Sacred Harp Singing Tuesday July 9, 2002 Hills Chapel, Northampton, MA HD 720p
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It was a good one- the fourth consecutive day (officially) of singing shape-note music together with local friends and visitors from Texas, New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, California and around the northeast. It's been a great long weekend of singing for about twenty years now, and a lot of us missed it sorely last summer. Saturday before the first Sunday in July is the Pioneer Valley all day singing in Sunderland, followed by a mixed book singing in Amherst on Sunday, Harp of Ages Monday night in Leyden and finally the weekly Sacred Harp singing in Northampton. Of course there was lots of additional singing here and there, some of which I also found on some old tapes and intend to edit and post at some point. I decided to just post this one unedited to give a better sense of things.
There's a lot of backstory, which I'll mostly leave off for now, but the Tuesday singing at Helen Hills Chapel has become something of an institution that's central to shape-note singing in the region and has helped set the stage for other weekly singings around the country and beyond. I'll defer to Allison Steel for details on its origin, but I remember her starting to show up at the Amherst singing hosted by Ruth and Richard Hooke around 1997 or 98. In the land before internet, one of the main ways a lot of people found out about it was through my band Cordelia's Dad, whose shows typically devolved from torrential feedback into post-gig shape note singing. Allison and her friends Jess and Mary Ellen started the Hills Chapel singing around then, in 1998.
It's always been about as informal as you can see here. For bigger, all day sings we've always used the standard practice among most Sacred Harp singers for such events- an arranging committee calling leaders they either know or who have signed on to lead a lesson. At smaller gatherings comprised mostly of people who know each other, we've generally gone around the square which is nice because it gives everyone a chance to call a song or pass the hat to the next person in line. That doesn't work, though, when you have as many as 100 people over the course of an evening, with different schedules, coming and going, switching parts and maybe only able to be there for a half hour but possibly looking forward to leading a song all week.
I hadn't heard the phrase "open call" until ten or fifteen years ago- I'm not sure if that's because it's a neologism or, like most things, I just didn't know about it. In any case, it describes how the Tuesday singing has mostly worked- people calling a song when they like, trying not to hog the center, letting everyone know that they can do that (whether or not they want to lead) and trying to encourage people individually who might be shy or visiting or new to the whole thing. For a year or two before the shutdown, however, we were following our friend Becky Wright's suggestion and going around during the third, typically smaller, session. It's a work in progress.
If you've gotten this far, you might suspect that I'm writing about minutiae because it's easier than reckoning with all that's going on in this video. Some of it should be clear even to a casual viewer, but much of it will not be. There's just a lot. But there's also a lot of beauty here that doesn't require you to know much of anything about the minutiae, the people, history, theology, music. I hope you enjoy the video and that, when it becomes possible, you might come sing on a Tuesday. You're always welcome.
Пікірлер: 37
Please Lord let us gather like this once again 😭
My favorite was the young lady at 27:16. She walked the floor with sweeping gestures and a voice above all the others. It was great.
Just coming off the 2024 All-Cal, I enjoy hearing this. Thankfully, all my eagworms of the Smiths, Bert Jansch, The Beatles, verging on nausea, have been replaced with wondrous Sacred Harp chestnuts, all which I can recreate in 4-part harmony in my head.
Wow, Tim, what valuable and amazing footage. I've made some approximate timestamps as I figure they may be useful to people: 0:00 448b The Grieved Soul 2:54 32t Corinth 5:42 34t Gospel Pool 8:04 168 Cowper 9:57 300 Calvary 11:41 421 Sweet Morning 13:44 67 Columbus 17:46 383 Eternal Day 19:58 193 Huntington 22:22 195 Worcester 25:01 37b Liverpool 27:16 29t Fairfield 30:07 445 Passing Away 33:43 68b Ortonville 37:18 99 Gospel Trumpet 40:11 77t The Child of Grace 42:50 340 Odem (Second) 45:16 163b China 48:36 216 Delight 52:07 328 Praise God 54:12 274t The Golden Harp 56:21 107 Russia 58:45 379 Span of Life
@TimEriksenMusicVideo
3 жыл бұрын
Hey, thank you!
