Ideas - Hallelujah! The transformative power of Black gospel music

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

When Darren Hamilton began university, he was shocked to find that there were no Black music courses and Black music professors. He grew up singing spirituals every Sunday in church. Now at the University of Toronto, Hamilton teaches Gospel Choir, U of T's first credit course in Black gospel music. Students of all backgrounds and ages come to learn and sing songs rooted in faith, freedom and joy. He says he started the course because he wanted Black music to be valued in music education, and he wanted Black students to have a music classwhere they "feel they belong." 

Are Swifties the best music fans? Should kids be on social media? Is the customer really always right? You know there are two sides to every debatable question and we're here to make you laugh while you listen to Canada's top comedians taking on these topics and many more. I'm Steve Patterson, host of The Debaters, and I'm here to make sure our debates don't end in tears or bloodshed or hockey type fights with sweaters over each other's heads. No guarantees though. Find and follow the debaters podcast and never miss an episode. This is a CBC podcast. Hi there, I'm Nala Ayed. Before we get into today's show, I'd like to ask you for a favor. If you enjoy ideas,

please hit the follow button on whatever app you're using. We've got some fascinating conversations coming up that you won't want to miss. And if you already follow the show, perhaps you can also leave us a rating and a review. It goes a long way to helping ideas reach more listeners like you. Okay, now onto today's show. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayed. It's a survival music. And so in that sense, it is music let it shine, let it shine. When I experience gospel music, it's almost like I am transported to a different world.

For that moment in time where I'm engaging with the music, it's a moment of joy, it's a moment of peace, it's a moment of having hope. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. of having hope. University of Toronto professor Darren Hamilton has established the very first Black Gospel course in the Faculty of Music's 100 year history. You guys are doing really, really well. Just remember when we reach the other side. Give us grace till we reach the other side.

For students in the class, the course is a revelation. It was like, is this real? And then after, I was like, how do I sign up? I need to get into this course now. And those in the field say it was a long time coming. I think academia is realizing that they're missing a piece. You know, you can't study jazz, for example, without understanding gospel.

They're cousins and they're both from the same root. So if you are teaching African American music and you're not teaching about gospel music, you're missing a whole chunk of the tree. Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King. Aliza Siegel's documentary is called A Life-Giving Chord. Hallelujah, hall evening, everyone. Welcome to Gospel Choir here at the Faculty of Music.

I'm delighted to have such a huge group of students with us this year. My name is Darren Hamilton. I teach Gospel Music at the University of Toronto in the Faculty of Music. I've been involved in gospel music my entire life. I was raised in a Black gospel church. Sunday mornings, my parents would send my siblings and I off to Sunday school, and we were learning gospel songs and choruses, you know, songs like, Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.

Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. So songs like that were our introduction to gospel music. And then we'd go into the regular church service. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that... It's a song that really reminds us of how fragile we are. Like me... we are. For me it's the idea of grace is really that we are receiving something that we don't deserve. What did I do to deserve this gift? But now I see.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that I'm saying The song Amazing Grace itself, I think that it has this gravitas just because it's so well known. Like me My name is Karen Burke and I'm the artistic director and co-founder of the Toronto Mass Choir. I'm also an associate professor in the music department at York University and the chair of the music department. Karen Burke is a singer, music director, choral conductor and composer of African American vocal music. In 2005, she created Canada's first Black Gospel University courses

at York University in Toronto. Black gospel music has its roots in the African American experience. It's rooted in the same music that was part and parcel of West African music tradition that were in place before they came and got us. And so even though enslaved Africans came to this side of the world without their name, without their family, without their freedom, they could not take their music that was part of who they were. And it has continued to evolve down today to infect every aspect of pop music making here. And so gospel music today is also that way. It has the same roots as the

spirituals, but it also is a tradition of expressing faith and expressing originality, personality, movement, freedom. And if you see it, even if you couldn't hear it, if you see somebody who's singing gospel music, you know that's what they're doing. This is the principle of gospel music. When you learn it, it's there, it stays with you. And when I'm singing it, it's ministering to me as well, which is a way to think above everyday issues.

