Sacred Harp: Encyclopedia II - Sacred Harp - Singing Sacred Harp music

Sacred Harp - Singing Sacred Harp music

Sacred Harp groups always sing a cappella, that is to say, without accompanying instruments. The singers arrange themselves in a square, with a row of chairs or pews on each side assigned to each of the four parts: treble, alto, tenor, and bass.

The treble and tenor sections are usually mixed, with men and women singing the notes an octave apart.

Typically, there is no single leader or conductor; rather, the participants take turns in leading. The leader for a particular round selects a song from the book, and "calls" it by its page number. Leading is done in an open-palm style, standing in the middle of the square facing the tenors.

The pitch at which the music is sung is relative; there is no instrument to give the singers a starting point. The leader, or else some particular singer assigned to the task, finds a good pitch with which to begin and intones it to the group (using the appropriate syllable). The singers reply with the opening notes of their own parts, and then the song begins immediately.

As the name implies, Sacred Harp music is sacred (Protestant Christian) music. Many of the songs in the book are hymns that use words, meters, and stanzaic forms familiar from elsewhere in Protestant hymnody. However, Sacred Harp songs are quite different from "mainstream" Protestant hymns in their musical style: in texture they are polyphonic, and for harmony they employ a stark and robust style which emphasizes open fifths.

Many Sacred Harp songs are fuging tunes (spelt so, or sometimes fuguing), which are not actually fugues but resemble them in having each voice enter in succession. There are also anthems, which are longer songs sung through just once, rather than in multiple verses.

Sacred Harp singing normally occurs not in church services, but in special gatherings or "singings" arranged for the purpose. Singings can be local, regional, statewide, or national. Small singings are often held in homes, with perhaps only a dozen singers. Large singings have been known to have more than a thousand participants. The more ambitious singings include an ample potluck dinner in the middle of the day, traditionally called "dinner on the grounds."

Some of the largest and oldest annual singings are called "conventions". The oldest Sacred Harp convention was the Southern Musical Convention, organized in Upson County, Georgia in 1845. The two oldest surviving Sacred Harp singing conventions are the Chattahoochee Musical Convention (organized in Coweta County, Georgia in 1852), and the East Texas Sacred Harp Convention (organized as the East Texas Musical Convention in 1855).

Sacred Harp - Sacred Harp music as participatory music

Sacred Harp singers view their tradition as a participatory one, not a passive one. Those who gather for a singing sing for themselves and for each other, and not for an audience. This can be seen in several aspects of the tradition.

First, the seating arrangement (four parts in a square, facing each other) is clearly intended for the singers, not for external listeners. Non-singers are always welcome to attend a singing, but typically they sit among the singers in the back rows of the tenor section, rather than in any particular designated audience location.

The leader, being equidistant from all sections, in principle hears the best sound. The often intense sonic experience of standing in the center of the square is considered one of the perquisites of leading, and sometimes a guest will be invited as a courtesy to stand next to the leader during a song.

The music itself is also meant to be participatory. Most forms of choral composition place the melody on the top (treble) line, where it can be best heard by an audience, with the other parts written so as not to obscure the melody. In contrast, Sacred Harp composers have aimed to make each musical part singable and interesting in its own right, thus giving every singer in the group an absorbing task. For this reason, "bringing out the melody" is not a high priority in Sacred Harp composition, and indeed it is customary to assign the melody not to the trebles but to the tenors. Fuging tunes, in which each section gets its moment to shine, also illustrate the importance in Sacred Harp of maintaining the independence of each vocal part.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Singing Sacred Harp music", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki