Gospel Choir experience

I attended a Gospel Choir workshop this past Saturday and Sunday by Dr. Keith Hampton. Here I had an experience with the African-American worship rituals. He taught us the the main difference between European worship and Black worship, as he preferred to be called, was passive participation versus active participation. He explained to us that in normal Black conversation the two people will say something after nearly every sentence. We performed two songs that he had written as well. He taught us how to sing some songs by rote. Rote is learning orally with-out music. Dr. Hampton taught us by having us listen the first time, sing the second, and be perfect the third time. This was an effective method to teach college students. However if he had taught us more complex music it would not have been so easy to learn these songs. The songs that we learned through this method were very repetitive. If we had done harder songs with more complex harmonies this would have been very hard to do. He didn't really have to maintain control of the group because he is a very highly respected composer and we respected him and he respected us. Because of this he did not have to worry about keeping the focus. He also was funny and integrated humor into the long rehearsal. This experience was very good and I really learned about something I didn't know before.