Musical Education

Norris and I went to a lecture yesterday afternoon on the campus of Mars Hill College. The lecture included performances and shape-note demonstrations by the College Chamber Singers and the Music Department Quartet.  If you saw the movie Cold Mountain, you heard some Sacred Harp singing which is written in the shape-note system. Here's a video Norris took of the Chamber Singers doing the warm-up four-part harmony version of Amazing Grace, where they sing the four syllables, Fa, Sol, La and Mi, used in the earliest versions of the system:

 

Another hymn we heard was Angel Band, written with a seven-symbol system  - this time we have both the syllables and then the actual words.

The lecturer, Dr. Joel Reed emphasized that the chamber singers are not trying to duplicate the real style of Sacred Harp singing, in which the singers are arranged in a square and are supposed to sing as loudly as possible.  But you are hearing the difference in harmonies typical of this style, which emphasizes the fourths and fifths as opposed to the thirds we usually associate with sacred music. The tenors carry the melody while, in this case, the sopranos are singing an octave or more above them.

You can read more about the shape note system and why it was used in this Wikipedia article at the link. In it you'll also see a link to Sacred Harp. The Sacred Harp style is named for one of the most popular hymnals.

The lecture was called "Pathways in Congregational Song: 1860-1960, and included other styles of music, as found in the college's extensive archives. We also heard solos and this quartet performed two spirituals from the African-American tradition - the man on the right is Dr. Reed, the head of the music department at Mars Hill.

Unfortunately, the subject was far too broad to cover all the information we might have wanted to learn in just one hour.