|
Introduction to the 4th Edition of Southern
Introduction
to
the 4th Edition of
The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
William Walker's The Southern Harmony and
Musical Companion is a remarkable book by virtually any measure. During the
nineteenth century, when advertising was mainly by word of mouth or relatively
sedate displays in weekly and monthly papers, Southern Harmony sold
about six hundred thousand copies.1 It is perhaps the
most popular tunebook ever printed. Its longevity is also remarkable: it is
still being used and sung from with loving care over one hundred and fifty
years after its first edition. It is virtually unparalleled as a repository of
the musical idioms current in the early nineteenth century, as well as of earlier
idioms that were already becoming rare at the time of its publication. And it
is one of the prime resources for succeeding generations of tunebooks. When we
add to this the role of the 1854 Southern Harmony as the sole source and
guide of the unique annual singing at Benton,
Kentucky, which preserves in
great purity the performance practices of the mid-nineteenth century, this must
be considered a publication of remarkable import.
The story most frequently told about the
origins of the Southern Harmony is of brothers-in-law, William Walker
and Benjamin Franklin White, both married to Golightly sisters, compiling the
book, which was then entrusted to Walker
to take north for publication; upon its appearance, he alone was credited as
the author, creating a never-to-be-healed schism in the family. The facts are
difficult to establish today, but whether or not the popular account is true,
White did later produce another famous tunebook, The Sacred Harp, and
the two books drew on common sources, including the works of both White and
Walker.2 Both books have honored, yet vastly different,
niches in American musical history.
The publication history of the Southern
Harmony is relatively brief. The first edition was issued in 1835, with a
preface signed by Walker in Spartanburg, South Carolina,
in September 1835. In January 1847 he wrote the preface to a new edition,
enlarging the book by "about forty pages." Continued demand
necessitated the publication of the final edition, with its preface dated July
1854. No other printings or editions appeared until 1939, when the Young Men's
Progress Club of Benton, Kentucky, with the Works Progress Administration,
issued a photo-reproduction of the 1854 edition, adding some material of local
interest.3 The next publication was the 1966 photographic
reproduction of the 1854 edition, to which were added an errata list and an
index of first lines.4 What you are reading is the introduction to the
fourth printing of the 1854 edition. In none of the three printings subsequent
to the original, this one included, has there been any tampering with the
hymnic or musical contents or the theoretical introduction. The errata list is
included for those who might want to correct obvious errors in printing; this
is its only purpose. The intent has been to present the book as it was
originally issued, and as it has been bought, loved, and sung from during its
long history.
Another reason for issuing these unaltered
editions is that musical tastes change, as do other artistic concepts. Thus,
had an editor of 1939, 1966, or 1987 "corrected" what he considered
to be musical errors, the result would have been the expression of then-current
musical and hymnic concepts. One need look no further than the Sacred Harp
to see how "correction," "modernization," and
"improvement" of its many editions have decimated the original
musical idiom.5 Such "progress" usually reflects the
currently popular taste, and this quickly becomes apparent in the performance
of the music.6 Collectively, the many editions of the Sacred
Harp are a valuable compendium of changing musical tastes since its first
publication; but in the unaltered Southern Harmony the original idiom is
uniquely preserved.
Walker himself never printed another edition
of Southern Harmony after 1854, although he did incorporate over half of
the contents (about 170 compositions) in his next tunebook, the Christian
Harmony (1866). In virtually all of the compositions that Walker transferred to the later book, no
substantive differences in either hymns or tunes are found between the two
books. In the twentieth-century editions of the Southern Harmony, a
deliberate effort has been made to avoid any alteration of the musical content.
In the present edition, we have reset the indexes and emended the errata for
more efficient use of the book, but have made no other changes.
One of the most remarkable things about the Southern
Harmony is the eclecticism of its contents, which helps to account for its
sustained popularity. Some 125 hymns can be assigned to specific authors. There
also are some 30 to 35 lyrics for which there is no current author attribution,
and another group of about that size for which attribution is tentative at
present. The sources Walker
names on the title page - "Watt's Hymns and Psalms, Mercer's Cluster,
Dossey's Choice, Dover Selection, Methodist Hymn Book, and Baptist
Harmony" - account for approximately half of the poems.7 The other sources range chronologically from the late-sixteenth-century
author "F.B.P." (who wrote a variant of Augustine, who flourished ca.
