Homeric Hymns

As I entered Chrysler Hall I instantly became nervous. Shamefully Mann’s World Concert and Comedy Show will be the first live gospel performance I have ever attended. I didn’t know what to expect. I’m not as savvy in the gospel genre as I should be. The only songs that I have heard the Mann family perform were the songs they performed with Kirk Franklin and the Family and the popular ones that play on the radio. I glanced around the auditorium and it appeared to a full house. The audience

and most importantly to keep connected with their religious beliefs. Before 1865 spirituals were known as “shouts”. Hand clapping, foot tapping, and deep humming were usually involved in the “shouts” and the tunes were closely related to those of hymns from the bible. African American spirituals sent messages of how to live by God. The lyrics of the spirituals were most

The Big Boy, a machine of immense size and power. It is among one of the most well known locomotive classes ever built. The size of 85 feet (132 feet including tender.) the Big Boys (4-8-8-4) were behemoths, capable of pulling a massive amount of freight. So large was the Big Boys that they were almost twice the size of a modern diesel-electric engine. The Big Boys, however, were practically two locomotives, joined together. This was called an articulated engine, meaning it had two separate groupings

I attended the Sunday service at Tabernacle Baptist Church and made several observations about gospel music in African American churches. Music is used as a tool of worship and praise as it is sung at several points of the service. Most of the singing is done during the praise and worship section of the service. Moreover, gospel music is also used to emphasize on the message of the preacher. At times the pastor would accompany a crucial point with a song before embarking back on his sermon. Gospel

“There is power in the name of Jesus, to break every chain, break every chain, break every chain.” Many people may know this song because of Tasha Cobbs. She is a gospel artist who uses her gift of singing to bless and minister to others. I admire Tasha Cobbs because she glorifies Jesus Christ in all that she does, makes uplifting music, and motivates me to believe that I do not have to live a defeated life. I appreciate her for that. Tasha Cobbs knows who God is to her and makes sure I know also

he air is filled with the sounds of ringing bells as the local choir from the Salvation Army sings their joyous songs in glorious praise to the Lord. Their voices reach out spreading the message that everyone can be saved, born again if they would only turn to Jesus. Most of the people hurry by to escape the threat of the oncoming rain, paying little or no attention to the words they sang out. But the choir wasn’t disturbed by the people’s response. Instead, they sang out all the more with spirit

You may have heard Amazing Grace in church before but never really thought about the song and the meaning. Amazing Grace is probably the most common Christian hymn. It was written by John Newton after his conversion to Christianity in 1776. In 2008, Chris Tomlin put a small twist on the hymn and wrote the version of the song called My Chains Are Gone. I’m going to play the refrain that he added in for you. (30 seconds of song.) Other than that refrain, Tomlin preserved the original poetry of the

Amazing Grace, one of the most well known songs in the world, has been, and will continue to be, performed in a vast variety of ways. Whether it is up-tempo, balladic, or somewhere in between, this song is much like the American National Anthem, in that every artist who approaches the piece wants to incorporate their own signature style. Aretha Franklin and Judy Collins are two women who are not deviant from that standard. Both of these women have produced classic renditions of the same piece, but

the odds or even heal their wounds! There are three major types of music used in this novel; hymn music, folk music, and “natural music”. It is through these types of music that

field of music, much less the realm of gospel music today. However, church members often do not make the time to reflect on the heritage of a hymn or song to realize the meaning that the particular piece has carried with it through the decades, even centuries. With this in mind, I am going to look at the history of the Negro spiritual and then at specific hymns in the 1991 Baptist Hymnal, published by Convention Press, to see just what impact the Negro spiritual has had on today's church music. I