Friday Videos: Shape Note Singing
Last night I did shape-note singing for the first time, also referred to as Sacred Harp from the most popular shape-note songbook, a style highly popular in the rural south in the 19th and early 20th Century.
The dominant religion at the time, the Baptist faith, largely prohibited musical instruments in worship, so hymns were sung entirely a capella in four part harmony.
Because the singers weren’t highly trained (that is not to imply they aren’t highly skilled), they used a simple scale called the shape-note scale, based around Fa, Sol, La, Mi: the notes are called shape note because rather than the simple oval varieties common today, the notes were triangualr (fa), oval (sol), rectangular (la), and diamond shaped (mi): more here (warning pdf).
I’ve always wanted to try shape-note singing because it’s the basis for a lot of the country and bluegrass harmony singing I like so much, so I was really excited to learn that a local community space was going to host a singing on the fourth Thursday of every month and signed up right away.
From what I understand, shape-note singing takes awhile to really get the hang of, so I set my presumptions aside. I’m glad I did, because my first session was frustrating and difficult. because there are four separate harmonies, there are four staffs, of which three use the G-clef, and one uses the bas clef. The harmonies are treble, alto, tenor (the melody), and bass: beginners like me are encouraged to sing the tenor because it’s easiest. The songs are “marked off” by the group leader, and are initially sung using the note names, “Fa Fa La Sol La Mi La Fa”, before incorporating the words.
I knew it was going to be a challenge, but not THAT much of a challenge. The hardest parts were keeping time, because I didn’t know how the lead singer was counting the beat as he swung his arm up and down: was he counting one-two with each swing, or one-two-three-four? If that wasn’t enough, the tenor staff is the third down, while the lyrics are up on the top, so you have to keep shifting your eyes up to the lyrics and down to the notes. Dizzying.
For most of the session, I spent more time listening than singing: one of the standard practices in the style is to sing very loudly, nearly at the top of your lungs. The result is a wall of sound and voices, and the group I sang with harmonized REALLY well.
Here’s a singing from 2006 at the Capitol Hill Rotunda:
Here’s a segment from Awake My Soul, a documentary about shape note singing.
And another singing:
I go to a singing the fourth Thursday of every month at the A-Space. You should come too: it’s difficult, but it’s really worth it. And no, you don’t have to be religious (I don’t know if any of the folks I was singing with were believers), but you DO have to be willing to sing about Jesus and God, since that’s what the majority of the subject matter.
3 Responses to “Friday Videos: Shape Note Singing”
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April 27th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Isn’t this the singing style they used in “Cold Mountain”? I really enjoyed the soundtrack.
April 28th, 2007 at 9:18 am
I’ll “witness” to the fact that this is a lot of fun. Group singing is one of those primal things that I really miss, seeing as I don’t go to church regularly and my days of being in a chorus as a schoolkid are behind me. True, the music-reading thing can be a little trying, but it’s a pretty simplified method of notation, plus you’ve got people belting out your part all around you and if you can’t just blend in, you can usually get the hang of it by the second or third go at it.
April 28th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Wow, you never cease to amaze me Brendan. You must post a video of one of your performances with the group. This sound kind-of reminds me of some Eastern European folk chorales I’ve heard.
My son and I took some clogging classes recently. Boy did we gain an appreciation for that art. It’s good that we help keep these old forms of song and dance alive. Don’t stop.