Newton North High School - Come By Here

Topic: Pedagogy - Goals
One wonders if the limited participation in public school music programs by African Americans and others wasn’t ultimately the result of university academics re-erecting the barriers breached by Satis Colemen and Joseph Maddy in the 1920s. She remembered how frustrated she had been as a child when her piano teacher forced her to read music and punished her for playing by ear. [1] He remembered when he first took music lessons three-fourths of the students dropped out because they had to master scales before they could play tunes. [2] Each assumed students would acquire technical proficiency when it mattered to them. [3]

It’s hard to imagine a nine-year-old would have enjoyed singing "Kumbaya" in a class where the teacher followed all the recommendations of Eunice Boardman’s [4] or Charles Leonhard’s teams. [5] I doubt college entrance exams asked high-school seniors to name the chord on the fifth note of a scale, or that many later would attend concerts so they could comprehend the structure of a piece as John Zdechlik would have preferred. [6]

In 1929, the president of the Music Educators National Conference asked teachers what was the primary goal of their classes:

"Is it to teach facts about music and develop skill in reading music, or is it to awaken and stimulate joy and interest? You must introduce music to these children as a thing of beauty to be enjoyed and not as something to be struggled with." [7]

The debate over sight-reading or playing by ear entered African-American communities. Black college glee clubs in the early twentieth century embraced the traditions of Ivy League schools, while jazz musicians played by ear. It was simply an extension of the arguments over assimilation in the post-Reconstruction South where religious leaders like Daniel Payne condemned freemen who perpetuated ring shouts. [8]

African-American students may learn sight-reading in public-school music classes and oral traditions at home and church. The Dreher High School Chorus in Columbia, South Carolina, used an arrangement of "Come By Here" by Uzee Brown for a concert in 2014, while the Jubilee Singers of Newton North High School near Boston used one in the prelude-denouement form for a 2015 performance.

Brown, who was music director at Martin Luther King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and former chairman of the music department at Clark University, [9] used the traditional melody for "Kumbaya," while Sheldon Reid, who directed the Kuumba Singers of Harvard, used the Hightower Brother’s tune. Kuumba had been formed in 1970 as a way for African-American students to express their spirituality in an environment that still was hostile to integration. [10]

Both Walter Graham, director of Dreher, and Reid, conductor at Newton North, used female soloists supported by choral groups singing harmony. Brown had not used a soloist when his own group recorded his version. He scored four-part chordal harmony, so that every time a syllable was sung on more than one note, the chorus moved as a unit.

Columbia’s Liz [11] had a clear soprano voice with little tremolo that delivered the text simply so the audience could understand the emotion embedded in words that used the pronoun "someone." The Jubilee Singers sang one verse in harmony, then the chorus repeated "come by here" while Swabira Mayanja moved from singing a verse to phrases. She used her voice to convey the emotions with the pronoun "I." [12]

Dreher sang a capella, although Brown had used a piano and had suggested the "organ or piano may improvise on the chordal harmonies if desired." A piano sounded four notes to signal the voices before they began. Drums, keyboard, and an electric bass played before the Jubilee Singers began, and continued throughout the piece with instrumental breaks between stanzas.

The students who represented 53% of the southern school’s population of 1,300 [13] stood with still with their arms at their sides and their eyes on the conductor. Graham stood erect in front to use small gestures with both arms.

At Newton North, where Blacks were 5% of the 2,000 member student body, [14] the singers began with their arms at their sides looking at the conductor. When Mayanja began, they started stepping side to side. Part way through, after a brief instrumental interlude, they started clapping as they stepped. Reid used large arm movements and bent his knees to keep time.

The audience in the Red Bank United Methodist Church where the Dreher chorus performed listened attentively and applauded at the end. In Newton, some members of the audience stood and began marking time with their hands to the singing before the choir itself began clapping. [15] They were the only audience on a public school video of "Kumbaya" to shatter the proscenium arch and become part of the music.