400); through Samuel Crossman, who died in 1683, through the New Version of the
Psalms from the 1690s, through the myriad of eighteenth-century hymnists such
as William Cowper, John Cennick, Philip Doddridge, Benjamin Beddome, John Fawcett,
Reginald Heber, John Leland, Anne Steele, and John Newton, in addition to Isaac
Watts and John and Charles Wesley. Americans of a somewhat later period who are
found in the Southern Harmony include John Granade, Joseph Hopkinson,
Joel Barlow, Jezaniah Sumner, and Samuel Francis Smith. Nineteenth-century
poets include Walker and several of his contemporaries, such as William Hunter,
Benjamin F. White, and his own brother, David Walker. He even includes three
lyrics attributed to American Indians, two of them accompanied with
explanations of their origins.8
Walker is no less broadminded in his selection of tunes and
composers. There are about 110 composers to whom about 250 compositions can be
attributed. The rest of the tunes remain anonymous. To indicate the variety of
composers, one must start with Louis Bourgeois and the Genevan Psalter, then
John Chetham, who flourished ca. 1700. Others would include Handel, Mozart,
Carl Maria von Weber, Thomas Arne, Israel Holdroyd, and William Shield.
Indigenous composers include Jeremiah Ingalls, William Billings, Oliver Holden,
Amzi and Lucius Chapin, Ananias Davisson, Lewis Edson, Jr. and Sr., Jacob
French, William Hauser, Justin Morgan, and Daniel Read. In addition to Walker, late nineteenth-century contemporaries of his
include Thomas Hastings, Lowell Mason, David Walker, William Golightly, Jr. (a
member of Walker's
wife's family), Andrew Grambling, William Moore, Miss M.T. Durham, Benjamin F.
White, and E.J. King. The last two are associated with the Sacred Harp.9
From a historical point of view, I would
suggest that this wide-ranging offering in both hymns and tunes is integral to
the success of the Southern Harmony. In his original preface Walker
notes that he has attempted to supply both old and young with selections they
will like in "ancient music" and "a sufficient number of new
tunes"; that he has not neglected "fuged tunes" but has
attempted to make this book a "complete Musical Companion"; and that
he has printed a "number of new Songs" under the tunes. Later he
writes in the preface to the 1854 edition, "many of the tunes having gone
out of use, the Author determined to . . . leave out those pieces, and
supply their places with good new tunes, which have been selected for
their intrinsic worth [italics Walker's]." It is a moot question at this
point whether Walker
anticipated the desires of the buying public or whether he developed public
taste through his books. Regardless of the cause, the result was the all-time
best seller among tunebooks.
In later life, Walker signed himself as William Walker,
A.S.H. (Author of Southern Harmony); it is clear that he took great pride in
his compilation.10 For the moment I should like to assume that the same
pride drove him when he assembled his subsequent Christian Harmony, and
that his work habits were similar in compiling both books. In the introduction
to the Christian Harmony, Walker speaks of having gone through some
fifteen thousand printed pages of music to obtain the over five hundred
compositions in that work. I suggest that this indicated a conscious effort on
his part to compile a book of both high quality and wide consumer appeal, just
as he had tried to do in assembling the Southern Harmony. Using the same
ratio of approximately thirty to one, we might venture to guess that Walker sifted nearly ten
thousand pages of music during the earlier compilation.
In an interesting series of comments in the
1835 preface, Walker acknowledges that some people do not like new publications
of old tunes, because the compilers alter the tunes; but for this book he says
that he has "endeavoured to select the tunes from original authors."
He continues that "where this could not be done" he selected from
among several trebles and basses "those I thought most consistent with the
rules of composition." He further explains that to a "great many good
airs (which I could not find in any publication, nor
in manuscript)" he has written parts and assigned himself as composer.
This is a key statement from our point of view, showing his tacit acceptance of
the commonality of many of the tunes; the difficulty of assigning sources even
at that time; and the probability that, even as he wrote, many of these had
achieved the status of folk song, although he of course did not used that term.
