & Roll. With the growing segregation of radio formats and the dominance of mainstream rock by white male performers, the place of black artists in the rock world diminished. By the late 1990s, no major popular black successor to Chuck Berry or Jimi Hendrix had emerged in Rock. These trends, combined with the rise of “safe” dance disco by white bands (the Bee Gees), black artists (Donna Summer), and integrated groups (the Village People), created a space for the culture that produced Hip-Hop music.
In some ways a black counterpart to the spirit of white punk, Hip-Hop music also stood in direct opposition to the polished, professional, and less political world of soul. Hip-Hop’s combination of social politics, swagger, and comic lyrics carried forward long-standing traditions in Blues,