"Only a Look" - Black Church, Black Music: Black Hymnody w/ Dr. Emorja Roberson

"Only a Look"
Rylan A. Harris, soloist

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My scholarly agenda in African American sacred music specializes in amplifying African-derived figures, rituals, pedagogies, and performance practices with an emphasis on the oral transmission of the 20th Century African American Gospel music tradition.

When people think of the sound of a Sunday morning service in “the Black church”, it often includes a choir dressed in robes, swaying and clapping on a strong two and four and the whooping of the Black preacher backed by the sound of the Hammond B3. My introduction to the the Black church experience began in 1992 when my mother would walk me to Temple Missionary Baptist Church in DeFuniak Springs, FL—a church replete with thick red carpet, wooden pews, an upright piano, and a drum set that was only touched for “special worship gatherings”. It was in church, in June 2001, where I became a self-taught pianist.

By sitting with the elders every Sunday morning at 11:00 AM with churches throughout the city and attending afternoon church services (be it a choir anniversary or church homecoming), I noticed the power of Black music and the ability of its richness to move a crowd from contemplative moments full of tears to celebratory dancing in the aisles. Singing was not merely an act of repeating the lyrics that were printed in black ink on white paper in the National Baptist Hymnal, but it was the communal experience of the singing community that affirmed our being as African Americans. We saw each other. We felt one another.

“Black Church, Black Music: Black Hymnody” is a creative project that explores Black hymnody through the lens of what Dr. Wendell P. Whalum defines as “early folk songs, folk spirituals, concert spiritual, and Gospel songs.” May the songs that traveled with our ancestors across the rocky waves of the ocean never be forgotten within the ever-changing and ever-expanding sound of Gospel music.

Join my journey on YouTube to catch the latest updates and performances.

Rylan A. Harris, pianist
Brandon I. McCrae, bass
Bill Barlow, auxiliaries
Benjamin McCrae, drums

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