Walker was equally diligent and discerning in his choice of
lyrics. Isaac Watts, his prime source, who was perhaps the sacred lyricist best
known in America at that time, accounts for some seventy-five, or approximately
one fourth, of his lyrics. Selections from the other hymnbooks named on the
title page, which in general did not contain music, account for another fourth
of Walker's selections.11 Given this variety of the familiar, plus well chosen
and well intentioned new selections, it is immaterial whether Walker
anticipated or established public taste; his selections appealed to enough
people to make the Southern Harmony eminently successful. Interestingly
enough, the contents alone were not the sole reason for this success. It may be
that the shape notation, called fasola notation today, in which the Southern
Harmony was printed, played the single most important role in the success
of the book.
Let us look briefly at how this form of
musical notation arose and attained its popularity, which took place in the context
of a remarkable movement in popular education known as the singing school
movement. Early in the eighteenth century, New England ministers became
concerned about the poor quality of congregational singing in their churches,
which resulted from a shortage of printed music and of people who could read
music.12 What was needed was a means of introducing
substantial numbers of untrained people to the elements of music, and for that
purpose the ministers made use of the evening "literary school,"
already well established in New England.13 In order to
establish a music curriculum for the singing school, it was necessary to
provide textbooks, which the Harvard-trained ministers were well prepared to
do.14 Thus, the first tunebook printed in the American colonies
was John Tufts's An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes,
dating from the 1720s.15 It was published, as was the contemporary Grounds
and Rules of Musick Explained, by Thomas Walter, for the singing schools.
These books contain both theoretical materials and tunes for singing. The Tufts
book is the more important of the two to us, because it is in nonstandard
notation. Instead of a note head, the initial letter of the solmization
syllable was printed on the staff, acting as a mnemonic device for solmization.
This apparently was successful, as the book seems to have gone through several
editions. Although there apparently were isolated instances in Europe of similar notation, it seems likely that Tufts
developed the device independently. It was a pragmatic approach to the problem
of teaching music to beginners. This pragmatism, which seems to be universally
recognized as typically American, continued in the attempts to teach more music
to more people; to make it more accessible to more people; to make it more
"democratic," as many old-time singing school masters told me in
interviews several years ago.16 From its beginnings in the
1720s, the singing school spread quickly throughout the colonies, and after the
Revolutionary War migrants to the frontier took the singing school with them,
not only because it filled a religious need but because it had become an
accepted and valued means of social intercourse in most communities.17
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, a
relatively obscure storekeeper in Philadelphia,
John Connelley, seems to have developed a system of using geometric shapes for
the heads of notes, a system which was to revolutionize music teaching.18 He developed only four shapes, for at that time scales were sung using
only four syllables. These are the shapes used in the Southern Harmony,
known as fasola notation. The right triangle is fa, the circle is sol,
the square is la, and the diamond is mi. Although these shapes
had been used in various notations since medieval times, this was the first
systematic use of them together to indicate degree of the scale, using their
individual shapes as position indicators. The complete scale was then sung from
bottom to top; fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la, mi, fa. So only the four shapes were
needed. They were first used in the Easy Instructor, about 1800, which
conveys the purpose of the system through its name.19 By the time the Southern Harmony appeared, fasola notation had
been in existence a third of a century and was in widespread use.
Two other things were happening around the
turn of the nineteenth century that were to have great
impact on American music. One of these was the call for the reform of music
used in churches, which had the effect of gradually replacing indigenous music
with European compositions and inferior imitations of those models by American
composers. These shifts of taste can be seen in succeeding editions of various
tunebooks of the period.20 As the seaboard churches become more and more
sophisticated by their own standards, the native musical product they were
discarding found a home to the south and west on the frontier of the expanding
nation.
The other important development, which
contributed to the acceptance on the frontier of the native idiom being
rejected in the East, was the tremendous religious fervor rising along the
Kentucky-Tennessee border, which was expressed in the camp meetings. These
great assemblies sometimes brought together thousands of people for extended
periods; they needed just the kind of religious music that was being discarded
along the seaboard. Happily for the participants - and for the musical
historian - the music, the hymns, and the notation seem to have been considered
an entity, for all were warmly embraced in the camp meetings. It is in this milieu
that we find some of the earlier tunebooks of the nineteenth century, and it is
certainly out of this that the Southern Harmony came.
The religious theme of the camp meetings
disassociated itself from the tenets of organized religious bodies in favor of
a return to the simplicity of New Testament authority for all religious
matters, including unaccompanied congregational singing as practiced by the New
Testament church. Thus, the rugged, highly individualistic music of the native
American composer, the popular paraphrases and versifications of Watts, the Wesleys, and others, and the use of singable,
easily learned and remembered tunes with words of the same characteristics, all
fit perfectly the needs of the frontier. In a short time, as singing schools
became better established, the pragmatic shape notes that had accompanied much
of this music in its tunebooks were in common use as an efficient way of
teaching the reading of music.
