Download MUSIC LITERACY FACT SHEET

MUSIC LITERACY FACT SHEET
TITLE 1. Go Tell It On the Mountain
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------STYLE PERIOD/GENRE
1. African American Spiritual 2. Carol
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------COMPOSER/ARRANGER/EDITOR 1. Attributed by Frederick Jerome Work (1880-1942) 2.
Arranged by Carolyn Jennings
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------COMPOSER INFO
1. John Wesley Work is said to have been the first black collector of Negro folksongs, and was most
likely born on August 6, 1871 in Nashville, Tennessee. His father, John Wesley Work, was a church
choir director in Nashville, where he wrote and arranged music for his choirs. Some of his choristers
were members of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers.
He attended Fisk University in Nashville where he studied Latin and history. Singing in the Mozart
society while at school sparked an interest in Negro spirituals in Work. Following graduation, Work
went on to teach for a year, studying for one year at Harvard University, and a year as a library
assistant at Fisk University. In 1898, he received a Master’s degree from Fisk and took an appointment
as a Latin and Greek instructor.
While teaching, Work became a leader in the movement to preserve, study, and perform Negro
spirituals. He organized Fisk singing groups about 1889. With the help of his brother, Frederick
Jerome Work ,John Wesley Work, Jr., collected, harmonized, and published a number of collections of
slave songs and spirituals. The first of these collections was New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk
Jubilee Singers, in 1901.
Among the other solo songs he published, the spiritual, "Go, Tell It On The Mountain" was issued in
1907. In 1915, Work published "Folk Song of the American Negro."
For as many as eighteen years, Work trained and performed with professional and student groups of
the Jubilee singers. His wife, Agnes Haynes Work, was a singer who helped train the Fisk group.
Because of negative feelings toward Black folk music at Fisk, he was forced to resign in 1923.
John Wesley Work, Jr. then served as president of Roger Williams University in Nashville, until his
death on September 7, 1925.
One son, Julian, became a professional musician and composer. Another son, John Wesley Work III
became famous in his own right as a collector, composer and educator at Fisk. He wrote American
Negro songs and spirituals; a comprehensive collection of 230 folk songs, religious and secular in 1940.
Additional biographical materials on this son follow.
2. Carolyn Jennings is a Professor Emerita of Music at St. Olaf College where she taught for many
years and also served in administrative roles, including being Chair of the Music Department and
Associate Dean for the Fine Arts. She also recently retired as Music Coordinator and Director of the
Senior Choir at St. John's Lutheran Church, Northfield, Minnesota, where she served as a church
musician for over thirty years.
Carolyn Jennings is a graduate of the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music
magna cum laude and the University of Michigan where she received her Master of Music degree as a
Woodrow Wilson Fellow.
Over many years she has served on arts advisory panels, as a workshop presenter, and in leadership
roles in several professional organizations. She has been active in promoting the use of inclusive
language in texts for singing, and has worked to heighten awareness of how language shapes as well as
expresses thought.
Her compositions and arrangements include works for voices, orchestra, and piano. She particularly
enjoys composing for voices. Among her many commissioned works are children's musical, a choral song
cycle, a composition for the Minnesota Aids Quilt Songbook, and many compositions for church, school
and community choirs. She has received several major grants from the Composers Commissioning
Program through the Minnesota Composers Forum. Choral compositions and arrangements by Carolyn
Jennings are widely sung by church, community, college and school choirs. Her publications include
over a hundred choral compositions and arrangements, a number of text translations, contributions to
several hymnals, and articles for professional journals.
She is active in the American Choral Directors Association, the Music Teachers National Association,
the Minnesota Composers Forum, the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, and as a guest
conductor and workshop leader.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TEXT
1. Author of the refrain Unknown 2. Verses by John Wesley Work II
(1880-1942) 3. Bible reference Isaian 40:9; Luke 14:23
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SOUND
1. a cappella 2. SATB choral music
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------HARMONY 1. Simplistic 2. Comfortable voice accompaniment
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------MELODY
1. 5 note melody (pentatonic) 2. Alternates mostly between the soprano and
tenor voice parts
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------RHYTHM
1. syncopation 2. Vocal accents and dynamic contrasts give the song rhythmic
vitality 3. With an easy swing tempo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GROWTH/FORM
1. Strophic (song form) – verse, refrain, verse, refrain
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TIME SIGNATURE
1. 4/4 2. 4 beats per measure, the quarter note gets one beat
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------KEY SIGNATURE
1. G Major 2. One sharp # in the key signature with the last note of the
melody being ‘do’
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IMPORTANT TERMS/SYMBOLS/SIGNS
> = accent = a surface emphasis or stress given to a moment in the musical flow
a tempo – return to the original tempo
staccato – short, detatched
poco rit. (poco ritardando) – slow down a little
Swing tempo
mp, p, mf, pp, f
cresc. (crescendo) – gradually get louder
(decrescendo) – gradually get quieter (softer)
tenuto = hold the note in question its full length
NOTEWORTHY