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Transcription: [00:17:45]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
Basically, it's, um- Basically, you constantly, through constant rehearsal, mostly, because sometimes, even though we- you may be really rehearsed on a particular song, but sometimes, there's always that chance that it'll be a little higher, a little lower.

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 3"}
It happens.

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
You know, matter of fact, we did-

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 3"}
All the time.

[00:18:05]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
We did it not too long ago. Remember I said he ate lunch?

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 3"}
You just don't know. [[laughter]]

[00:18:11]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
So-

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 4"}
You can't eat too much. That's it. [[laughter]]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
So, so it's a matter of, um, when you do it, it's just a matter of knowing whether or not, if you can do your best, if you come in too low or too high, and if you can't, what you gotta do? You gotta either stop or frown all the way through.

[00:18:29]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
Is that the same for you all, Cherubims?

[00:18:32]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 5"}
Oh, uh, many years ago, we used to use a key of your own. For instance, I'm gonna hit a tune, and we gon' have tenor, baritone, and bass on three chords. [[singing]]

[00:18:53]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
But that first pitch, I mean, that's the one that- So, it's- But it's in your head. How did you choose that first pitch you're gonna hit?

[00:19:01]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 5"}
I only have to shake my head and get it. That's [[??]]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
They have to shake his head and get it.

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
May I?

[00:19:06]
{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
I think what you have to understand here is another one of the distinctive factors about Afro-American expressive culture is that it is an oral tradition.

[00:19:14]
If you go into a black church, you'll see people that can do incredible things on a Hammond organ. You will see incredibly skilled piano players that don't read a note on earth, but anything that they can hear one time they can play it, be it in the gospel tradition or jazz or out of the Western European tradition.

[00:19:41]
And many of these performers do have perfect pitch, but this is not something that they think about. It's not something that they, that they consciously worked to develop because I've seen too many ins-