Topic: Movement - Clap Origins
Biologists use diversity and florescence as related factors when they trace the evolution of species: they posit the center of creation has the greatest genetic diversity, and that that original variety was lost when only the fittest survived in neighboring territories. However, once a species naturalized, its further development was the result of local conditions, not ancestral ones.
This is a fitting metaphor for understanding the use of hand claps with music. Today, the greatest variations used with "Come by Here" are found among African Americans, and the most stylized form for "Kumbaya" comes from Germans. The area connecting central Europe and Africa has been so altered by forces like the Roman Catholic church and the Reformation, who suppressed any physical gestures which hinted at competing rituals, that any evidence for a common ancestor for hand clapping to music has been lost.
The YouTube video of the Musicgroup of Saint Ludgerus Roman Catholic church in Westphalia, Germany, showed very specific conventions existed for hand claps in the city of Rheine. It had been destroyed during the wars of the Reformation, [1] but was able to remain Catholic as part of the prince bishopric of Münster. [2]
The choral group sang one verse of "Kumbaya," slowly and with no accompaniment. After a brief pause, a drummer began playing a simple cadence while they repeated the verse faster. The audience immediately began clapping on the downbeat. They continued while the group sang "someone’s praying." One woman in the front row of singers began patting her thigh and another may have been raising her heel.
When the chorus repeated the praying verse more softly, the drum became subdued and the audience stopped clapping. The singers no longer marked time and stood still. The drums and claps resumed when they started the next verse, "someone’s singing," at the previous volume.
There had been no more pauses between verses, but after "singing" the drummer had a brief solo. He stopped as the singers stood still to sing a verse borrowed from Guy Carawan: "we want freedom Lord." [3] This iteration was sung with full chordal harmony, while the previous ones had used variants of parallel parts with a descant on "Oh Lord" in the final lines. They slowed the tempo on the last line and held the last note.
Why the Civil Rights verse was added to the standard verses is not known. The notes said it was a benefit concert, without providing details. Whatever introduction was given was not recorded, and no program notes were reproduced. Thus, it was not clear if the audience even understood the words, which were sung in English, or if they were reacting only to cues in the music, the alterations in dynamics, harmony, and tempo made by the singers and drummer.
It is easy to forget it was the Anglo-Scots Reformation that introduced the emphasis on text and on the necessity of thoroughly understanding the meaning of words. This area was not touched by that narrow view of making music.
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: three women and one man in front row, eight women in second row, eight men in back row
Vocal Director: camera did not show if anyone signaled the singers to begin
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: komb-BY-yah with emphasis on second syllable
Verses: kumbaya, praying, singing, we want freedom
Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: 6 verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: AABBxx
Ending: none in lyrics
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: first and last verses slow, middle ones faster
Basic Structure: group singing together
Singing Style: one syllable to one note with no ornamentation. The parallel harmony was divergent. That is, the chorus sang the same note on the first syllable, two tones a second apart on the second, and then continued in thirds. The basses were more obvious in the chordal harmony of the last stanza.
Notes on Performance
Occasion: Benefit-Evening, 18 August 2006.
Location: St. Ludgerus, Rheine, Germany. It looked more like a hall with narrow, high windows and a sun-cross made from right angles between them than a church. Wikipedia indicated the altar was in the center of the St. Ludgerus church, with benches set around it. [4] The choral group stood on low risers at the end of a room. The hollow stone or block space gave resonance to their voices.
Microphones: singers in the front row had hand-held microphones with cords; floor mikes were provided for the other two rows.
Clothing: casual, women all wore slacks and tops as did the men.
Notes on Movement
The members of the chorus did not stand close to one another; about two feet separated one singer from his or her neighbor. Both men and women stood with their feet apart. Most looked at the audience, but a man and woman in the front row were turned a little to their right as if there were someone conducting them from that direction.
The drummer sat to stage left and in front of the performance area. The other musicians, who were silent, sat to stage right and directly in front of the chorus.
Notes on Audience
They began to applaud in the quiet interval between the drum solo and the resumption of singing, as if they assumed he was ending the performance.
Notes on Performers
Rheine was located on solid ground at a ford on the Ems river. Land to the north toward the North Sea tended to be fen. It had been on a natural roadway from earliest times: the first Germanic tribes settled in the area after 500. Charlemagne came through in the early 800s. [5] Lüdiger came from the wetlands of Frisia and aligned himself with the conqueror: he became the first bishop of Münster in 805. [6]
The present church was built in 1950. [7] The date suggested a previous one had been damaged or destroyed during World War II. The Luftwaffe had had a base a few miles north of the city. [8] Great Britain took control of the area after the war. [9] It retained power until 1955, when the West German government was granted sovereignty, [10] and the base was reactivated for helicopters flying relief missions. [11]
Availability
YouTube: uploaded by Gregor Oechtering on 31 March 2008.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Rheine." Toward the end of the Thirty Years War it was attacked by Swedes and Hessians whose "glowing cannonballs set fire to the city" in 1647.
2. Wikipedia. "Prince-Bishopric of Münster." The city was chartered by the bishop in 1327. (Wikipedia, Rheine.)
3. Carawan introduced the verse in We Shall Overcome! New York: Oak Publications, 1963. 85. He and his wife Candie Carawan edited the songbook for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. The collection was discussed in the post for 5 October 2017.
4. German Wikipedia. "St. Ludgerus (Rheine)."
5. Wikipedia. "County of Bentheim."
6. Francis Mershman. "St. Ludger." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Edited by Charles George Herbermann, et alia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. Volume 9.
7. German Wikipedia.
8. Wikipedia. "Rheine-Bentlage Air Base."
9. Wikipedia. "Westphalia." The Hanovers had seized control of the neighboring county of Bentheim-Bentheim in 1753, and no doubt the House of Windsor still felt it had legitimate claims on the area. Bentheim-Steinfurt, which contained Rheime, had been separated frm Bentheim-Bentheim in 1643.
10. Wikipedia. "Allied-occupied Germany."
11. Wikipedia, Rheine-Bentlage. After the unification of Germany in 1990, the men at the base were assigned to peacekeeping forces. The forces were reduced in 2012.
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