Troping the Blues: From Spirituals to the Concert Hall

Abstract

This article illustrates in part a mode of inquiry first introduced in my article Ring Literary Theory, Historical Studies, and Black Music Inquiry (1991), which posits an approach to the study of black music consistent with and grounded in the music itself. This piece is admittedly incomplete, since the book version of this extraction leads to the explication of a theory of criticism. As I stated in Ring Shout! the key to effective criticism lies in understanding the tropings and Signifyin(g)s of black music, for such practices are criticism-perceptive and evaluative acts and expressions that value and devalue acts of music making. And since the purpose of criticism is to make artistic presentation more accessible to audiences, the decoding and explanation of Signifyin(g) tropes-the figurative, rhetorical, and critical devices from within black culture that inform the music-are indispensable to black music inquiry. Furthermore, such tropings reveal textures that otherwise would go unnoticed or unappreciated, and they draw attention to the drama, progression, juxtaposition, and Signification of the idiomatic figures of black music making. In this regard, the use here of terminology appropriate to such devices is recognition of their validity and their ability to increase the level of accessibility by engaging perceptions, beliefs, and assumptions from within the culture and thereby making possible culturally meaningful evaluation and criticism.

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