Page:Natalie Curtis - Negro Folk-Songs Book 1.djvu/11

 practice in a vacant room. The bricklayer was flecked with lime and mortar, the overalls of the tinsmith were covered with machine oil, but the boys flung themselves into their chairs and began to sing as unconcernedly as though they were simply resting from labor. They hummed over the song to be practiced, improvised their own harmonies, tried them out and fitted their parts together while I sat with pencil and paper astounded at the untaught facility and the unfaltering harmonic instinct of these natural singers, only one of whom had even a rudimentary knowledge of musical notation. They delighted in my task of trying to record their voices and they were always willing to repeat a phrase, often with much jolly laughter. It was curiously difficult, however, for tenor, baritone or bass to sing his part alone, because each was conscious of his own voice only as a bit of the whole. A "part" was not conceived as a separate thing, and whenever I tried to get one voice by itself, the "Lead," who carried the melody, was usually asked to make things easy by humming at the same time.

The making of phonographic records was a source of great amusement and interest to us all, and here too, in order to get one part separately recorded, the other three of the quartet would stand near the boy who was singing into the horn and hum their parts along with him. It is perhaps this inherent losing of self in a song that gives to primitive Negro part-singing such amazing unity — emotional, as well as musical.

For comparison, I have recorded a slightly different harmonic version as sung by the quartet known at Hampton as the "Big Quartet" — a group of four older men (Tynes, Crawley, Phillips and Wainwright), graduates of the school, who have been "singing for Hampton" for many years. I give the two versions as an interesting proof of the spontaneity of Negro song; for to the Negro, singing is a kind of melodious musing aloud, so that unconsciously it is a form of direct and individual expression. The Big Quartet was awarded a gold medal when the men sang at the Educational Department of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. On hearing them, Percy Grainger exclaimed: "To think that, having toured all Europe, I should find the most perfect four-part singing of the world among these American Negroes!"

O Ride on, Jesus, Ride on, Jesus, Ride on, conquerin King! I want t' go t' Hebb'n in de 'in'.

Ef yo' see Mo' O yes! Jes' tell fo' , O yes! For t' meet me t-morrow in Gali': Want t' go t' Hebb'n in de 'in'.

1 The O on the word "on" is pronounced very long in Negro dialect, thus, "ōn" ("ohn").