Hey all!
So, our next regularly scheduled shape-note singing will be this coming
Saturday, January 18th. IF and WHEN we manage to squeeze in another weeknight singing, you'll see it posted here and we always try and send an email out, too. Holler if you want to be on our email list!
In other news,
WREN members will have received their new issue of WRENzine in the mail this week, and if so, you'll find a little story about shape-note singing that I wrote. Hopefully it'll inspire some new folks to give singing loud a try!
Check out the hard copy because it has pictures along with lots of other interesting articles, but hey--while you're with me--here it is (with all my mistakes included), for your reading pleasure:
Photo by Kevin Griffin Moreno
This is not a rehearsal.
We sing this music at the top of our lungs. We sing this
music for the joy of singing it together. It’s not a performance for an
audience. It’s for each other. You may come and sing at any time.
The basics of shape note singing are simple. It has been
done for hundreds of years.
A group of men and women gets together and sets up some chairs in
a hollow, inward facing square. The tenors sit down across from the
altos. To the right of the altos sit the basses. Across from them,
the trebles. Both men and women sing tenor and treble in their respective
octaves, creating six distinct musical parts.
Everyone has their Sacred Harp tune books on their laps.
Someone calls out the page number of the song they want to sing. Someone
else sounds the starting pitch. We don’t sing the music in the key that
it is written on the page. We sing it wherever the designated pitcher
deems appropriate for that group, in that moment, in that space (typically much
lower than where it is written).
The group breaks into song, belting out the solfege syllables that
correspond to the shaped note heads in their tune book-- Fa Sol La and Mi.
We “sing the shapes” in four part harmony, and then we sing the
words. The words may challenge our beliefs and convictions. The
words may heat our veins or soothe our souls. Believe them literally, or
don’t. You’re welcome regardless of what these words mean to you.
The leader sits down and it’s the next person’s turn.
We repeat this process until we break to eat. With full
bellies and empty bladders, we get back to it. We sing our faces off.
We sing at the top of our lungs.
We sing like our lives depend on it, because frankly, they do.
There are a million ways to experience the hollow square, but once
you’ve been to enough singings, every hollow square will feel like home.
Fifteen years ago, my incredibly energetic high school biology
teacher, Susan, took me on a trip to Vermont. It was the Green Mountain
state’s turn to host the annual New England Sacred Harp Convention, which
rotates through the seven New England states each year, skipping only New
Hampshire.
(Not for long, if I have my way...stay tuned for New Hampshire’s turn in 2018)
Susan had introduced me to all kinds of traditional music, from
toasting songs of Caucusus Georgia to Irish fiddle tunes. Shape note
music is what stuck. We got up early that Saturday morning and
tooled up 91 North from her house in Shutesbury, MA, arriving at a white
clapboard church in the middle of nowhere, Vermont, shortly after 10am.
The walls of the church shook with the voices of 100 - 150 people from around
the country singing their hearts out in four-part harmony. There were no
instruments. There was no practice session. These people were just singing.
They were singing so hard that their faces were red and they were
sweating like rock stars, despite the brisk, autumn air.
I had learned what the shapes were for from Susan, and I had
practiced singing the syllables that go along with those shapes, but I was
completely unprepared for the tidal wave of sound I experienced in that old New
England church.
I let this unfamiliar music wash over me. I sat in the
treble section at first, mostly because there was a seat unspoken for, and
besides, I had (sort of) sang soprano in choirs. The treble part sits in a
similar place on the musical staff.
I attempted to follow along, using my finger as a guide and
occasionally uttering the right syllable (but the wrong note), or singing the
right note (but some combination of all the wrong syllables -- “Fflsaw!!”
Shoot! I mean, “La! Mi! Dang!!”)
I kept at it. I heard the powerful voices of the people
surrounding me, singing with such abandon. I never dreamed that one day
these people would become such good friends. Many of these singers now
have different names due to marriage or divorce, or sing in different sections
than they started out due to the maturing of their voices, or now live in
different parts of the world. Some of them would probably shake their
damn heads in disbelief if I told them that they are the reason I stuck
with singing. They are the reason I fumbled through the shapes.
They are the reason I agreed, and stood up, and attempted to wave my arm
around when I was first invited into the center of the hollow square.
They are the reason that Baltimore now has a thriving shapenote
community, and they are the reason that northern New Hampshire is on the road
to that same delightful fate.
I’m happy to have come to Sacred Harp music as an impressionable
15 year old girl. I had no preconceived notions about what this music
was. I had never heard of it until Susan introduced it to me. And
honestly, I didn’t know a lot about music at all besides the James Taylor and
Roy Orbison my dad was fond of playing (on the 8-track player in our 1971
Suburban) and the top 40 music my mom would listen to on the kitchen radio in
the mornings while shooing my brother and sisters and I out the door for
school. I had sung in some choirs, but mostly because I had to. Susan
introduced me to Balkan music, and to shape note music and that changed
everything. Turns out I’ve got a voice (you do, too).
So here we are in Northern New Hampshire, where the absolute
closest singing is two hours away. That’s the first thing I did when I
decided to move here--I figured out where the closest singings were, and
whether it was viable to attend them regularly, or if I’d have to start our
own.
Here we go. We’ve started our own. So North Country
Sacred Harp is born, and we hope that you will be a part of it. We’re
singing like our lives depend on it and really, you ought to as well.
Last year’s series of singing schools were an exciting
start. The folks who have tried it out so far are singing loud and
laughing a lot. We look forward to hosting a regular monthly singing and
we hope to see you all there!
We’ll be singing loud every third Saturday evening.