One other factor contributing heavily to the
ready acceptance of shape notes in the South and West was the summary dismissal
of all things American by those who, in the 1830s, introduced music into the
public schools in the East.21 The advocates of public-school
music thus disregarded a well established corpus of music and lyrics as well as
pedagogical tools and techniques. These very materials.
developed in the singing schools, had prepared the public to accept music in
formal education, but these leaders consciously adopted different methods,
theories of learning, and materials, rejecting anything indigenous. The
publication of the native tunebooks was at this time a thriving industry; when
it was denied participation in the formal classrooms of the East, as it
recently had been rejected in the urban churches, it had to move with the
frontier to survive - although it never left the rural areas of the seaboard.
It is unfortunate for later generations that all this native material was
discarded by the schools; especially is this true of shape notation, which is
the single most valuable device ever developed for the teaching of music
reading.22 This same notation, however, like the music of
American composers and the singing school itself, was welcomed by popular
sentiment on the frontier, where it became an integral part of life.23
This is a brief and perhaps simplistic
summary of the conditions giving rise to the Southern Harmony, which
came along at precisely the right time in its geographical appeal, its lyric
content, its musical astuteness, and its pedagogical simplicity.
It is evident that William Walker foresaw in
1854 the coming demise of fasola notation and the necessity of a seven-syllable
solmization and a seven-shape notation. In the rather poignant "On the
Different Plans of Notation" (p. xxi) he speaks of the several methods
then in use and provides examples of them for "a very respectable number
of my patrons" who were partial to their use. Although he was soon to
forsake fasola notation, Walker
seems to be resisting the inevitable change, for his final paragraph denies
that one must use seven shapes to sing correctly. On the basis of his
twenty-five years of teaching he defends his "patent note" (i.e.
shape note) pupils, who "learn as fast, and sing as correct as any."
Then stating that "the main thing is to get good teachers [italics
his]," he suggests that with proper teaching "the various plans of
notation and solmization may be considered more a matter of taste than
necessity."
Nevertheless, when Walker presented his new work, the Christian
Harmony, in 1866, he used both a seven-syllable scale and seven shapes in
the notation. He also prints a rather impassioned plea for the seven-note
system, pointing out that parents normally would use seven different names
rather than four for seven children. Speaking of the four-note system he says
"we were for many years opposed to any other . . . and were not convinced
of our error till we taught our first normal school [his italics]."
Apparently many of his supposedly loyal patrons didn't agree with him, for this
book never attained the success of the Southern Harmony. Obviously, he
attempted to attract many of the same people, since some thirty to thirty-five
percent of the music in the new book came from the Southern Harmony. It
has been said that the fasola singers refused to buy his new book, feeling that
Walker had
betrayed a trust by changing notation. Another factor working against the new
book was that the "standard" seven shapes of John Aiken were then
taking precedence over all other systems, and Walker had chosen another
seven-shape system.24 Whatever the reasons, Walker seems to have missed
the flood tide with his new book, although he had ridden it for a long time
with the Southern Harmony. Notation seems to have played a part in the
fortunes of both books.
We have said that the Southern Harmony
was an excellent source for later tunebooks. Two of the most influential of
these were the Social Harp and the several editions of the Harp of
Columbia.25 Approximately thirty-five percent - about eighty
compositions - of the Social Harp apparently came from the Southern
Harmony; some seem to be literal copies. About eighty-five compositions, or
slightly more than thirty-five percent of the Harp of Columbia, can also
be found in the earlier Southern Harmony. These calculations refer only
to entities in which there are no substantive differences in either hymn or
tune. All other cases - e.g., an identical melody with different harmony, or a hymn set to a different tune - are not
counted. In George Pullen Jackson's Spiritual Folk Songs, thirty-nine
sources are named; just one of these, the Southern Harmony, contains
about thirty percent of the compositions he lists.26 These statistics alone seem to show that William Walker chose well when
he compiled the Southern Harmony.
