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How I got into this music
I've always enjoyed singing, and especially singing with
other people. Christmas carols, cheesy class recitals, you
name it, I always enjoyed it. Finally, in my late 20's, I
decided to seek out some kind of group singing. One of the
first people I mentioned this desire to, was a friend I bumped
into, a friend I'd not seen in years. She told me about Sacred
Harp music. Turns out she's the only one of my friends who'd heard of Sacred Harp
music, so I'm very glad I mentioned it to her! It also turns
out that there's a thriving Shape Note community here in
western Massachusetts. Lucky
me!!
Magda and Laura, two of my singing
friends at a 2005 sing.
I searched online, and found a local sing to attend. I went
to the sing, nervous and extremely excited. When I walked
in, I noticed the chairs were all arranged in a square, with
the four sections facing each other. It turns out that each
section sang a different bar of the music. Four sections,
means we sing the songs in four-part harmony. What an incredible
sound!
I was handed a book and a friendly person told me to try
sitting in the "tenor" section, so I did. I opened
the book, and much to my amazement, this is what I saw. What
oddly shaped notes!....
What's with those funny notes?
I was told that the tenor part was the third staff down,
and I needn't worry about the other three sections. (Phew!)
The shaped notes were explained to me as a system for learning
to read music. The four shapes are used to represent the
7 notes in an octave. (Most shapes are used twice, to represent
two notes in a scale.) So instead of do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do,
we have fa-sol-la-fa-sol-la-mi-fa. The triangle note is
the fa, the rectangle the la, the circle the sol, and the
diamond the mi. Before singing the lyrics of a song, the
group literally
"sings the shapes," singing the names of the shaped
notes, as if they were lyrics to the tune.
It doesn't have to make sense to the brain to work. What
happens is that by singing the shape's names to the tunes,
eventually the brain learns how the names of the notes relate
to each other. These shapes represent the same intervals,
so even if they're sung in a different key, they still have
the same relationship to each other, so they become familiar
relative to each other.
So, you just sit in a section for
a while, and within a few days you're singing along with
songs that you've heard before, because the tune gets in
your head. You learn the names of the notes, which are fun
to sing like the lyrics, and you don't really pay much attention
to them, until, some time later, someone leads a
song you've never sung before, and you realize you know what
many of those fa, so, la, mi combinations are supposed to
sound like. You realize you're learning how to sight-read
music! It's very cool!
Singers beating their hands in time
with the leader's tempo.
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You can find folks to sing with!
Anyone can participate, and there are groups all over the
country, as well as in England, Australia and Canada!
Two more singing friends, hanging
out after a sing. Notice Kelsey (left) is knitting! There
are lots of knitters in this community! :) Some
folks will even knit while singing, during the less
formal sings.
Christian Lyrics
Quoted from above Introduction handout:
... A
majority of the texts are hymn or camp meeting songs,
religious in nature; after all, shape-note music took root
as a way to teach unlettered Americans how to worship
through song. ... [At modern day sings] some of
the most enthusiastic Sacred Harp singers—including
a large percentage of people at any singing in the North—do
not subscribe to the same religious beliefs as the poets
who wrote the texts, yet still appreciate their often austere
and haunting beauty.
Our friend Peter and his daughter
Alexandra at a sing.
The Sacred Harp
The most popular shape note song book used today is called
the Sacred Harp (Denson edition, 1991), and many
people refer to themselves as Sacred Harp singers for this
reason, not just Shape Note singers. In our community of singers
in the Pioneer Valley, we occasionally hold small sings out
of other books, but our regular and largest sings are out
of the Sacred Harp.
Listen!
There's NOTHING that compares to hearing this in person,
but I'll share these recordings* anyway. These are from our
large 2005 convention unless stated otherwise:
- Florida This recording is from a CD put out by our group (available
for purchase here).
- Desire
For Piety
- I'll
Seek His Blessing
- Exhortation
- Arbacoochee
 Here's a video I filmed in 2005 of our regular
Tuesday night group, singing one of my favorite songs,
Green Street. People often move their hands in time with
the leader, who does it to set tempo. Sorry the sound
quality isn't great. - Walpole This is my current favorite Shape Note recording, sung by
four singers from a Vermont shape note group. (Not my group,
although I've probably sung with these women at some convention
or another!)
Our Western Mass group has a web site here.
If you live in our area, come sing with us! My husband, who
took all of these pictures, has put up excellent photo galleries
of some of our sings on his blog.
*Much thanks to the very talented Dan
Richardson who has professionally recorded our group and
conventions, and who's given me permission to put these songs
online. |
