Sacred Harp Singing
Sacred Harp singing is a lively, unaccompanied, community singing tradition that has been continuously practiced in the United States for over 200 years. The style is named after The Sacred Harp, a tunebook containing around 600 songs, first published in 1844. At a Sacred Harp singing, participants sit facing inward in a hollow square formation, and take turns selecting songs The Sacred Harp and leading them by beating tempo while standing in the middle of the square. The music features raw harmony, driving rhythms, and full-throated, full-volume, enthusiastic singing. Also known as shape note or fasola singing, the music features distinctively shaped note-heads. The singers sing the syllables associated with each shape ("fa," "sol," "la," and "mi") before singing the words to each song, enabling them to read the music more easily.
I encountered shape note music in 2000 through Neely Bruce, a teacher of mine at Wesleyan University, and a major player in the revival of shape note singing in the Northeastern United States. With the encouragement of friends who grew up singing from the Sacred Harp and Northern Harmony shape note tunebooks, I began attending large singings, in addition to those I attended in Middletown, CT. After first attending the Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Convention in 2003, I began composing shape note music, and produced a dozen tunes over the next two weeks. I now attend a handful of local weekly and monthly singings regularly and travel frequently around the Northeast and to Alabama and Georgia (where Sacred Harp singing has the deepest roots) for singing conventions and all-day singings.
I have continued to write new music in the style of The Sacred Harp. I have also begun to integrate shape note singing with my practice as a sound artist – prompted to do so by a series of realizations about how central Sacred Harp singing had become to my life. I create sound installations featuring recorded shape note music, and organizing participatory singings of original music in the shape note style, such as Azariah, as a way of telling a story.