It's like the view of the ego. They're sorry. Praise God, praise God. When I'm thinking about singing gospel music, first of all, it gives me such an amazing feeling of anticipation that I'm now about to enter into something that has been happening for 200 years more. I mean, gospel music itself is young, maybe around since the 1930s, but you know, spirituals, the roots of spirituals have been with us for centuries. This song I'm thinking about

is an old gospel song that would have probably been around 1940s or so. He is so good to me. Oh yes. He gives me victory. Oh yes. I think I enjoy this piece, but also particularly because of the resounding, repetitive nature of the, oh yes, because it's an affirmation and it's a confirmation of everything that you believe and that you want others to enjoy.

The call and response is built into the song. You know that the oh yes is the congregation. So as the soloist, you're singing the call and the response. I like this part. It's very much about having an attitude of gratitude and joy and also gives a wider voice to people who are waiting for an opportunity to say thank you as well, to be able to join in that chorus. For me, oh yes, doors I'm unable to open. If I'm playing and singing, I do feel a sense of transcendence that I, for the moment, I am poised between earth and heaven and been able to sort of extend a life-giving chord

to whoever needs it. A mighty God we serve. I'm singing something that to me is life. You know, I haven't sung that forever. I always teach my students, if you have the microphone, it's your job to reach, teach and preach. So they have a responsibility to tell the story. And in fact, if it's a good performance, the people from the audience or the choir will be saying the same thing, go on, tell it.

Hallelujah, sing the song, don't waste up out. But you love that if we're on stage and performing, the more people shout, the better we feel. How do you guys feel? Warmed up? Good? Happy today? Yep, you should.

First song that I'd like to review with you is the gospel train. It's just the chorus in the key of G, G, G, G, G. Let's try it. One, two, one, G, G. Let's try it. One, two, one, two, three. Get on board, children. Get on board, children. Get on board, children.

For this room, for the young boy. I wanted to provide students with the opportunity to learn about black music, which has been left out of the curriculum. And I want students to be able to have a better understanding of Black history and Black culture, which comes through the music. Darren Hamilton was classically trained, but when he began his university studies, he was frustrated by the absence of Black music and Black music professors in universities.

At the time, faculties of music were almost singularly focused on the Western classical canon. for this room for many a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a and to be able to feel that they belong because they're able to hear their music, they're able to learn more about their music in the music classroom, instead of having to rely on learning about their music in the community because their music is not being taught. And most importantly, I want Black music to be valued in music education. Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King.

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the key. It's very important to me as a musician that I have that connection with the music of my ancestors, with the music that literally kept my bloodline going and pushing through tough times right down to me. We are going to see the key. My name is Kimberly. I'm a second year student in the jazz program at U of T and I am a student in the gospel choir chorus. I am a Jamaican Canadian. I grew up in the church, so I grew up around this music all the time. I've just never learned how it works in the level of detail that I'm learning about it now. And I feel like opportunities like this class give me such a beautiful space of home where my music is being taught, my culture is being taught, my spirituality is being taught. Hallelujah, hallelujah, we're going to see the King.

Hallelujah, ooh. My name is Eric Moore. Eric Moore completed a degree in computer engineering. He worked in technology for a few years, and then made the leap to divinity studies. I'm a first year masters of divinity student at Emanuel College and I'm a student in the gospel choir course. It's an interesting mix of musical students who are professional instrumentalists in many cases who are taking this course not on the side but I think as a compliment to their primary more technical courses and students who are spiritual leaders, masters of divinity and masters of sacred music, who are interested in the words that we are singing, interested in the spiritual

content and the historical context of them, and are interested as well as me in teaching this sort of music to their congregations, frankly, in many cases to their white congregations. The main ideas in gospel music are always about freedom. Freedom to dance, freedom to improvise, freedom to worship, freedom to express. It's always about freedom. You can see it in their bodies and you can hear it in the way that they approach a lyric. The The actual lyric is going to sound different. The melody is going to sound different if it's being performed by a gospel artist. The feeling of the keys that they're going to be using, the fact that they are going to hold phrases differently, the fact that they're going to take pauses,

they're going to leave space for expression, for the audience reaction, for the choir, if there's interaction. The whole call and response nature is there for a reason. It's there to provide community-making music. Forgive me if I get kind of churchy for a minute, but I feel the spirit within the music, and I feel the energy in the air when we're in class. I feel the grace, and I feel the warmth, and I honestly feel like it makes us better people.

