A work song is typically a rhythmic a cappella song sung by people working on a physical and often repetitive task. The work song is probably intended to reduce feelings of boredom. Rhythms of work songs also serve to synchronize physical movement in a gang. Frequently, the verses of work songs are improvised and sung differently each time. The improvisation provided the singers with a sometimes subversive form of expression: improvised verses sung by slaves had verses about escaping, improvised verses sung by sailors had verses complaining about the captain and the work conditions. Work songs also help to create a feeling of familiarity and connection between the workers.

Work Songs and Slavery

Work song
Stylistic origins:	African American music
Cultural origins:	U.S.
Typical instruments:	Vocal
Mainstream popularity:
Derivative forms:	Spiritual
Fusion genres
Blues

Work songs sung by slaves are known by many names around the world. In America, such songs were the foundation for what would eventually become the Blues. Some songs were part of a native heritage and sung to remind the slaves of home, while others were instituted by the slave masters to raise morale, keep slaves working in rhythm, or any number of other purposes. Black American slave songs might be referred to as "chain gang songs" or "spirituals" depending on the context of the song^[1].

In America, the most famous slave songs were sung by African-American slaves in the South. These songs were typically in a call-and-response format, where a lead would sing a verse or verses and the other workers would respond with a chorus. One very famous song from this era is Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, a spiritual. Frederick Douglass, a slave that escaped to New York, noted in 1845 that

While on their way (to work), the slaves would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up, came out, if not in the word, in the sound; and as frequently in the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. This they would sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.^[2]

Slave music in America fell into two main categories: spirituals and secular music. The secular music typically "consisted of field hollers, shouts, and moans that used folk tales and folk motifs, and that made use of homemade instruments." Though drums were banned in later years for fear that black slaves would use them to communicate in a rebellion, slaves "managed to generate percussion and percussive sounds, using other instruments or their own bodies."^[3]

Spirituals were rooted deeply in Christianity, to which many slaves were fervent converts. This fervor echoed the rise of Christianity among Roman prisoners and slaves many centuries earlier.

Today, many slave songs are sung as performance pieces, usually in the genre of folk music.

Work Songs and the Sea

Main article: sea shanty

Work songs sung by sailors during the 20th, 19th, and to a lesser extent 18th centuries are known as sea shanties. These songs were typically performed while adjusting the rigging, raising anchor, and other tasks where men would need to pull in rhythm. These songs usually have a very punctuated rhythm precisely for this reason, along with a call-and-answer format.

Well before the 19th century, sea songs were common on rowing vessels. Such songs were also very rhythmic in order to keep the rowers together. Because many cultures used slaves to row, these songs might also be considered slave songs. These songs were performed with and without the aid of a drum.

Work songs had a very slow style and were normally sung in 4/4.

See also

• Military cadence
• Waulking song
• Venezuelan work songs
• The Volga Boatmen's Song

References

Rhythmic contemporary, also known as rhythmic top 40, rhythmic contemporary hit radio and "rhythmic crossover", is a music radio format that includes of a mix of dance, and upbeat rhythmic pop, hip-hop, and R&B hits.
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A Cappella (Italian: “in the church style”) music is vocal music or singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way.
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A song is a relatively short musical composition. Songs contain vocal parts that are performed with the human voice and generally feature words (lyrics), commonly accompanied by other musical instruments (exceptions would be a cappella and scat songs).
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Boredom has been defined by Fisher in terms of its central psychological processes: “an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity.
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African American music (also called black music, formerly known as race music) is an umbrella term given to a range of music and musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large ethnic minority
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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. In principle anything that, produces sound, and can somehow be controlled by a person playing it, can serve as a musical instrument.
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human voice consists of sound made by a human using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming etc. The vocal folds, in combination with the lips, the tongue, the lower jaw, and the palate, are capable of producing highly intricate arrays of sound.
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A spiritual (or negro spiritual) was a song created by American slaves before emancipation, or a subsequent arrangement of such a song.

Historical Spirituals

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Blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes and a repetitive pattern that most often follows a twelve-bar structure. It emerged in African-American communities of the United States from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants,
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Blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes and a repetitive pattern that most often follows a twelve-bar structure. It emerged in African-American communities of the United States from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants,
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chain gang is a group of prisoners chained together to perform menial or physically challenging labor, such as chipping stone, often along a highway or rail bed. This system existed primarily in the United States, and by 1955, had been phased out of use nationwide.
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A spiritual (or negro spiritual) was a song created by American slaves before emancipation, or a subsequent arrangement of such a song.

Historical Spirituals

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The Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, and CSA) was the government formed by eleven southern states of the United States of America between 1861 and 1865.
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"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is a United States African-American Negro spiritual song. While sung primarily in black churches and throughout the nation in tradition African-American venues, it also has a large association with English rugby union and is also regularly sung at England
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Frederick Douglass (February 14, 1818 ^[1] – February 20, 1895) was an American abolitionist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer. Called "The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia," Douglass was one of the most prominent figures in African
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Folk music can have a number of different meanings, including:

• Traditional music: The original meaning of the term "folk music" was synonymous with the term "Traditional music", also often including World Music and Roots music; the term "Traditional music" was given

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Sea shanties (singular "shanty", also spelled "chantey"; derived from the French word "chanter", 'to sing') were shipboard working songs. Shanties flourished from at least the 15th century through the days of steam ships in the first half of the 20th century.
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Rigging (from Anglo-Saxon wrigan or wrihan, "to clothe") is, on sailboats and sailing ships, the collection of apparatuses through which the force of the wind is transferred to the ship in order to propel it forward.
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citation, footnoting or external linking.

In the armed services, a military cadence or cadence call is a traditional call-and-response work song sung by military personnel while running or marching.
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Waulking songs (Scots Gaelic: Orain Luaidh) are Scottish folk songs, traditionally sung by women while waulking cloth. This practice involved a group of people beating newly woven tweed rhythmically against a table or similar surface to soften it.
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Songs of milking

The milking songs are those associate to the milking of cows with the purpose of tranquilizing the animal during the task. It is custom in Venezuela to give name him to the cows.
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Length 4:19

The Song of the Volga Boatmen is a well-known traditional Russian song collected by Mily Balakirev, and published in his book of folk songs. It is a genuine barge-haulers' shanty. Balakirev published it with only one verse (the first).
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