Sacred Harp: Encyclopedia II - Sacred Harp - History of Sacred Harp singing

Sacred Harp - History of Sacred Harp singing

The earliest roots of Sacred Harp singing are found in the American colonial era. At that time, singing schools were created to provide instruction in choral singing, especially for the use of churches. In 1801, a book called The Easy Instructor¹ by William Smith and William Little was published for the use of this movement; it was the first book printed in shape notes. There was, however a rival shape system: Andrew Law (1749-1821) introduced a shape note system in his The Musical Primer of 1803. Although this book came out two years later than Smith and Little's book, Law claimed earlier invention of shape notes. In his system, a square indicated fa, a circle sol, a triangle la and a diamond, mi. Law used the shaped notes without a musical staff. It was the Smith and Little shapes that ultimately prevailed.

Shape notes were abandoned in most of the U.S. only shortly after their invention, as the result of a so-called "better music" movement spearheaded by Lowell Mason. But the shapes became popular in the South, where they were specifically adapted for the dissemination of sacred music. During the early decades of the nineteenth century, a whole series of shape note hymnbooks appeared, many of which were successful and were widely distributed. Probably the most successful shape note book prior to The Sacred Harp was William Walker's Southern Harmony, published in 1835 and still in use today. Even after the appearance of The Sacred Harp (next section), shape note systems continued to evolve; for a more complete history, see shape note.

Sacred Harp - Early history of The Sacred Harp

Sacred Harp singing as such came into being following the publication of Benjamin Franklin White and Elisha J. King's The Sacred Harp in 1844. It was this book, now distributed in several different versions, that came to be the shape note tradition with the largest number of participants.

B. F. White (1800-1879) was originally from Union County, South Carolina, but since 1842 had been living in Harris County, Georgia. He prepared The Sacred Harp in collaboration with a younger man, E. J. King, (ca. 1821-1844), who was from Talbot County, Georgia. Together they compiled, transcribed, and composed tunes, and published a book of over 250 songs.

King died soon after the book was published, and White was left to guide its growth. He was responsible for organizing singing schools and conventions at which The Sacred Harp was used as the songbook. During his lifetime, the book became popular and would go through three revisions (1850, 1859, and 1869), all produced by committees consisting of White and several colleagues working under the auspices of the Southern Musical Convention. The first two new editions simply added appendices of new songs to the back of the book. The 1869 revision was more extensive, removing some of the less popular songs and adding new ones in their places. From the original 262 pages, the book was expanded by 1869 to 477. This edition was reprinted and continued in use for several decades.

Sacred Harp - Origin of the modern editions

Around the turn of the 20th century, Sacred Harp singing entered a period of conflict over the issue of traditionalism. The conflict ultimately split the community.

B. F. White had died in 1879 before completing a fourth revision of his book; thus the version that Sacred Harp participants were singing from was by the turn of the century over three decades old. During this time, the musical tastes of Sacred Harp's traditional adherents, the inhabitants of the rural South, had changed in important ways. Notably, gospel music - syncopated and chromatic, often with piano accompaniment - had become popular, along with a number of church hymns of the "mainstream" variety, such as "Rock of Ages." Seven-shape notation systems had appeared and won adherents away from the older four-shape system (see shape note for details). As time passed, Sacred Harp singers doubtless became aware that what they were singing had become quite distinct from contemporary tastes.

The natural path to take--and the one ultimately taken--would be to assert the archaic character of Sacred Harp as an outright virtue. In this view, Sacred Harp should be treasured as a time-tested musical tradition, standing above current trends of fashion. The difficulty with adopting traditionalism as a guiding doctrine was that different singers had different opinions about just what form the stable, traditionalized version of Sacred Harp would take.

The first move was made by W. M. Cooper, of Dothan, Alabama, who was a leading Sacred Harp teacher in his own region, but not part of the inner circle of B. F. White's old colleagues and descendants. In 1902 Cooper prepared a revision of The Sacred Harp that, while retaining most of the old songs, also added new tunes that reflected more contemporary music styles. Cooper made other changes, too:

• He retitled many old songs. These songs were formerly named by their tune, using arbitrarily chosen place names ("New Britain", "Northfield", "Charlestown"). The new names were based on the text; thus "New Britain" became "Amazing Grace", "Northfield" become "How Long, Dear Savior", and so on. The old system was intended in colonial times to permit mixing and matching of tunes and texts, but was unnecessary in a system where the pairing of tune and text was fixed.
• He transposed some songs into new keys. This is thought to have brought the notation closer to actual performing practice.
• He wrote new alto parts for the many songs that originally just had three vocal lines.

The Cooper revision was a success, being widely adopted in many areas of the South, such as Florida, southern Alabama, and Texas, where it has continued as the predominant Sacred Harp book to this day. The "Cooper book," as it is now often called, was revised by Cooper himself in 1907 and 1909; and since then has been supervised by an editorial committee which produced new editions in 1927, 1950, 1960, 1992, and 2000.