What I love about gospel music is the joy of it all and singing for fun. My name is Jamie Bateman. I'm a classical music major at the University of Toronto. I am a vocalist, so I do classical voice. I'm in my fifth year and this is my first time singing gospel music. A lot of the choirs that I've been in, we have a concert, we're gonna prepare for that concert, but it's based on we're gonna do this, we're gonna be in this choir for

the purpose of being in this choir. But I feel like this music, it goes beyond that. When enslaved Africans were stripped of their identity and their families and their name and their freedom, they're stripped of their community, obviously. So in order to feel human, they were striving to find ways to connect with each other and to make community. And spirituals gave them that connection. It was a musical connection that gave them hope and made them feel seen.

They were punished if they spoke to each other, but they were encouraged to sing. So this became the perfect format for them to be able to share and create community. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr You're listening to the documentary, A Life Giving Chord on Ideas, where a podcast and a broadcast heard on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, on US Public Radio, across North America, on SiriusXM, in Australia, on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca. Find us on the CBC Listen app and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayed. [♪ Crescendo and Choir singing in background. Vigorous music. Vigorous singing in background.]

It was over 30 years ago that Clifford Olsen first called me. Secret phone calls from Canada's most notorious serial killer. I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself. Now it's time to unearth the tapes, because I believe there are still answers to be found. I'm Arlene Bynum from CBC's Uncover, Calls from a Killer, available now. I'm gonna lay down my burdens down by the riverside, down by the riverside. Darren Hamilton is professor of music education at the University of Toronto, where he teaches the first Black gospel choir course in the Faculty of Music's 100-year history.

Study war no more. I'm gonna lay down my burdens. I like to start the gospel choir course each year with spirituals like Down by the riverside, riverside, when you change note, down by the riverside, study war no more. Study war no more. Study war no more. Study war no more. Study war no more study war, no more study war, no more. And so students are certainly learning what these spirituals meant, how slaves used spirituals to provide them with a sense of hope and also how spirituals were

used as a tool for navigating their way to freedom. Spirituals like Wade in the Water. Wade in the water, Wade in the water. Wade in the water, children wade in the water. God's gonna trouble the water. On the surface, this spiritual is often associated with water baptism, but the double meaning of the spiritual speaks about warning slaves to submerge themselves in water as they are escaping their slave masters.

And so when slaves are making their way through the Underground Railroad, wading in the water was cold for, find the nearest river and submerge yourself in the water to throw off your body sense from the guard dogs. That phrase, God's going to trouble the water, in reality, it's about receiving liberation and freedom. And there are so many spirituals that have double meanings like that.

Wait in the water. God's gonna trouble the water. Are there hard moments in your university class? Complicated moments? Yeah. hard moments in your university class? Complicated moments? Yeah. There are hard moments having those conversations about slavery and work songs,

spirituals that were derived from the African-American slavery period. Those are tough moments, but they're important because the students can't sing the music in a way that's true to the musical form or truth to the lyrics unless they understand where the music's coming from, unless they understand the background and the history of the music. Get on board children, get on board children, get on board children. Dealing with these really, really like emotional, you know, turmoil of singing this music and realizing where it comes from, like for example, the gospel train.

The body is nearing now the station, oh sinner don't be vain, but come and get your ticket and get ready for the train. Get on board children, get on board children, get on board children. If you listen to that song and you don't really think about the words, you just think, oh, this is a beautiful, wonderful, catchy melody. And then you realize, oh, the gospel train is about the Underground Railroad. It's instructional. It's telling you where to go and, you know, get aboard this train.

And you kind of have to do that justice. You have to have that seriousness and that joy and that instructional nature at the same time and not have it overwhelm you. So I think that that is a bit of struggle. The songs they were singing were often thought of as work songs or songs that just helped them work better. And you know, as the plantation owner would be riding through the fields and they'd be singing and calling back and forth through each other.

Get you ready for the meeting here tonight. Come along, there's a meeting here tonight. I know you. You know, those's a meeting here tonight. I know you will." You know, those kind of sort of songs where they would sing back and forth. Are you ready my brother? Oh yes. And they'd be singing in the field back and forth. Not talking, but they could sing it. So all of these messages often were messages, we're going to either escape from here tonight or we're going to gather together tonight in secret. And they would be telling each other directions. But that idea of being able to

provide hope and direction is something that has never left gospel music. It's there. It continues to be there today. Talk about the code, the code words, the code song. Yeah, certainly the codes that were implanted in spirituals were related to characters, places, events to come. So for example, something like, swing low sweet chariot. It would have been sung specifically or created and sung when there was going to be an anticipated escape. So Harriet Tubman is one of the more famous people who would come and, you know, she would slip into the plantation and be there. I mean, under plain sight, be there. And the next morning, there'd be five people gone.

