The History of Gospel Music

Gospel Music and it's African Roots:
Over four hundred years ago, tribal African music was a lot different from white American music and European music in one major regard - in African traditions, secular music didn’t exist. Europeans had sacred music and music in which they sang about war, love, drinking and recent historical events that took place in far off countries or nearby villages. Even though some of these songs mentioned God in some way or sort or fashion, there were many that still remained popular and secular among the country folk and village. Most African music in America was sacred and the overall concept of singing music that was secular was basically alien to them. Taking this into consideration, African music had a lot more in common with the Native American music in comparison to European music since a song was used strictly for a means of being in complete harmony with the cosmos and nature. In the sixteen hundreds, all the way up to 60s, there was one predominant style of music that was retained and brought to America during the period of slavery and it is known as the response and call pattern in which the leader will sing a line and then the entire group will answer.

The Four Main Branches of Modern Time Gospel Music:
During the nineteen fifties, radio had begun to include gospel music as part of its programming regularly along with the popular secular music and because of this, four main branches or styles of gospel music were able to emerge. Even though each branch was directly related, they can be easily identified for many obvious reasons.

Choirs - Today, choirs have a range of traditional music accompaniment, generally an organ or piano, drums, bass and even quite possibly a guitar.

Acapella Quartets - The acapella quartets have two different distinct periods. Prior to the beginning of World War II, the acapella quartets emerged. First you have the Southern Gospel quartet style and then you have the Black quartet style.

Progressive Quartets - After the war, acapella quartets turned to instruments that were electrified so that they could be heard by much large audiences. With the addition of the bass, piano, electric guitar and the drums, this became the standard instrumentation for progressive gospel.

Solo Singers - Solo singers normally sung in a choir of three or four soloists.