Negro Folk Music and Its Contribution to the Music of the Future
The organization of Negro folk music into some general subdivision has been hampered by a triple tradition, each constituent of which stands in the way of some creative utilization of all the best in the Negro material. The prevalence of the melodic tradition in Negro music has spread havoc with its older harmonic features, and the oratorio tradition has wrongly stereotyped and overestimated its more orchestral choral nature, with its tangled threading in and out of the singing voices. Of course the traditional orchestra choiring were against the development of the Negro and the African song idioms in the orchestral realizations.
Nevertheless, these obstacles have been successfully overcome. Negro music probably contributed greatly to the essence and style of modern music, both choral and instrumental. Then its thematic and melodic subscriptions and the borrowings of rhythmical offers are only preventing experiments that have threw the light into the value of the Negro folk music idioms, but have not fully elaborated them. When a basis of folk music is really introduced into musical tradition, something more then to introducing of a new theme can be made. When the rhythmic and harmonic structure of music is affected – the very basics of the art are being impacted. Appreciating it as music of the past, we should nourish it and greet its contribution to the music of the future.