And so they used to call her Black Moses or Old Chariot. That was her nickname. And so when you sing, swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home. Home could mean Canada. Home could mean heaven. Home could mean death. But whatever it was, it was away from here.

And she being old chariot, they would start singing the song and then people would know she's coming tonight. I will kick myself if I don't ask you to sing a little bit of Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Well, that's easy enough. You pick an easy one today. Yeah. You can sing the song however you're feeling at that moment. I played it sort of up and bouncy, and that's sort of usually how people would think of it. Swing low, sweet chariot, calling for to carry me home. But when you know why it's sung, then you can sing it. So you sing with an understanding of what it is, then it gives it sort of proper place. And so often I hear people, they're doing that kind of show choir kind of interpretation. And I think, you know, you haven't really understood

where this music comes from. So let's try that again. Yeah. As a black music teacher, having the opportunity to teach gospel music at the university has been liberating for me. And for Black students who now have the opportunity to learn gospel music in a university music program, it brings me joy to know that that Black student is likely going to have the opportunity to feel that

same sense of liberation. Absolutely. It just feels like it's about time that this music is taught at this level and exposed the way that it is, it's about time. It makes me feel very seen. It makes me feel like I'm home. Seriously, it makes me feel like I'm home. One of the topics that I lecture on is called the emotional roots of gospel music. And part of it comes from the experience of slavery, but also even through the Civil Rights Movement,

it needed an outlet. There was so much that was happening that they needed to be able to express it. And so gospel music, when you see that, it is physical depiction of that need to work that through and to express. To be able to express passionately, physically, gospel music is whole body singing. You use every ounce of it, right? And so in some academic circles, if you sing and leaning towards that type of expression, it's considered bad singing. It's not considered proper singing. And I've heard it said, the idea that there is a hierarchy and that, you know, and this way of singing is the only way, the highest form is a deeply held conviction by many still. And there are people who are,

who would desperately would like to be part of academia that have had their expressive singing squeezed out of them. Emotion is not considered intellectual. And yet now there is an awareness and there is beginning to be a value of culture, of the fact that there are different expressions. And I'm loving the fact that there's also a recognition of amazing African-American composers who even their symphonic works have flavors of gospel music and spiritual in them, and they're being recognized as great works. There is a whole, you know, rafters and rafters of music that is just coming to light and composers like Florence Price, long gone, but their music has been there and been sort of lying dormant,

not recognized ostensibly because they're Black. But it's starting, it's starting, it's small, but it is growing and I don't think the train is going to stay in the station. I think it's going to keep going. The The last several years have seen the growth of Black Gospel music appointments and courses at North American universities and colleges, including Ivy League schools like Yale. I think academia is realizing that they're missing a piece. You know, you can't study jazz, for example, without understanding gospel. They're cousins and they're both from the same root. So if you are teaching African American music and you're not teaching about gospel music, you're missing a whole chunk of the tree.

Every appointment that allows somebody to come in with the skill set that says that your area of study is just as valuable as if you came in and you were an expert in Baroque music. Every nod helps this whole area to rise. It's love, it's love, it's love. For the first time ever, I feel like I'm not, even though technically I am, but for the first time in my life, I don't have that feeling of being the only black person in the class and the only person that understands this.

And it's beautiful. Darren, to what extent is it disturbing for you to see that that black students are absent from your class? It's disturbing. It points to barriers of access to music education. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of breaking down barriers and being able to provide access. I think other places need to do the same thing.

They need to make room and they need to stop pretending like somebody can just like pull themselves up by the bootstraps. You ain't given them no shoes yet, so give them some shoes. So this is not just a music thing. I feel like that's my job is just to keep the door open so that other people can come through. I think that music programs across the country need to be willing to take an honest look at their curriculum and what they've been offering over the years. Um, I believe that they need to take an honest look at their audition requirements. Colleges and universities need to take intentional steps of including music

courses that are outside of the classical music canon into their curriculum and hire black musicians and black music educators. Let's see if I actually have a voice to be able to sing that high today. Sometimes I can. Get up all our children. One, two, three. Get up all our children. Darren will sing a line and then we'll sing it back. Get up all our children. One, two, three. Darren will sing a line and then we'll sing it back.