However, in the original core geographic area of Sacred Harp singing, northern Alabama and Georgia, the singers did not in general take to the Cooper book, as they felt it deviated too far from the original tradition. Obtaining a new book for these singers was made more difficult by the fact that B. F. White's son James L. White, who would have been the natural choice to prepare a new edition, was a non-traditionalist. Ultimately, a committee headed by Joseph Summerlin James produced a new edition (1911) that largely satisfied the wishes of this community of singers.

The James edition was later revised in a version that moved somewhat further in the direction of traditionalism. This revision was completed in 1936 by a committee under the leadership of the brothers Seaborn and Thomas Denson, both influential singing school teachers. Both died shortly before the project was complete, and the remaining work was overseen by Paine Denson, son of Thomas. This version of The Sacred Harp is still often called the "Denson book". Later editorial committees produced further revisions of this book in 1960, 1967, 1971, and 1991.

Even the highly traditionalist James and Denson books followed Cooper in adding alto parts to most of the old three-part songs (these alto parts led to a lawsuit by Cooper, which was unsuccessful). Some people (see for instance the reference by Buell Cobb given below) believe that the new alto parts imposed an esthetic cost by filling in the former stark open harmonies of the three-part songs. Wallace McKenzie (reference below) argues to the contrary, basing his view on a systematic study of representative songs². In any event, there is little support today for abandoning the added alto parts, since most singers give a high priority to giving every side of the square its own part to sing.

It was thus that the traditionalism debate split the Sacred Harp community, and there seems little prospect that it will ever reunite under a single book. However, there have been no further splits. Both the Denson and the Cooper groups adopted traditionalist views for the particular form of Sacred Harp they favored, and these forms have now been stable for about a century.

The strength of traditionalism can be seen in the front matter of the two hymnbooks. The Denson book is forthrightly Biblical in its defense of tradition:

The Cooper book also shows a warm appreciation of tradition:

To say that both communities are traditionalist does not mean they discourage the creation of new songs. To the contrary, it is part of the tradition that musically creative Sacred Harp singers should become composers themselves and add to the canon. The new compositions are prepared in traditional styles, and could be considered a kind of tribute to the older material. New songs have been incorporated into editions of The Sacred Harp throughout the 20th century.

Sacred Harp - Other Sacred Harp books

Two other books are currently used by Sacred Harp singers. A few singers in north Georgia employ the "White book," an expanded version of the 1869 B. F. White edition edited by J. L. White. African-American Sacred Harp singers, although primarily users of the Cooper book, also make use of a supplementary volume, The Colored Sacred Harp, produced by Judge Jackson (1883-1958) in 1934 and later revised in two subsequent editions. In his book Judge Jackson and The Colored Sacred Harp, Joe Dan Boyd has identified four regions of Sacred Harp singing among African-Americans - eastern Texas (Cooper book), northern Mississippi (Denson book), south Alabama and Florida (Cooper book), and New Jersey (Cooper book). The Colored Sacred Harp is limited to the New Jersey and south Alabama-Florida groups. Sacred Harp was "exported" from south Alabama to New Jersey. It appears to have died out among the African-Americans in eastern Texas.

In summary, three revisions of and one companion book to The Sacred Harp are currently in use in Sacred Harp singing:

• The B. F. White Sacred Harp, Revised Cooper Edition (2000). Samson, AL: The Sacred Harp Book Company.
• The Sacred Harp, 1991 edition (the "Denson book"). Carrollton, GA: Sacred Harp Publishing Company.
• The Sacred Harp, J. L. White Fourth Edition, with Supplement (the "White book"). Atlanta, GA: J. L. White. Released 1911; out of print, but currently being republished.

• The Colored Sacred Harp. Ozark, AL: Judge Jackson. [3rd revised edition (1992) includes rudiments by H. J. Jackson (son of J. Jackson) and an autobiography of Judge Jackson].

Sacred Harp books generally contain a section of Rudiments, describing the basics of music and Sacred Harp singing.

Sacred Harp - The spread of Sacred Harp singing in modern times

In recent years, Sacred Harp singing has experienced a resurgence in popularity, as it is discovered by new participants who did not grow up in the tradition. As such, it is now a national phenomenon, and is strongly represented in locations such as Chicago, Minneapolis, and Boston, as well as in its original southern territory. There are also a few Sacred Harp groups in other countries.

The new singers typically strive to follow the original southern customs at their singings. Traditional singers have responded to this need by providing help in orienting the newcomers. For instance, the Rudiments section of the 1991 Denson edition includes information on how to hold a singing; this information would be superfluous in a traditional context, but is important for a group starting up on its own. The tradition of the singing master is still carried on today, and singing masters from traditional Sacred Harp regions often travel outside the South to teach. In recent years an annual summer camp has been established, at which newcomers can learn to sing Sacred Harp.

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