Shaped Note Singing
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 09:55:56
From: Gene B. Preuss
Subject: Query: :Shaped note singing
Does anyone have information regarding the "Sacred Harp" singing tradition in the South? Although named after a hymnal published in the 1840s, the tradition is still alive among some Southerners.
Also information regarding shaped note singing that still persists would be helpful. I'm interested in texts, monographs, articles, etc. or oral histories.
Thanks,
Gene B. Preuss
c/o Department of History
Texas Tech University
Box 41013
Lubbock, TX 79409
z8M02@ttacs.ttu.edu
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 08:54:33
From: Terence Finnegan
Subject: Re: Query: :Shaped note singing--6 replies
Gene Preuss, check with the Folk Arts Collection at the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, The Cultural Center, Charleston WV 25305, phone (304) 558-0220. They did some wonderful oral history -- video, audio and transcribed - interviews with shape note singers and teachers in West Virginia.
Joan C. Browning
Ronceverte WV
Try _Singing the Glory Down_ by William Lynwood Montell. His address is MLIS, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101. He's the expert when it comes to this stuff.
Chad Berry
Maryville College
Gene,
I could tell you a lot, but if you have WWW access the place to go is the FASOLA Home page. Its URL is http://medinfo.labmed.umn.edu/Docs/.www/fasola_homepage.html. This location features resource guides, including all tune books in print; secondary sources; schedules of annual and local singings, from the Sacred Harp and from other traditions; and gobs of other stuff. Another good alternative location (linked to the first) is the home page of Professor Warren Steel at the University of Mississippi, an early music scholar who is a leading authority on Sacred Harp (and on the editorial board that put out the 1991 revision). Finally, there's a fasola e-mail list; details on the FASOLA home page. The tradition is not only alive, but in some respects getting a new lease on life, and from surprising quarters. I attended a major convention myself last fall on Sand Mountain, AL--a little frame church in the middle of nowhere, crammed not only with locals but with groups in from California, Chicago, and Boston. Incidentally, there was a singing recently at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, organized by Dr. William Reynolds, a longtime authority and advocate.
David L. Carlton / Associate Professor of History, Vanderbilt University
P.O. Box 1523, Sta. B, Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN 37235 (615) 322-3326 carltodl@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu
Gene,
A good source of information would be W. K. McNeil who is folklorist at the Ozark Folk Center Cultural Resources Center in Mountain View, Arkansas. Dr. McNeil has conducted a number of oral histories on shaped note singing and would certainly know where to direct your efforts. Also at the Folk Center is an oral history I conducted with Orgel Mason, an old country music school teacher who has quite a knowledge of shaped note singing.
Brooks Blevins
Auburn University
George Pullen Jackson's "White Spirituals of the Southern Uplands" is an old but classic book on this subject. Dan Patterson of the folklore program at Chapel Hill is the current expert.
Dell Upton
UCBerkeley
I have seen a serial titled "The sacred harp newsletter," published out of Bremen, Ga., by a Hugh McGraw. The Music Library at Duke Univ. has issues from 1985-1993, but I'm not sure if it's still being published. If you contact the Music Library at (919) 660-5950, they would be glad to photocopy the latest issue so you could contact McGraw for more info.
Paula Jeannet
Manuscripts cataloger/Archivist
Special Collections Library
Duke University
Durham, NC
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996
From: Bill Martin
Subject: Re: Query: Shaped note singing
I suggest you contact my brother-in-law, Philip Summerlin, in Signal Mountain, TN. 615-886-5339. He is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and perhaps thinks even more highly of his work with Sacred Harp Singers. He can probably tell you all you might want to know, and lead you to even more.
>>Also information regarding shaped note singing that still persists would
>>be helpful.
What do you want to know. Many Churches of Christ still use shape note books, I think, though this is dying out. Too bad. It's a great system. One can (or could a decade ago) buy softback gospel songbooks at gospel music outings. I'd recommend getting in touch with the Gospel Music Association in Nashville.
>>I'm interested in texts, monographs, articles, etc. or oral histories.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Gene B. Preuss
>>c/o Department of History
>>Texas Tech University
>>Box 41013
>>Lubbock, TX 79409
>>z8M02@ttacs.ttu.edu
You're welcome.
Bill Martin
******** William Martin PERMANENT ADDRESS Work: (713) 527-4831 Department of Sociology Fax: (713) 285-5296 Rice University-MS28 Home: (713) 667-1411 P. O. Box 1892 Houston, TX 77251-1892 CURRENT ADDRESS (On Leave) Phone and Fax: P. O. Box 2397 (512) 847-7503 Wimberley, TX 78676 ********
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