It is beyond the scope of this essay to
discuss some of the more recondite aspects of the music of the Southern
Harmony. Jackson went to great lengths to
examine and classify modality, and to show derivations from secular sources of
many of the melodies Walker
used.27 Perhaps we can summarize these things by saying that
the seemingly ubiquitous modality in the Southern Harmony is a valid
testimony to the antiquity of the music. The frequent absence of a fifth in
chordal structures reinforces the modality and also the age of the music. In
examining the music, one becomes increasingly aware of the primacy of the
linear aspect of each voice part, as opposed to a vertical or harmonic concept.
This also attests to the antiquity of the music, for it is a vestige of the
polyphonic writing of the Renaissance. This does not mean that the harmonic
concepts were neglected. Rather, the very strong harmonic structure, which
later generations have called "dispersed harmony," was typical of the
late eighteenth-century indigenous idiom.
In writing for three- or four-part mixed
voices today, it is normal to put the melody in the top voice: the harmonies
are literally between (in frequency or pitch) those sounds and the bass line.
In the Southern Harmony and many of its American predecessors and
contemporaries, as well as numerous English publications, the melody is in the
tenor voice, written on the G clef. Thus the upper voices (in frequency or
pitch) are outside the envelope of the printed bass and melody, contrary to
modern practice. When this music is performed with the traditional octave
doublings, the resultant sound is both different and far richer than it appears
to be in print.
Having analyzed hundreds of the compositions
of the late eighteenth and nineteenth-century American composers, I am
convinced that most of them wrote precisely for the voice distribution they
were using. It was not by chance. This is the prime reason music of this genre
sounds so delightful when performed as written. On the rare occasions when I
meet people to whom this kind of music has no appeal, I find that in general
their acquaintance with it has come through modern transcriptions, in which
some editor did the commonly accepted switching of the tenor and soprano parts,
which completely destroys the composer's concept and does a great disservice
both to the music and to the performers. The result is highly unsatisfactory
esthetically, and calls to mind Walker's
astute observation that his patrons disliked reprinting of old tunes because
the tunes were usually changed by the new editor.
At least one more aspect of the Southern
Harmony should be discussed, and that is the performance of this music.
Fortunately, this is relatively easy to document. As far as is known, Benton, Kentucky,
is the only place where the Southern Harmony is still used regularly.
The Big Singing, now held on the fourth Sunday in May (this changed to the fourth Sunday in April in 2003, in an attempt to
eliminate conflicts with Memorial Day and graduations at various schools but was
changed back to the fourth Sunday in May in 2005 – ed.), has been an annual
event since 1884. Before World War II it is said that many thousands attended;
as many as four extra trains in each direction were added to bring the crowds.
Since that time, with the ever-increasing quantity and quality of leisure-time
activities, attendance has been much smaller. In the last few years it has been
steady at several hundred. Not all of these come to sing. Many come only to
listen, some to reminisce and socialize. The number of singers has not exceeded
about a hundred in recent times.
The Big Singing was begun in 1884 under the
leadership of James R. Lemon, a respected newspaper owner and publisher. As a
child Lemon had migrated to Western Kentucky with his family from Guilford County, North Carolina,
not far from William Walker's Spartanburg, South Carolina, home and certainly within range of Walker's singing school
activities. It is not implausible to conjecture that the Lemon family knew
William Walker personally and had participated in one or more of his singing
schools. Be that as it may, they brought the Southern Harmony with them
to Kentucky,
and the love of Southern Harmony singing was deeply imbedded in the
Lemon mind. And it is obvious that there were many in the frontier community
who shared that feeling; otherwise the Big Singing could not have grown and
endured as it has done.28
The Big Singing has retained a purity of
performance unequaled by any other singing of whatever tunebook. That the book
itself has remained unaltered, as explained earlier, is one contributing
factor. Geography has also played a part. By the time the Big Singing was begun
in 1884, the ravages of the Civil War had passed but the cultural, economic,
and political isolation of the South was well established. Benton
is located in the Jackson Purchase area of Kentucky,
bounded by the Tennessee, Ohio,
and Mississippi
rivers; it was not until about the time of World War II that
bridges were built over the rivers. This geographic isolation meant that
there was little immigration to alter any part of a deeply rooted way of life.
Those who began and maintained the Big Singing thus performed their music in
the unfettered, unaltered simplicity they had learned from their forefathers,
which today is called a true folk tradition. A proud, self-reliant,
independent, and self-sufficient people took pride in maintaining the status
quo; nowhere was this more true than in their beloved
Big Singing.
