WorksheetsTHE ORIGINS OF AFRO-AMERICAN MUSIC
Total questions: 22
Worksheet time: 14mins
America was discovered by Chistopher Colombus in...
1942
1429
1292
1492
The first ones to be enslaved by the white colonisers were...
black people brought from another continent.
prisoners and criminals the colonisers had in prison.
the natives who already lived there.
other colonisers captured during the wars.
Black people were taken to America from...
the coast of northern Africa.
the Slave Coast in southern Africa
the central coast of Brazil.
The central coast of west-Africa.
In the southern states of the USA, (a) was legal.
Black slaves were forced to work in fields and live in barracks in...
villages.
towns.
mansions.
plantations.
In a plantation, different products were produced like _________ and _________ . (2 ANSWERS!!)
potatoes
cotton
tomatoes
sugar cane
Work songs were sung on the plantations...
By black slaves and sometimes by free slaves too for a living.
In order to make the work more tolerable on Sundays.
While some other slaves played small and light instruments.
And it was an improvised music style, never written on music scores.
Work songs were sung in Responsorial Style which means that a slave sang a melody and just the male slaves answered back repeating what he had sung.
TRUE
FALSE
"This Old Hammer" is a traditional Work Song about...
A slave called John Henry who worked for the army drilling tunnels with his hammer.
A slave who used to sing while drilling tunnels with his powerful hammer.
A man who died after winning another worker who was going to be fired.
A man who worked for the railway company and stood up for his rights as a worker.
Gospel are religious songs that black slaves sang on Saturdays in the church in order to pray and thank the Lord for not having to work on that day. That's why they usually are happy songs!!!
TRUE
FALSE
Gospel songs explained with music what the priest had previously read on the Bible in mass on Sundays.
TRUE
FALSE
Work songs were usually...
sad songs sung by black slaves in the morning before working on the plantation.
improvised by black slaves in order not to make the work more tolerable.
sung without instruments, just with voices while working on the plantation.
songs which imitated the rhythm of the walk.
Black slaves sung work songs in order to make time _______ ________. (2 WORDS!!)
(a)
Gospel songs were never written on music scores, they were always (a) by the singers.
LYRICS:
"Oh happy day!
When Jesus washed,
He washed my (a) away..."
Black slaves had no rights at all and spent most of the day picking cotton, tobacco and coffee beans.
TRUE
FALSE
Blues music is called this way because...
It used to be songs with sad lyrics.
The lyrics used to tell stories about smurfs (smurfs: "pitufos")
It comes from the English: "to sing blue" which means to sing slowly, in other words Adagio.
The singers use to blow their nose after singing blues songs.
Huddie Ledbetter, widely known as Leadbelly, started to be called this way after one of his stays in prison, when a prisoner (a) him in his belly with a knife and survived!!!!
Leadbelly was born in 1889 in a plantation in Louisiana, but he was not a slave, he was a (a) man instead.
The young Huddie "Leadbelly" used to play in... (2 ANSWERS!!)
churches
brothels
concert halls
dance halls
Leadbelly knew how to play two instruments: (2 ANSWERS!!)
the Spanish guitar.
the accordion.
the acoustic guitar.
the saxophone.
LYRICS:
"There is a house in New Orleans
You call the (a) Sun
It's been the ruin of many a poor soul
And me, oh God, I'm one..."
