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Stormy Banks and Sweet Rivers: A Sacred Harp Geography
James B. Wallace, Emory University
"Stormy Banks and Sweet Rivers: A Sacred Harp Geography" is part of the 2008 Southern Spaces series "Space, Place, and Appalachia," a collection of publications exploring Appalachian geographies through multimedia presentations.
Introduction
History of Sacred Harp
The Spaces of Sacred Harp
Many Harps
Sacred Harp as Folk Tradition
Sacred Harp and the Pastoral
Conclusion
Recommended Resources
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C major scale in shape notes, four-shape system of the Sacred Harp. (From Wikipedia)
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Sacred Harp "Rudiments" from 1911 edition of the Original Sacred Harp.
Image courtesy of Emory University Pitts Theology Library. |
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Introduction to Sacred Harp. Nick Spitzer offers a brief introduction to Sacred Harp music. |
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"Heavenly Armor". The Wootten family performs the Sacred Harp song, "Heavenly Armor." Before singing the words, they sing the notes of the entire song. This practice is a distinct feature of Sacred Harp singing and has led the music to be dubbed "fa-sol-la" and its enthusiasts, "the fasola-folk." |
What gives Sacred Harp singing its haunting, ancient sound? In Sacred Harp music, the tenor part may carry the melody, but each of the other parts (bass, alto, treble) have important roles. Composers also make use of parallel fifths, in which an interval of a fifth is employed consecutively, and Sacred Harp composers consider two notes, often fifths, sufficient for a chord. Sacred Harp music includes unique performance practices. For example, all songs are sung loudly. Participants sing virtually at the top of their voices, though the falling and rising of the leader's arm can indicate where accents should be placed. Music composed in this style may feature dispersed harmony, in which the parts cross over each other rather than running parallel. Both the tenor and treble sections include men and women, creating the effect of a six-part, rather than a four-part, harmony. Sacred Harp music frequently includes fuging tunes, which incorporate a technique similar to singing in rounds. The different parts enter at different intervals as they repeat a line. |
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Title page of the fourth edition of The Sacred Harp, published in 1870.
Image courtesy of Emory University Pitts Theology Library. |
The name of this oblong songbook has come to designate the form of a cappella choral music it preserves. Sacred Harp music has its beginnings in New England music reforms. Puritans neglected sacred music, and by the late seventeenth century, many church-goers were weary of antiquated psalmody and a limited number of tunes. Singing schools emerged to teach lay-persons the basics of reading and performing music. These schools operated independently of any congregation or denomination and were run by itinerant teachers who were often self-taught in music (Pen 212). With a revived interest in church music, composers introduced new tunes that ignored European "scientific" musical theory and broke many of the rules of Western musical composition. One of the most famous of these singing masters was William Billings (1746-1800), a Boston tanner who composed some of the earliest American music.
In the early to mid-nineteenth century, musicians in northeast urban centers became enamored of European styles of composition and came to regard the kind of music taught in the singing schools as crude. Musicians such as Lowell Mason (1792-1872) began an ardent campaign against the singing schools and the kind of music they promoted. Mason and the "better music" advocates helped insure that European standards would be the basis of the musical curriculum in public schools.
The singing school migrated south and west. Although critics pursued the tradition (Lowell Mason's brother, Timothy, moved to Cincinnati (Bealle, 29)), it put down firm roots in regions of the South. As immigrants moved southward from Pennsylvania into Virginia and the Carolinas, singing masters and their singing schools followed. The Shenandoah Valley proved fertile ground. (Cobb 1989, 66). Singing schools and gatherings provided a social institution much appreciated by rural farmers. The schools' success increased the demand for tune books.
Sometime around 1798, William Little and William Smith of Philadelphia compiled The Easy Instructor, likely published in Albany, New York (for problems of dating and place of publication, see Metcalf, 89-97; Lowens and Britton, 115-37; Bealle 269, n. 1). This compilation of primarily American music incorporated shape-notes, or patent-notes, for the first time. To make sight-reading easier, a unique shape was assigned to each of the four syllables (fa, sol, la, and mi) commonly used to represent the seven-note scale (fa, sol, la, fa, so, la, mi). This system became popular for use both in the singing schools and in songbooks. Although numerous books were printed with shape notes, none have had the staying power of The Sacred Harp.
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A page from the 1850 edition of B. F. White's and E. J. King's The Sacred Harp. The title, "Northfield," refers to the tune on which the arrangement is based and not to the lyrics of the hymn. Image courtesy of Emory University Pitts Theology Library. |
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"Northfield". The Wootten Family sings "Northfield." This is a fuging tune, a style once widely popular among American composers but frowned upon by the "better music" movement. |
Although originally published in Philadelphia in 1844, The Sacred Harp was compiled and edited by Benjamin Franklin White and E. J. King (ca. 1821-1844) in Hamilton, Georgia. It thrived especially around the foothills of the Appalachians that stretch into northern Georgia and Alabama, and accrued strong followings in parts of northern Mississippi and some locales of Tennessee as well. George Pullen Jackson speculated in 1944 that "aside from the Holy Bible, the book found oftenest in the homes of rural southern people is without doubt the big oblong volume of song called The Sacred Harp" (Jackson 1944, 7). Although other song books continued to be printed using shape-notes, most eventually adopted the seven-shape system (representing the seven syllables do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti), and after the mid-nineteenth century, the tunes in these books came to be increasingly influenced by gospel styles.