Thus, when we listen to or participate in
the Big Singing, we are part of a unique concentricity: of ancient solmization
with its roots in the teachings of Guido nearly a thousand years ago; a hymnody
of commensurate age, with at least one example originating a millennium and a
half ago and the most recent almost a century and a half old; a notation nearly
two hundred years old; harmonic settings that retain traces of the linear
polyphonic writing of the Renaissance; melodic settings some of which have
sources lost in antiquity, while younger ones show vestiges of pre-Renaissance
modality; and the ineffable folk tradition of performance handed down from
generation to generation. All of these are assembled in only one time, place,
and event - the Big Singing of Southern Harmony in Benton, Kentucky.
The description that follows is based on a rather complete journal of nearly
all rehearsals and performances for twenty years, in which I have tried to
record all aspects of performance.
As traditional as the day of Big Singing are
certain rituals. There are two sessions, one in the morning beginning at 10:30,
one in the afternoon about 1:15. At the morning session there is the call to
order, the traditional opening song, "Holy Manna," followed by an
invocation, and "New Britain,"
better known as "Amazing Grace." Various leaders then lead selections
either of their own choosing or by request; traditionally, each leads only two
songs, and one round for each leader usually consumes all the available time
for the morning. Traditionally, too, only men lead the singing. The afternoon
session generally begins with welcoming remarks, recognition of out-of-state
guests, acknowledgment of floral offerings, and any communications regarding
death, illness, or absence of regular members. "Holy Manna" again
begins the singing and is followed by a short welcoming address, delivered by
someone who, by virtue of his office or position, is presumed to be able to
greet officially those in attendance. Subsequently, various leaders direct
songs throughout the afternoon.
A printed program lists leaders who are
expected to attend and selections each is expected to lead - favorites of that
leader or songs associated with him - for most of the afternoon session. The
leader does not have to lead the selections listed on the program, but usually
does. Leaders not on the printed program follow, and choose their own
selections or lead requests. It is during the afternoon that the more difficult
choices, such as the longer anthems, are sung. After all leaders and selections
have been accommodated, the traditional closing song, "Christian's
Farewell," is sung, followed by a benediction.
In actual performance, the leader pitches
the song either by himself or (upon his request) with the aid of another leader
who is recognized as being good at pitching songs. In general, songs are
pitched lower than written, on occasion as much as a third lower, making them
easier to sing for most of the participants. Only on rare occasions does anyone
even bring a pitch pipe or pitch fork; apparently this has not always been
true, but it has been for a number of recent years.
Traditionally, the pitch and syllable for
each part are sung by the leader as he establishes the pitch for the singers,
and he comes to rest on the pitch and syllable for the tenor, or lead. There
are rare exceptions to this: for example, in "Easter Anthem," which
begins with the bass; here the leader comes to rest on the bass note - the
old-timers will say, "bass lead." Then the leader says, "by the
note," and with the beat the solmization is sung completely through. After
a short pause, "by the line" prepares for singing the words. In some
cases, the leader will determine ahead of time whether or not to sing any
repeats; such a decision is commonly made only if the musical repeat uses the
same words. In such a case, the leader may elect not to repeat and will tell
the ensemble before singing by the line. It is common not to sing more than one
stanza if several are printed. If a choice is to be made among many stanzas,
again the leader usually conveys this information before starting.
In the more than twenty years of my
attendance, I have heard only one song sung with a verse not printed with the
music. This is "New Britain"
or "Amazing Grace," which usually is ended with the stanza "When
we've been there ten thousand years." In all other cases, verses to be
sung are chosen from those printed with the music. There is occasional
repetition of songs, but in general the group seems to prefer singing
additional selections rather than repeating those already sung.
There are many evidences of traditional
performance in the Big Singing. Among these are the rhythmic
truncation of the anacrusis or pickup note, especially if it is long -
e.g., a whole note. Another example is the rhythmic eliding of a repeat, a
first ending, or a second ending, with the next phrase.
In fuge tunes, we sometimes find one of the
entries will vary from the printed notation, resulting in either a more literal
or more harmonic imitation of the preceding voice. The use of accidentals is
quite interesting. Sometimes they are sung as written; sometimes ignored;
sometimes inserted where unwritten. From my observations, their use tends to
reinforce the modality of the music, rather than to strengthen a key feeling.
