Estrella's Music Blog!

  History of Gospel Music: Gospel music is a genre of Christian music. It is used to refer to songs sung by both white and African American Christians. Worship between these two groups were similar, however some differences crept in over time, so now Gospel music is more associated with African Americans and became deeply rooted within the African American church. Gospel music is comprised of hymns and other songs borrowed from oral traditions of the African American culture. Hymns were brought over by Europeans who settled in North America. During slavery, many African Americans would sing while working to combat the pain and suffering of slavery. Slaves could often hear their masters and other whites singing these hymns during the Sunday service and modified the songs into a call and response format (This gave rise to spirituals, which later influenced the development of Gospel music). While hymns were introduced in the 18 th century, the 17 th century was dominated by psal...

Gender has a very prevalent role in music these days, and it tends to be a male dominated industry. I have experienced these gender roles myself. During 7 th grade, I was a part of my school’s concert band, as well as in freshman and sophomore year of high school. Looking back on my days in band, I noticed some things about gender roles, as far as who played what instrument or who was in a certain band (Certain bands being Jazz, Orchestra, Concert, and Wind Ensemble). A typical school band/concert band is made up of three types of musical instruments: brass, woodwind and percussion. Each category is comprised of many different instruments. The brass section of the band is made up of instruments such as trumpets, trombones, tubas and occasionally the French horn. A typical band will have a lot of trumpets, which are usually supported by trombones, and only a few tubas and French horns. Woodwind instruments, in terms of concert band, include clarinets, flutes, saxophones and a f...