Now shall my inward joys arise

A couple of days ago I was asked about the main reason people are drawn to Sacred Harp music.   Since I've only been doing it for a short amount of time, I replied that I can't speak with any real authority on the matter, I can only give the reasons that I myself sing.  But in the time since I first stepped into the hollow square, I've heard a number of theories advanced about what it is that brings people of diverse backgrounds to this tradition (or "singing cult" as a non-singing acquaintance rather uncharitably described it).   

Setting up for a sing in Georgia.

The categories below are not, as far as I know, part of any formal, academic classification system.  I just made them up out of my own head.

The Historical Preservationist Theory.  This is the notion that people who sing Sacred Harp do so to reclaim and preserve a relic of America's cultural heritage, sort of like Vintage Baseball or flintlock shooting or something. 

The Folk Revivalist Theory.  Similar to the Historical Preservationist Theory, this explanation puts Sacred Harp in the same category as, say, Morris Dancing: an ancient art form that folkies disinter, dust off, and try on for size on the grounds that it's entertainingly anachronistic.

The Spiritual Enrichment Theory.   I've heard this one from several Quakers who are also avid singers.  It's the idea that Sacred Harp constitutes a component of one's spiritual practice, a complement to the worship experience one finds in church or meeting or synagogue.  Since many Quaker meetings, particularly the unprogrammed ones, are somewhat lacking in group hymn-singing, I can definitely see where Friends who crave a more vocal expression of worship would be drawn to Sacred Harp.  It reminds me of my Zen days, when I encountered a good number of Christians who maintained that Zen practice helped deepen and enhance their spiritual lives. 

The "Community Chorus" Theory.  You like making pretty music with your mouth and you're interested in finding a choir to sing with, but the BSO Chorus went belly up and you don't feel like donning a poofy hat and warbling Thomas Morley madrigals at the local RenFaire.  It's either the Handel Choir of Baltimore or shape note singing, and you just can't stand all the melismas in 'O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion,' so Sacred Harp it is.

There is a danger in being overly reductive, especially when talking about why people choose to engage in one activity over another.  That tendency toward reductiveness is a trap of the academy that folklorists and ethnographers and the like seem to walk into fairly often, and which frustrates a lot of us postmodern historian-types. 

I'm sure that if you put a dozen Sacred Harp singers in a room and asked them why they spent weekends putting hard miles on their cars just to go sing old hymns, you'd get about 51 different reasons.  Those responses might contain all of the explanations listed above, or they might have nothing to do with any of them.  I expect that, like me, many singers are attracted to Sacred Harp for overlapping reasons, which is why when you look around the room at an all-day singing you're likely to see a Primitive Baptist sitting next to an ex-punker sitting next to a (shudder) Civil War re-enactor.

For my part, I can attest that on one level it is gratifying to participate in the continuation of a centuries-old, distinctly American folk tradition.  There's a certain thrill I experience when I call out a song that was composed by a contemporary of Benjamin Franklin, or when I chat in between songs with a person whose family has actively kept up this art form for 200 years.  The historian in me responds to that aspect of Sacred Harp singing.

And I'll admit that part of the reason I do Sacred Harp is because it is entertainingly anachronistic.  I was already into old-time and American roots music when I first heard a recording of this type of music, so a part of me finds it exciting to hook into a little-known part of American musical heritage, and to make these peculiar, somewhat eerie-sounding, Celtic-influenced noises.  As a former classical choral singer, it's also fun to have a group of other people to sing with again, even we don't generally sing for performance purposes, and the harmonies we create are far from conventional. 

The other night a couple of friends of mine and I got up to sing the song "Walpole" from the Northern Harmony at this tepid, folkie open mic night thing at Hopkins.  After sitting through several performances in which people bashed religion, sneered at politicians, and spouted a load of  twee, facile, milquetoasty junior polemics against the current war, I'll confess to some degree of schadenfreude at the shock on  the boomers' faces when they realized that we weren't singing John McCutcheon, and we weren't singing Christine Lavin, and we weren't doing a selection from Rise Up Singing.  Instead what they were hearing was 18th century, minor key, your-loving-savior-died-for-your-
sorry-backside hymnody in weird, dispersed three-part harmonies.  Sing along with that!