Such altered tone use is found most frequently on the third, fifth, or seventh
tones; this practice seems to be a precursor of the "blues" of a
later generation. One also hears on occasion the neutered third; it is neither
major nor minor. All of these factors seem to vouch for the antiquity of the
basic music in the Southern Harmony; some can be traced farther back
than the origin of a particular composition and may well be examples of
traditional folk performance.
In his theoretical introduction, Walker concurs with most
of his American predecessors and many of his contemporaries by assigning tempos
to meter signatures (pp. vii, viii). This practice is no longer common, as
current teaching does not establish such a correlation.29 And, again, we do not find this relationship in modern singings of
other tunebooks. But in the Big Singing, tempos and meters are intertwined. As
practiced, the tempos do not always agree specifically with what Walker prescribed. There
is enough conformity within meter signatures, however, to establish that they
do have meaning. I believe this to be a subconscious thing with Big Singing
leaders. I don't recall a leader asking about or discussing the tempo of any
song. The principal deviation has been when a visitor has led some song at a
speed at variance with the normal Big Singing tempo. During the years I have
been keeping records I have found very little variation in tempo for any
specific song. Generally the variances will be within ten percent on a
metronomic scale (i.e., beats per minute). I consider this to be valid evidence
of the vitality of the traditional performance concept.
In the printed music of the Southern
Harmony, the melody is in the part just above the bass line. (There is one
exception to this, "Portuguese Hymn," in which the top line is marked
"Tenor.") In either three or four voices, the top line is the treble
(soprano); if there are four voices, the second staff is the counter (alto). In
the Southern Harmony almost exactly eighty percent of the songs are
scored for three voices; bass, tenor or lead, and treble. In practice, only
male voices sing the bass line. Male and female voices sing the lead; males may
sing the treble, but usually only females do. The counter may be sung by both
males and females, but the male voices singing it usually sing up an octave so
that the voices are in unison rather than in octaves. When this is impossible
because of the range, the male and female voices sound an octave apart. The
actual sound is thus from four to seven parts, depending on the number of
written voices, the range of the parts, and the abilities of those singing. The
resulting sound is rich, at times almost overpowering in its intensity, and
very different from the way the music reads on the printed page. This music has
been described as music for singers rather than for listeners, and certainly it
is more enjoyable to be part of the singing ensemble than just to be sitting on
the fringe listening, although there is a certain pleasure in that also. At the
Big Singing, everyone who wishes to participate is urged to do so; neophytes
are welcome to sit in and sing with the group.
Twice in this century, a shortage of
tunebooks has threatened the very existence of the Big Singing. When most of
what was sung had to be sung from memory or from an inadequate supply of shared
books, the situation came to resemble that in the early eighteenth century
which gave rise to the singing schools. With the reprintings of 1939 and 1966
came a resurgence of interest in both the Southern Harmony and the Big
Singing. Since the 1966 printing, the repertory has slowly increased so that
now well over sixty songs are sung regularly. I believe this number will
continue to expand as more books, specifically this edition, become available.
There seems to be an ongoing expansion of the repertory, especially as
compositions not used for some years are reestablished. It has been a frequent
pleasure to me to inquire about singing a specific song and have someone point
out that it was the favorite of a certain person but that it hasn't been sung
for several years. (I have compiled a list of the most popular tunes over the
past twenty years. Though the number shown is somewhat arbitrary, there was a
statistical break after these songs.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Songs
Most Frequently Sung at the Big Singing
Holy Manna and Christian's Farewell, the
traditional opening and closing songs, are not listed. The following are in
descending order of popularity.
(1) New Britain,
p. 8 (14) Greenland, p. 332
(2) Long Sought Home, p. 302 (15) Green
Fields, p. 71
(3) Indian Convert, p. 133 (16) Thorny
Desert, p. 83
(4) Happy Land, p. 89 (17) Ionia,
p. 165
(5) O Come, Come Away, p. 144 (18) Easter
Anthem, p. 189
(6) Rock of Ages, p. 275 (19) Wondrous
Love, p. 252
(7) Disciple, p. 123 (20) Coronation, p.