@thecalicoheart7946
3 жыл бұрын
Why do a lot of the songs seem to be named after places? (Liverpool, Worcester etc). I am in the U.K. and these are names of an English town and city respectively. But there seems to be other names of the songs that feel like they might be places too. (Fairfield, Ortonville, Huntingdon? And the more obvious China and Russia). Just makes me wonder! 🤔🙂
@CoalPatch
3 жыл бұрын
Brilliant that's really useful
@TimEriksenMusicVideo
3 жыл бұрын
@@thecalicoheart7946 Naming a hymn tune for a town or other place was well established common practice when the earliest American songs in the Sacred Harp were written, mostly ca. late eighteenth century. The tunes in the Sacred Harp are mostly named for American places, though a lot of those places were named after European ones. Sometimes it's more complicated. Bangor N.I. was named for Bangor, Wales as was the tune Bangor, but Bangor Maine was named after the tune. Same with China and Poland. It's Constitution day in Poland this week- people over here were pretty enthusiastic about Poland's constitution in 1791. I always figured that's why Timothy Swan named his tune after the country, although he also named a tune Balloon because balloons were popular, and Leghorn after a hat (not the fabric of the same name). His tune Rainbow, however is named after a village in Connecticut. Haha!
@thecalicoheart7946
3 жыл бұрын
@@TimEriksenMusicVideo Oh, thank you for replying. Fascinating. I really was wondering about it! Sounds like naming songs after places (or anything by the sound of it! 😁) was simply an act of acknowledgment or affection. How lovely really. 😊
So many overwhelming emotions watching this. Thanks so much for sharing Tim. I miss everyone here so much.
@TimEriksenMusicVideo
3 жыл бұрын
Me too
Beautiful! What a great singing session! You were definitely my introduction to sacred harp singing, when I saw Cordelia’s Dad at a concert many years ago at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. Thanks for that, and for sharing this video. 💜
@TimEriksenMusicVideo
3 жыл бұрын
Cool! You're welcome
Just seeing this, and thanks, Tim, for the great memories. Traveling, singing together, and great fellowship and community.
Love this song that started at 14:00... The melody is haunting, and the beat is slow and very methodic. Very relaxing. I know this video says it was from July of 2002, I hope you're still involved in this community and still singing. This truly is a lost art, and needs to be revived. Makes me want to watch Cold Mountain again!
@TimEriksenMusicVideo
3 жыл бұрын
67 in the 1991 Sacred Harp. It's a pretty special song, but that's true of most of them one way or another.
@ifyouloveChristyouwillobeyhim
2 жыл бұрын
That's what I was just thinking.
@justforever96
Жыл бұрын
It is not a "lost art" though. There are thousands of people participating in hundreds of singing worldwide, and more being created all time. There are multiple the books in publication, numerous channels on KZread with hundreds of videos documenting how shape note singing sounds. The tradition lived and was passed down and is still going today. A "lost art" is one that is lost, the tradition has been broken, the knowledge lost. Compared to some obscure forms shape note singing is wide spread and popular. How many people know how to sing Ancient Greek music, for example?
Thanks for posting this, Tim. Brings me back to the goosebumps I had the first time I heard Cordelia's Dad as an undergrad at UMass in the early 90's!
@perkunas170
3 жыл бұрын
OMG, that was 30 years ago! WTF, seems like yesterday...
A whole hour of Sacred Harp!! 😃😃 Saving this for later when I can watch it properly! Thank you for posting! 😊🙏 Thank you for all the information you put in the description - it’s fascinating. I would love to go to a to singing one day. My only experience is going to the Sidmouth Folk Festival (U.K.) for lessons they put on there and I got to meet you once briefly!! 😃😁 These videos and recordings of ‘proper’ singings are a joy. 😊 Thank you. 🙏
@TimEriksenMusicVideo
3 жыл бұрын
I'll look forward to singing with you when it's a thing again
@thecalicoheart7946
3 жыл бұрын
@@TimEriksenMusicVideo God bless you Tim. 😊🙏💐
This is so beautiful!
A beautiful video
THANK you for sharing this video
@TimEriksenMusicVideo
3 жыл бұрын
You’re welcome
Spread the word: Lets include titles in these multi song recordings,
Hillsong and Bethell cannot touch this.
break this up song-by-song, hey. good shiz; internets worthy-
Your voice was made for Scared Harp singing, no wonder you lead in, lol!
@TimEriksenMusicVideo
2 жыл бұрын
i take that as a compliment, although it's more like my voice was made BY Sacred Harp at this point
Hallelujah
Absent friends.
What’s the first piece called?
@TimEriksenMusicVideo
2 жыл бұрын
The Grieved Soul 448b