"Cold Mountain" Shape Notes & Sacred Harp

[ThehosGendar]

Re: "Cold Mountain" Shape Notes & Sacred Harp

Some other great recordings, believe it or not, are by the rock group turned hardcore Appalachian folk music group, then kind of back to rock group Cordelia's Dad. Tim Eriksen, the fellow who sang "Am I Born to Die" on the Cold Mountain soundtrack, was the voice of Cordelia's Dad. There are about 4 or 5 great tracks, and you can get an idea of the unique harmonies.

One of my favourite CD that I've gotten lately is Rivers of Delight (American Folk Hymns From the Sacred Harp Tradition), http://www.amazon.com/Rivers-Delight...e=UTF8&s=music .
"Soar Away" is mind-blowing.

Another great thing to check out is the online documentary of the singing Wooten family. It talks all about shape note, the singing schools, and there are wonderful songs being sung in the background. Check it out and watch the entire hour-long documentary here: http://www.folkstreams.net/film,44

[amity]

Re: "Cold Mountain" Shape Notes & Sacred Harp

Can someone put it into normal person terms for me?? Please bear in mind I can't sing, I've never been in a choir in my life and I barely passed middle school band.

Then you are the perfect candidate for shapenote singing, Miss Maggie. Shapenote songs are written using the same notation system as any other type of modern music, except that in place of the round note heads we are most familiar with today, some clever guys back in 1801 substituted shaped note heads. This was done to make it easier for illiterate, or musically illiterate, people to learn to read music. The shapes quickly imprint the musical intervals in your mind so that you don't need to worry about the lines and spaces on the staff.

http://www.arts.state.ms.us/crossroads/music/sacred_harp/mu4_text.html

http://fasola.org/

It started off in New England, but by the civil war and up until the present it has been mainly associated with the south. By the war, the north had moved on to emulate the current European musical fashion of the times. The south remained musically more rooted in the past.

These are indigenous American folk hymns. The words come from a variety of sources, mainly English dissenters of the 17th and 18th centuries, the hymns that the early American colonists were familiar with. The tunes were written by Americans, mainly rural people without formal musical training. They oftentimes just transcribed and arranged much older folk melodies, such as in Wayfaring Stranger, for example. This music uses polyphonic four-part harmony, and a lot of harmonic intervals and devices that aren't common today, but go back to 16th century England, which gives this music a very powerful and haunting sound. It is very emotionally charged music.

Here is a website that has some good quality sound clips of these old songs (be patient for them to load):

http://www.awakemysoul.com/

The Sacred Harp songs used in Cold Mountain were selected by Tim Ericksen, who was a consultant on the movie. He is "one of us" i.e. a Sacred Harp singer who is very familiar with the music. Therefore that is very authentico singing (unlike the rest of the music in the movie, unfortunately). The main thing that would have been different in a true civil war era singing is that instead of four parts there would have been three (no alto on most songs at that time).

The 1859 Sacred Harp is available online at:

http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/ssb/display.cfm?TitleID=610&Format=jpg

The two songs used in Cold Mountain are right where they have always been, Idumea on page 47 (46 in the online schema) and Going Home 282 (281 online). So you can sing along, the songs on the Awake My Soul website are Antioch 277 (276), and inside the site it is Idumea again 47 (46).

There are Sacred Harp singings all over the country:

http://fasola.org/singings/

I hope to see you at one of them!

[Nevada Bugler]

Re: "Cold Mountain" Shape Notes & Sacred Harp

It can be very hard to find a 'sacred harp' sing out here in the west. The Churches of Christ use a shaped note songbook entitled 'Sacred Selections for the Church' that uses only shaped notes. Drop in some Sunday morning or evening to a local Church of Christ and see what shaped note singing is all about. Some groups aren't so good at it but a group that can really sing will make the hair on your head stand up. I'll never forget a church service at the church on the grounds of the Shaker Village in Kentucky. Shaped note singing and the building has nearly perfect acoustics. You can hear the singing up to a mile away on a good day and I would bet we reached that marker that day.

____________________
Bill Scott
Hardaways Alabama Battery

[amity]

Re: "Cold Mountain" Shape Notes & Sacred Harp

I am so glad, and even relieved to hear that CoC out your way is still singing shapenote. In my neck of the woods they USED to sing modern gospel music in an early 20th century style set in four shapes until very recently, but more and more are moving toward so-called praise music in round notes.

At any rate, There are plenty of Sacred Harp singings in the midwest and west, that is for sure, and that is the true mid-19th century style of music, not gospel. Where are you and I will link you up with the closest group.

[YoungCampaigner]

Re: "Cold Mountain" Shape Notes & Sacred Harp


I know that this thread is fairly old by now, but I thought I would add a little something. Below is a photo of an original piece of shape note music from my collection. It is hand-written and dated 1864. The title of the piece is "Let Us Walk in the Light".

[amity]

Re: "Cold Mountain" Shape Notes & Sacred Harp

I would get back in touch with whoever you wrote to on the fasola website. They are probably just swamped by holidays, etc. They are good people all and will send you your CD unless the check got lost in the mail or something.

My favorite Sacred Harp CDs are the ones on Rounder, Alan Lomax recordings of singings in the 40s and 50s. Even though the sound quality is not as good as modern tapes, the singing is better than today for our purposes. The ones I have are called _Harp of a Thousand Strings_ _And Glory Shone Around_:

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=1144499

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1144500/a/Southern+Journey+Vol.+10:+And+Glory+Shone+Around-More+All+Day+Singing+From+The+Sacred+Harp.htm

As you become more familiar with singing (you ARE attending your local singings, are you not?) you will ask yourself the question, what specific songbook were people in the area I portray singing from? Was it the Sacred Harp, Southern Harmony, Harmonia Sacra, or other? Answering that will take a bit of research, but when you find out, you will already know half the songs.

Two things to avoid are:
1) tarting it up with operatic voice techniques. "Just use the voice God gave you."
2) musical instruments, including pitch pipes and tuning forks, unless you can document their use for your area.

I would heartily recommend going for "just an interest in 19th century". That is a good enough reason. It is how I started singing and I have been doing it now for 20 years.