The African American musical genre known as the antebellum folk spiritual assumed an identifiable shape sometime after the arrival of African slaves on the North American continent but long before the American Civil War. In her initial analysis of the genre, Maultsby writes: “As a form of religious expression performed primarily in contexts free of White control, antebellum folk spirituals were outside the boundaries of consciousness for the vast majority of the White American public” (Maultsby 2015, 60). Unfortunately, before the advent of audio recordings, researchers can only surmise what these early spirituals sounded like by using extant descriptions and a few recordings made decades later in isolated churches throughout the South. Still, what has survived gives us an idea of what the spirituals said and a hint of their music.

• Define the term etymology and use of the term “spiritual” as found in the publications Slave Songs of the United States and Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands.
• List at least three types of standard musical (melodic) scales used in the spiritual.
• Explain the term heterophony and demonstrate its use with another student.
• List the eight characteristics of a spiritual and discuss a selected spiritual focusing on one of the eight spiritual characteristics.
• Describe the difference between folk spirituals and arranged spirituals.