Standing In the Shadows Of MONA 2014

African American gospel music is without obvious parallel as a musical and social phenomenon of the twentieth century. It is a powerful musical and ‘spiritual’ expression that is to a larger extent defined by the musical style, vocal techniques and performance practices of one of its central figures: the gospel singer. Although these originally African American gospel vocal techniques and practices have now also significantly influenced the development of contemporary popular music and the broader gospel vocal style, the specific terminology used to describe them has always lacked precise definition, and this also highlights the failure of conventional conducting/directing, notational and teaching practices in successfully capturing, transmitting, performing or representing them. In my first article “A Taxonomy of Musical Gesture in African American Gospel Music” (Cambridge Popular Music; 2010, 29/1) I set out a detailed analytical notational system for this music, and proposed a contextual framework for its implementation outside of its originating culture and for comparative analytical research within the field of gospel-inspired contemporary popular music. The Taxonomy is one fundamental component of my broader research which focusses on the “Tansculturalisation of African American Gospel Music” into Australian and other, non-African American cultures and contexts.