Freaking out the folkies at open mic night.

But if I had to choose the principal reasons I spend so much time singing Sacred Harp, I would have to say: community and spirit.

The community aspect that attracts me is not quite the same as the one that might draw me toward any other type of choral singing.  It's an element of the tradition that supports, and in turn is supported by, the singing itself.  The dinner-on-the-grounds potlucks and the post-singing social gatherings are part of it, as are the friendships that are carried on outside of singing-related activities.  But the essence of community in Sacred Harp is found in the hollow square.  It's born anew every time someone steps forth to lead one of those old, powerful songs, and the people who have gathered to lift their voices feel what in Quaker writings is sometimes described as a covering: that deep connection that transcends words and differences in background or belief. 

It's what prompts spontaneous applause from the singers after certain songs are led, and it's why people with radically different lifestyles can sit next to each other and get along just fine.   It's why one is likely to witness much more diversity of race, ethnicity, religious faith, sexual orientation, and social class at a Sacred Harp convention than in most churches, synagogues, or zendos you might find yourself in.  The community that is born in the hollow square is democratic and egalitarian.  It assumes good intentions, and is nurtured by the same vein of spirit that runs through the songs we sing.

Speaking of spirit: for some of us the overtly Christocentric, Protestant nature of the songs can be something of an obstacle.  After some five years of attending Friends meeting, I've only recently arrived at a point where I'm ready to identify myself as a Quaker.  If someone were to ask me if I were a Christian, I'm not sure what I'd say.  Many of my friends who are as deeply committed to this tradition as I are Jewish, or agnostic, or atheist.  Yet here we are, singing songs about free grace, and the wages of sin, and of being lifted to heaven on a tide of blood.  The theology that informs Sacred Harp music can be a real challenge.  But if a decade spent practicing Buddhism has taught me anything, it's to be comfortable with mystery and paradox, and to welcome that which provokes you spiritually.  If Sacred Harp is nothing else for me, it is spiritually provocative.  It's a refining fire that heats and forges and tempers the soul.  And that's what keeps me coming back.

Well, that and the fruit pies at the potlucks.

 

Comments

[Megan]

Beautiful post! It set me a'Googling, upon which I learned that there is an active Sacred Harp singing community in L.A. I plan to check it out.

On the downside, you also stuck me with "O Thou That Tellest" on endless loop replay inside my head...

[Quev]

It's Meeeeeeeegan! ::waves::

I actually don't mind anything from 'Messiah' all that much. It's his operas that I find tedious.

[guile]

nice, cozy place you got here :)..

[Amanda]

I keep bumping into references to this Sacred Harp bit in all sorts of places. I'm a bit of a baby folkie myself, so maybe between that and the quakerishness I'm finding some overlap with this shape-note singing. My curiosity is now greatly piqued.

[Quev]

Hi Amanda!

Thanks for stopping by. If you're interested in Sacred Harp singing, you're in one of the best places for it. There are very active groups of shape note singers, many of them in their 20's and 30's, throughout the New England area, western Mass. in particular. I recommend checking out http://www.wmshc.org/.

I also have tentative plans to lead a singing school at the next FGC gathering, but that's a ways away.

[Paul L]

Thanks, Quev, for checking out Showers of Blessings.

Amanda might also like visiting www.fasola.org which is THE national clearinghouse of shape-note information.

I like your analysis of the reasons people like shape note singing. I think I've progressed, or at least moved, from the Folk Revival to Community Chorus to where it is now, a Spiritual Enrichment practice for me.

If any of your readers are in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, area Sept. 24-25, we're having our annual singing convention and would love to see and hear from you.

[Ben]

great post! "Africa" is one of my favorite tunes from the Sacred Harp tradition. Keep on singing!