Performers
Uzee Brown
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: SATB choir
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano or organ
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Dreher
Vocal Soloist: soprano
Vocal Group: 28 girls, 14 boys
Vocal Director: Walter Graham
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Newton North
Vocal Soloist: soprano
Vocal Group: 29 girls, 17 boys
Vocal Director: Sheldon Reid
Instrumental Accompaniment: keyboard, electric bass
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set, hand claps

Credits
Uzee Brown
Spiritual, arr. Uzee Brown, Jr.
Arrangement Copyright (C) by GIA Publications, Inc

For the Cascade United Methodist Chancel Choir of Atlanta, Georgia

Notes on Lyrics
Uzee Brown
Language: English
Verses: come by here, needs you, praying, crying

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: four-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: none

Newton North
Language: English
Verses: come by here, I’ve been waiting; references to needs you, praying

Vocabulary
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: Jesus, Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: ritual prelude-denouement structure

Notes on Music
Uzee Brown
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 2/4
Tempo: slow and prayerful
Key Signature: three flats
Basic Structure: strophic repetition

Dreher
Tempo: slow, but faster than that used by the Uzee Brown Society of Choraliers

Newton North
Opening Phrase: 1-5
Tempo: moderate

Basic Structure: instrumental accompaniment used strophic repetition with changes in key

Notes on Performance
Dreher
Occasion: "Light The Way concert series benefiting homeless charity organizations in the Columbia, SC area," 10 April 2014

Location: Red Bank United Methodist Church, Lexington, South Carolina

Microphones: none

Clothing: girls wore black dresses of different styles; boys wore black shirts and slacks of various styles; the director wore a black suit

Newton North
Occasion: concert, 7 February 2015
Location: stage

Microphones: at least five floor mikes; Mayanja detached one to use as a hand mike

Clothing: girls wore long, empire-style dresses with short, puffed sleeves of a black, glossy fabric; boys wore black slacks and long-sleeved shirts with silver-gray ties; [16] the director wore a black suit.

Notes on Movement
The Dreher choir stood behind the altar rail in four rows on three steps. The conductor had an elaborate music stand that probably was a church fixture.

The Newton North chorus stood in three rows in two tiers of risers. They filed off at the end. Only the musicians had music.

Notes on Performers
Graham was raised in the Pee Dee region of northeastern South Carolina that had grown cotton before the Civil War. [17] After receiving his music education degree from the University of South Carolina, he taught at Crayton Middle School in Columbia. Dreher hired him while he was working on his masters. [18] Graham also was active with the choir at Trenholm United Methodist Church. [19]

Reid enrolled at Harvard College as a chemistry major and was hired by Newton North as a science teacher. While earning his masters in music education, [20] he worked with Rich Travers, the school’s choral conductor, to create a class "that studies African Diaspora music and social issues to gain a better understanding of other cultures." [21] Eventually, Reid became Jubilee’s full-time director and transferred to the music faculty. In 2017, it gave a joint concert with Kuumba. [22]

Availability
Uzee Brown, Junior
Sheet Music: "Come by Here." Chicago: GIA Publications, 1997.

Album: Uzee Brown Society of Choraliers. My Lord’s Gettin’ Us Ready. Z-Mark/Alewa CD. Uploaded to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises on 28 January 2016.

Dreher High School Chorus
YouTube: "Come By Here." Uploaded by Kevin Oliver on 21 April 2014.

Jubilee Singers of Newton North High School
YouTube: "Come By Here." Uploaded by Alex Klavens on 12 February 2015.

End Notes
1. Satis N. Coleman. "I wanted to play the piano, not study queer marks in a book. My fingers ached to make a tune that sounded ‘pretty,’ or to play some of the little songs I already knew how to sing; but she would neither show me how nor let me try. The disappointment was bitter." (Creative Music for Children. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, April 1922. 14.) For more on Coleman’s contributions to music education, see the post for 30 August 2018.

2. "Maddy has recorded his experiences in a beginning instrumental class: ‘I recall the beginners’ band in which I learned to play the piccolo at the age of seven [which would have been about 1898]. Sixty ambitious youngsters purchased instruments and entered the class, only to be treated at each rehearsal to a series of lectures on musical theory, tone-production and behavior until all but fourteen of us had drooped [sic] out. . . . I do not recall ever playing a tune on the piccolo, though I studied this instrument for nearly two years and played it for most of that time in the band" (Joseph E. Maddy. "The Beginning Wind Instrument Class." School Music 39:9:January-February 1928. Quotation from Merry Elizabeth Texter. "A Historical and Analytical Investigation of the Beginning Band Method Book." PhD dissertation. The Ohio State University, 1975. 53.) For more Maddy, see the post on 27 June 2018.

