Comments on: Sister Rosetta Tharpe

By: Ben Holt

Ben Holt — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 15:07:16 +0000

HAHA! *Sings “Down by the Riverside” while clapping on 1 & 3*

By: Dcn. Brench

Dcn. Brench — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 12:26:46 +0000

‘Tis why I was so impressed with Mrs. Mianulli in retrospect; the Christmas songs she had us sing were pretty explicitly about Christmas!
It made up for the fact that she had us clapping on beats 1 & 3 during a gospel song…

By: Ben Holt

Ben Holt — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 17:44:06 +0000

Yep, this reminds me of my college days (music education at a secular school). They were always talking about multicultural inclusivity while simultaneously warning us about “too much religious” music… or if we did, we had to include music from “all faiths” to balance things out. We wouldn’t want to sing too many Christmas tunes, even though 95% of the population celebrates it, would we?

So the moral is: Pick music that reflects different cultures, but stay away from your own culture’s religious traditions because you might “offend” someone.

By: Dcn. Brench

Dcn. Brench — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 17:18:52 +0000

A lot of [white] music directors in schools can’t do justice to this style of music, so they stay away. But some do try with mixed success (Mia back at Nashoba had us singing the odd gospel tune from time to time). Others actually do pretty well – I forget either Central District or All-State Choir did a gospel song pretty well once or twice when I was in them.

Gospel music in public schools is funny because one hand it’s Christian, and therefore a no-no; yet it’s also “ethnic” which is a huge plus. Kind of a hit-or-miss thing really 😉