And that's how we learn in this course. So knowing how it's properly done, basically, how it's done traditionally, I think that that's really important. A lot of the music that we learn in institutions is attached to being able to read music. And somehow there's developed this thing that if you don't read off a printed page, somehow you are musically illiterate. It's such a Western notion having print music be the standard for music literacy. So I love the fact that things like learning by ear, learning to play has shown to be a great skill set. So people who learn in this way, their ears become better. They can pick up, you can play in any key, you can play a phrase and it can be repeated back to you and you're able to turn a phrase and just be able to make music without the constraints of being tied down to print notation.

So what are you doing then? You are watching and you are listening. And those are two very simple but extremely important skills that are underrated. So somebody, for example, like a Lornell Lewis, who is one of the top drummers in the country, he was raised as a gospel musician and he can play in any style. And his musicianship is extremely high. But he would tell you, he'd be the first to tell you that he would be playing at three years old, sitting on his dad's lap in church. My earliest exposure to gospel music was actually when I was two years old, actually when I

was younger. My name is Larnell Lewis. I am a drummer, composer, and educator from Toronto. Larnell Lewis teaches music at Humber College. I spoke with him at his home just outside of Toronto. As a musician in church, there's a purpose, and the purpose is to get all of the minds and hearts in sync through song. Larnel is one of the most sought-after drummers in the world,

and is perhaps best known for his work with the band Snarky Puppy. But his claim to internet fame came when he was asked to listen to a song he'd never heard before, and then drum to it. Here we go. I'll take more volume. Okay. It was the heavy metal song, Enter Sandman by Metallica.

I'm not lying when I say I've never heard or played this tune in my life so I'm gonna give it a try. To date, that video has been viewed more than 16 million times. My dad was the musical director at the church that we grew up at. You know, you're at church, you're seeing music. My parents are bringing me to their rehearsals with their band called the Heavenly Light Band. And so I would be there all the time,

sleeping in bass cases, listening to music, you know, at church standing beside him when he's playing, sitting on my dad's lap, playing the drums and him playing the pedals because I was way too short to be playing the pedals. And so in church, when you're around music and it feels exciting, you know, when you get excited, what do you do? You want to wave your hands and hit something. And so eventually you learn to do it in time because you start to feel what

it feels like to be in sync with the rhythms and you learn these courses and these songs and these hymns every Sunday. So it's kind of like the music lesson that you never expected. Larnel is widely admired for his ability to pick apart a composition by ear and figure out what and how he'll drum to it. When you're listening by ear, you'll realize very quickly that you're moving from one section to another and you need what's called a setup. He even did it once while on an international flight, en route to a last minute studio recording session. He put on headphones and learned each of the eight songs

in the seven hours before landing. One more between the airport and the studio. He was ready to play when he arrived. How much of that ability do you attribute to your early exposure to gospel? to your early exposure to gospel. When I think about learning the song on the fly, like just by ear, I would say it was through playing at church every week, you show up on a Sunday morning, no rehearsal, and the person on stage starts singing.

And we are performing these songs and needing to understand what's being sung and create a song form together. I learned about song form. Then I took that idea of understanding song form, which is there's an intro, there's a verse, there's a chorus. Maybe we repeat those. There's a bridge. Maybe we go back to the last chorus and vamp that.

And so all of those things have to be sorted out in your mind after hearing one verse and one chorus. And you do that every week. Every week, every week. Just experience in church alone is what gave me the ability to do that. Larnel has had that experience many times of having to learn music by ear under extraordinary pressure.

The earliest time that I remember was being at a rehearsal with my dad, and the drummer couldn't make it. And they said, man, you know, what are we gonna do? We gotta find a drummer. And I was about seven at the time, my brother was five. My dad said, oh, my son could play.

They said, him? And you know, I'm playing with toys with my brother. And then they say, he could do it. And I was like, yeah, Larnell, do you wanna play drums? Yes. Do you know the songs? Yes, because I'm hearing them every single time we go to rehearsal.