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Mt. Zion Methodist Church, Mt. Zion, GA, July 2005. Image courtesy of Matt and Erica Hinton. |
The Sacred Harp and the American music it preserves have survived. Not only did the singing school persist in regions of the South, but another social institution developed to carry Sacred Harp music forward — the singing convention. Conventions would last several days and bring together the faithful, many traveling several days to attend. Since rural congregations were often served by circuit riders who rotated through a group of churches, it proved easy to find an empty building for a weekend of singing, despite the lack of official denominational support.
Sacred Harp found a special ally in the Primitive Baptists who resisted the modernization of church music (Cobb 1989, 5). To this day, many singings are held in Primitive Baptist churches, though Methodist and Missionary Baptist churches are frequently used. In addition to the larger conventions, which persist in a slightly altered form, regular local singings are scheduled, usually on the same day each year (for example, the third Sunday and prior Saturday in March), and often at the same location.
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Empty church with pews arranged for Sacred Harp singing. Wilson's Chapel, site of the Chattahoochee Convention (the oldest annual Sacred Harp convention), Carrolton, GA, August 2005. Image courtesy of Matt and Erica Hinton.
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The arrangement of space within the church expresses the emphasis that singers place on participation. In a typical Protestant church, row after row of pews face a pulpit or lectern, and the choir faces the congregation. For a Sacred Harp singing, however, the seating resists any suggestion that a divide might exist between "performer" and "audience." The people sit in four sections. Altos face tenors, and trebles face basses. This arrangement of singers forms a hollow square in the center. In this square stands a leader. Throughout the day, participants will take turns leading one or two songs (see: "Leading Sacred Harp Music"). Anyone, young or old, male or female, with basic competence in the music is encouraged to take a turn leading. Time permitting, everyone who wants to lead will get a chance.
Leading a song means far more to Sacred Harp singers than the opportunity to select a favorite piece of music. Standing in the hollow square, the leader is at the center of the space where all the sound converges. Singers consistently emphasize that the experience of the music is most powerful from the hollow square.
Reba Dell Windom leads "Schenectady," at Holly Springs Primitive Baptist Church, Bremen, GA, June 2004. Image courtesy of Matt and Erica Hinton.
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Although the lyrics of many songs come from the pens of Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, and John Newton, tunes may be the work of a farmer recalling fiddle melodies (Pen 217; Cobb 1989, 73-74; for more detail on this topic, see Horn). Ultimately, tracing the authorship of songs in The Sacred Harp is tricky business, since many of the ascriptions are inaccurate. A composer might avoid his or her own name out of modesty and choose to dedicate the song to another by using the other person’s name.
Sacred Harp singers do not spend the entire day inside the confines of the church. Around midday they break for dinner on the grounds. Spread over several tables, a sumptuous potluck meal, usually eaten outside, awaits the singers. Mississippi artist Ethel Mohamed vividly captured images of activities both inside and outside the church building through her embroidery and reminiscences.
When a singing is held at a rural church, the cemetery on the church grounds often becomes another focal space, especially for singers with local ties. Singings often coincide with the homecoming of a congregation or family, when the widely dispersed return to renew acquaintances and pay tribute to ancestors by decorating their graves (see: "Sacred Harp Singings"). Just before or after dinner on the grounds, singings often feature a "memorial lesson," during which songs are dedicated to the memories of the singers who have died in the last year. Some annual singings are dedicated to deceased stalwarts of the tradition.
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Holly Springs Primitive Baptist Church, Bremen, GA, June 2004.
Image courtesy of Matt and Erica Hinton. |
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Map of Cooper Book Usage
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Map of White Book Usage
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"Angel Band" is an example from Christian Harmony, a songbook in the seven-shape or "new books" style performed by the Wootten Family. |
Frontispiece of The Colored Sacred Harp, 1934. Image courtesy of Emory University Pitts Theology Library. |
There also exists an African American Sacred Harp tradition, primarily in northwestern Florida and southeast Alabama, as well as in northern Mississippi and eastern Texas (Cobb 1989, 6). Most Black Sacred Harp singers use the Cooper book; however, those in northern Mississippi prefer the Denson book (Cobb 1989, 7). (For an essay on Black Sacred Harp singing in Mississippi, see: Chiquita Walls's "Mississippi's African American Shape Note Tradition." On African American Sacred Harp singing in East Texas, see: Donald R. Ross's "Black Sacred Harp Singing in East Texas.") Black Sacred Harp singers of the “Wiregrass” region of southeast Alabama supplement the Cooper book with The Colored Sacred Harp, a short tune-book that contains music written by African American composers. (source: "Tunebooks, Music and Hymnals"; "Judge Jackson and the Colored Sacred Harp"; also Willett 50-55. All songs are by Black composers with the single exception of "Eternal Truth Thy Word" by Bascom F. Faust, a white banker who put up one thousand dollars to help subsidize the publication of the book; Willett 53.)
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