ON THE TRAIL OF NEGRO FOLK-SONGS

A Collection Of Negro Traditional & Folk Songs with Sheet Music Lyrics & Commentaries - online book

	2l6	NEGRO FOLK-SONGS
	Oh, dis pickaxe am too heavy, Dis pickaxe am too heavy, Dis pickaxe am too heavy, Too heavy for my strength! Professor Samuel Wolfe, of Columbia University, sang for me the following, which he heard a group of Negroes singing as they made a tennis court. The foreman of the gang sang the lines, and others gave the antiphonal "Lawd, Lawd!" This evidently originated as a mine song. I'm a minder, I'ma minder, In de col' ground. Lawd, Lawd, Lawd, Lawdl I'm a minder, I'ma minder, In de coF ground. Lawd, Lawd, Lawd, Lawd! The rhythmic swing of the pick and its emphatic stroke to indi­cate a caesura, or the end of a line, makes this group-singing an im­pressive thing. In the songs which follow, the dash shows the point at which the pick is raised or brought down, and represents an em­phatic Ugh! or grunt, at the end of a musical phrase. Even these grunts that the Negro gives are harmonious with the song, and not a discord, as one might suppose, the musical intonations being sur­prisingly varied. Samuel A. Derieux reported to me several work-songs, which he heard gangs of Negroes sing. When he was a rodman helping in construction works, he would hear roving Negroes sing at their con­struction jobs. WORK-SONG