And that was the first gig. ["Risk of the Rhyme"] To what extent do you worry about the risks? Are there risks to taking gospel music and placing it in an academic setting? I think that when you remove the music from the church and look at it as a separate item on its own, I think it could also be really easy to forget

what it represents and what its purpose is. And not having the purpose also slightly erases or dulls the intention and the context. And so you lose a lot of that. You remove the service. The rhythms don't carry the same life. They just become notes. And so I think that people will learn about gospel music and they'll learn all

of the isms. But I think that the risk is that if you don't understand why it's being done, why someone is embellishing the way that they are, and you're just doing it, that representation changes and then that might then be copied and pasted from the school into a church setting and it's been diluted. If you learn about the music and you don't go to where it's from then you're just missing out. That is where the music was born and you get the most understanding of application when you are in a church and you can dig deeper. And so I think, go to church.

Ha ha ha ha ha. The law is on. It's blessing me. It's blessing me. The law is on. The law is on. It's blessing me. It's blessing me. I want all of the students, particularly the Black students, but all of the students to understand the richness of the contributions of this music to the things that we listen to, that this is not a foreign music. This is not other music, but this is a music that is very much connected

to what we enjoy every day. I believe that the way that this music is taught and performed also provides the students with a window to something that will revolutionize their playing. Right now! Right now! Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo This is something that I've heard and seen again and again. The students will tell me that their playing is better because they have learned how to play gospel music. Their singing is better because they've learned to sing gospel music.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, this little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. I feel like it benefits my technique as a singer. I've been able to accomplish things this year that I haven't ever thought that I would, and I feel like it has to do with the fact that I'm exploring this different genre. My vocal technique has just gotten a lot better. I'm able to hit higher notes. I have better support. My lower register is so much better, and that's from singing alto and using this different sort of technique.

I'm able to sing contemporary music now without it sounding like I'm an opera singer. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Let it shine in the morning. Let it shine all night. Let it shine. Let it shine in the morning. Let it shine all night. Let it shine. Let it shine.

Let it shine all night. It takes a bit of time to learn how to sing in road. I don't know what they say It takes a bit of time to learn how to sing and wrote. I think it's almost teaches you better Than sheet music because you hear every other part. We go voice part by voice part And you sing your part and then everybody else has to learn theirs, but then when it all comes together. ["Let it Shine"] The most glorious parts of the class are when we put everything together. I love it when professor said, okay, sopranos sing your part, altos, tenors, and basses, and like that's all good and everything, but then when we put it all together. You can hear just the mix of it and you're so aware of everybody else around you,

and I think that's something that we don't get in classical music very often. It forces you to listen. With all of the accents and with all of the crescendos and all the energy shifts, it honestly feels like a church service. I feel like I've gotten my joy back for music. I've been here for five years. It's been very grueling. It's a professional degree so it's a lot of work and a lot of failures and learning but I feel as if I feel like this course and meeting here every week has given me that joy and that love back. And to be a part of not just a choir, but almost a movement,

this projection of what the world could be, what it should be. The song that we are learning that impacts me the most is We Shall Overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. This gospel song was very popular during the Civil Rights Movement. Someday. song was very popular during the civil rights movement. It's a song about overcoming hard times and it can be applied to any situation, but it is so hopeful. We shall overcome.

It's very emotional. Every class, the first time that we start into that song, I feel wrapped up in the history of the song, in the story of the song. I feel like part of that weave of collective struggle and collective victory that the song represents. And I love the key changes in that song too. It's like the music starts off in this place. We shall overcome.

And then we go to another key center that's completely unrelated to the first. We shall overcome. And then we go to another key center that's different. Someday. And then we go to another key center that's different. Someday. But the message of that song, because we're all going through something,

we're all going through something, and to hear that message, we shall overcome, it's like, you got this. It's gonna be okay. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome someday. Come someday Deep in my heart

I do believe That we shall overcome someday. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome someday. The documentary, A Life Giving Chord, was produced by Aliza Siegel. Special thanks to Darren Hamilton and the students of the University of Toronto's Gospel Choir course. And to Patrick Alexander in the CBC Music Library.

For this and other episodes of Ideas, please visit our website, cbc.ca slash ideas. You can also find more on this episode at cbc.ca slash Being Black in Canada, which is also on Instagram. Lisa Ayuso is the web producer of Ideas. Technical production, Danielle Duval. The acting senior producer is Lisa Godfrey. The executive producer of Ideas is Greg Kelly. And I'm Nala Ayed. We'll walk hand in hand, we'll walk hand in hand today. I do believe that we shall overcome someday. Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cbc.ca.ca.ca.ca.