Excerpt of Transcript of Jeremiah Wright's speech to NAACP

Excerpt of Transcript of Jeremiah Wright's speech to NAACP

 Music references

 This is the transcript of a speech given by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at an NAACP dinner on Sunday night.

 

What Dr. Janice Hale did in the field of education and what Dr. Geneva Smitherman did in the field of linguistics, Dr. (Eldon) did in the field of ethnomusicology, the field of music. He showed us 40 years ago what Wintley [Phipps] is teaching you for the first time 40 years later.

 

Not all cultures used the seven note scale in composing music. For example, as this video clip points out, American Negro spirituals used the pentatonic, or five note, scale. In <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 />early America, this scale was referred to as the slave scale. Indicative of the interaction that went on between white and slave culture, many white composers adopted this scale when writing spirituals. The performer in this video, Wintley Phipps , speculates that the melody of the famous hymn Amazing Grace was West African. He suggests this because the writer of the lyrics, John Newton, was the captain of a slave ship. Of course, we can’t be sure--others would certainly disagree--but it is a compelling idea. Whatever the case, this is certainly a hymn that crosses racial lines and even religious/secular divisions in terms of popularity.

Also, not only is this video a history lesson on music, it is also a great example of the power of music to produce an emotional experience.

African music is different from European piano music. It is not deficient, it is different. In most school systems today, the way most of us over 40 years of age were taught is still being taught. We were taught a European paradigm as if Europe had the only music that there was in the world. As a matter of fact, if you just say the term, classical music.

Today, most here, use of that term will automatically refer to Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and already cited Mozart and Handel. European musicians. From grammar school to graduate school, we are taught in four, four time. That the dominant beat is on one and three. Our band directors, our choir directors, our orchestra director start us off how?

And One, two, three, four. One, two, three. Now,that's the European dominant beat. For African and African-Americans, it is not one and three, it is two and four. I don't have to teach you. Listen to black people clap to this song. Glory, glory hallelujah, you are clapping on beats two and four. If you got some white friends, they'll be clapping like this. You say they can't clap. Yes, they can. They clap in a different way. It's the same fact holds true with six eight time. Europeans stress one, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. Dum dum, dum, dum, dum. The stress is on one and four. Not for black people. When you got six eight time, blacks stress two three and five six.

Listen to this -- blessed assurance, Jesus is mine two, three for, five, six - oh, why are you clapping on the wrong beat? Africans have a different meter and Africans have a different tonality. European music is diatonic, seven tones. Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. That's Italian. Europe. In west Africa and south Africa, it is not diatonic, seven tones, it is pentatonic with five tones. Wintley [Phipps] points out that if you want to know black music, just look at the black keys on the piano. Do, re, fa, so, la. Just those five tunes. Those are the only five notes you'll hear and somebody knows the trouble I've seen.

It only uses five notes the same with the river it also uses five notes. That's all. I believe a change is coming. It's not deficient, it's just different.

Many of us are committed to changing how we see others who are different. When you look at and listen to - I'm in Michigan. OK. Here in Michigan, look at and listen to the University of Michigan and Michigan State University bands at halftime. Their bands hit the field with excellent European precision. Da, da, da, da, da, ta, ra, ra.

Now go to a Florida A&M and Gramling Band. It's different. And you can't put that in no book. I believe change is going to come because many of us are committed to changing how we see others who are different. One is not superior to the other. One is not normal with the other being abnormal. One is not deficient because it doesn't follow the same methodology of the other. It is just different. Different does not mean deficient. Tell your neighbor one more time.

Now, what is true in the field of education, linguistics, ethnomusicology, marching bands, psychology and culture is also true in the field of homiletics, hermeneutics, biblical studies, black sacred music and black worship. We just do it different and some of our haters can't get their heads around that. I come from a religious tradition that does not divorce the world we live in from the world we are heading to. I come from a religious tradition that does not separate the kingdom of heaven that we pray for from the devious kingdoms of humans that keep people in bondage on earth.