3. Frank E. Churchley, mentioned in the post for 25 July 2018, played piano as a child, but said he did not truly learn to read music until he was in college and was forced to learn to play by ear. He remembered: "I enjoyed playing by ear. Improvising helped my reading because I had to develop my memory and imagination. Just working with your four or five pieces for an examination doesn’t help you become a good reader. You need to practise reading to become a good reader." (Interviewed by Betty Hanley. "Frank E. Churchley: Gentleman, Scholar, Teacher." March 2005. 16."

4. For more on Eunice Boardmand and Beth Landis, see the post for 24 June 2018.
5. For more on Charles Leonhard, see the post for 19 August 2018.

6. Mark Montemayor discussed Zdechlik in the post for 9 September 2018. He continued the composer’s comments on structure cited in that post by quoting him: "Structure, then, isn’t a static element of composition. It becomes dynamic, which I think is an important experience for both the performers and the audience." ("John Zdechlik." In A Composer’s Insight. Edited by Timothy Salzman. Galesville, Maryland: Meredith Music Publications, volume 3, 2006. 300. Emphasis added.)

7. Mabelle Glenn. "What It Means to Be a Music Supervisor." Music Supervisors Journal 14(1):51:1927. Quoted by Patrick K. Freer and Diana R. Dansereau. "Extending the Vision: Three Women Who Saw the Future of Music Education." 2007. Georgia State University website. Maybelle Glenn, along with Lorrain Watters, was a co-editor of Lilla Belle Pitts Our Singing World series mentioned in the post for 30 August 2018.

8. Daniel Payne headed the African Methodist Episcopal Church after the Civil War. In his autobiography he remembered attending a meeting where a ring shout followed the sermon. "I then went, and taking their leader by the arm requested him to desist and to sit down and sing in a rational manner. I told him also that it was a heathenish way to worship and disgraceful to themselves, the race, and the Christian name." (Recollections of Seventy Years. Compiled and arranged by Sarah C. Bierce Scarborough; edited by C. S. Smith. Nashville: Publishing House of the A. M. E. Sunday School Union, 1888. 253-254.) Payne was discussed in the post for 9 August 2017.

9. Wikipedia. "Uzee Brown Jr."

10. Wikipedia. "The Kuumba Singers of Harvard College." Kuumba was a Swahili word for "creativity [or to create], though the literal meaning is subtler: it is the creativity of leaving a space better than you found it; it is the spirit of positively impacting through modes of creativity."

11. Graham introduced Liz, but the camera’s microphone was remote and I couldn’t understand her last name.

12. Jessica Tharaud said "Mayanja’s voice had incredible range and depth." ("Review: Jubilee Singers Energizes Audience with Incredible Talent." The Newtonite [Massachusetts] website. 3 February 2014.)

13. "Dreher High School." Great Schools website.
14. "Newton North High School." Great Schools website.

15. Tharaud reviewed a Jubilee concert the year before the one on the videro. She wrote: "For the final song, sophomore Swabira Mayanja floored the audience with her solo in ‘Watch God Move,’ written by the Colorado Mass Choir. Not even half way through the number, the audience stood up and began dancing along’."

16. A year earlier Tharaud observed the "girls wore black dresses and boys wore black pants and dress shirts with silver ties."

17. Deborah Swearingen. "All-City Junior Chorus Performs at South Florence High School." The [Florence, South Carolina] Morning News website. 7 April 2016.

18. Item posted 2 May 2012 to USC-Columbia Music Education Alumni Facebook page.

19. Paul Osmundson. "Twenty under Forty: 20 Young Professionals Helping To Build the Midlands." The State [Columbia, South Carolina] website. 21 March 2016; last updated 22 March 2016.

20. Office for the Arts at Harvard. Program for In the Spirit of Duke, 22 April 2006.
21. "Rick Travers, Music Director." Newton Community Chorus website.

22. Nour Chahboun. "Jubilee Joined with the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College To Perform Passionate Pieces." The Newtonite [Massachusetts] written. 6 February 2017.