299
(8) Willoughby,
p. 277 (21) Lone Pilgrim, p. 256
(9) Newburgh,
p. 296 (22) Ortonville, p. 10
(10) Pisgah, p. 80 (23) Resignation, p. 38
(11) Jerusalem,
p. 11 (24) Bozrah, p. 39
(12) New Haven,
p. 159 (25) Alabama,
p. 116
(13) Sweet Rivers, p. 166
Some
events of recent years have contributed to renewed interest in the Big Singing.
In 1973, when Kentucky was the focus of the
Smithsonian Institution's summer American Folklife Festival, the Southern
Harmony singers of Benton were selected to
give daily performances in Washington, D.C. on the Mall.30 This generated so
much pride in the Benton-Marshall
County community that
contributions were obtained to pay all expenses for most of the nearly fifty
people who attended. The performances were highly praised, and the excitement
of the trip lasted for a long time, as evidenced by larger numbers in
attendance and increased participation in the Big Singing. During the
Bicentennial celebration of 1976, the Big Singing was cited as one of fewer
than a hundred "Landmarks of American Music," selected by the
National Music Council. The bronze plaque, which is mounted in the Marshall
County courthouse, describes the Big Singing as "the oldest indigenous
musical traditional in the United States," and is regarded with pride not
only by those who participate in the singing but by the entire community. Another
Bicentennial event introduced Southern Harmony music to a completely
different audience, when the Bicentennial Concert for the Commonwealth
of Kentucky, presented at Kennedy Center
in Washington,
included a fasola number from the Southern Harmony. Also in 1976, the
music of Southern Harmony was recorded on a commercial disk by a large
contingent of Big Singing participants. Many of the favorite songs of the Big
Singing are to be found on this record, which is still in print.31
These activities of the 1970s also brought
the singers more attention and recognition in their state and region; they were
asked to sing at festivals and concerts in Tennessee
and Kentucky.
Even the public schools of Benton and Marshall County introduced high school
students to the Southern Harmony, though this program unfortunately did
not last, lacking sufficient knowledge among the music teachers or interest
among local school administrators.
With this new printing of the Southern
Harmony, I hope this venerable tunebook will receive new life, and that it
will not only continue as the inspiration and guide of the Big Singing but will
find new followers among those who share a love for early American music.
Glenn
C. Wilcox
(Reprinted with permission by APAD Digital
Recordings, 810 West Kilpatrick, Cleburne,
TX 76031-1614)
NOTES
1. Walker makes this claim
in the preface to his Christian Harmony (1886).
2. Benjamin
F. White and E. J. King, The Sacred Harp (Philadelphia, 1844). Apparently the
only authentic reproduction of an early edition is a facsimile reprint of the
1859 third edition, edited by William Reynolds (Nashville: Broadman, 1968).
3. The
title page of this edition reads: The / Southern Harmony / Songbook / American
Guide Series / Reproduced, with an Introduction by / the Federal Writers'
Project of Kentucky, Works Progress Administration / Sponsored by / The Young
Men's Progress Club / Benton, Kentucky / Hastings House, Publishers New York,
N.Y. / 1939.
4. This
title page reads: The / Southern Harmony / by / William Walker / Edited by /
Glenn C. Wilcox / First Line Index by / Charles L. Atkins / A Pro
Musicamericana Reprint / Los Angeles
/ 1966.
5. The
1911 edition by Joseph S. James seems to have been the most active one in
"correcting" voice lines and harmonies, while concurrently adding the
fourth part. Discussing this edition in the preface of the Reynolds reprint
cited in note 2, David C. Wooley says that it "may have been more
satisfying to twentieth century singers, but the sound and character of these
folk tunes were altered." See also Buell E. Cobb, Jr., The Sacred Harp:
A Tradition and Its Music (Athens: U Georgia P, 1978), especially chapter 4.
6. Although
Cobb, Sacred Harp, mentions this, my statement is based on my own
attendance at Sacred Harp singings. There is virtually no correlation between
the indigenous idiom originally printed by White and King and current up-tempo,
ragtime-influenced performances of early twentieth-century harmonies. In fact,
I have even heard singers, while ostensibly reading from a fasola printing,
sing "do, re, mi . . ." !
7. Because
many editions of Isaac Watts were then in print, it seems impossible and
perhaps unnecessary to identify a specific edition used by Walker. Similarly, Walker's "Methodist Hymn Book" has
proved elusive. He may have been referring to the Wesleyan Camp-Meeting Hymn
Book, which was in its second edition by 1823. His other sources seem to be:
Jesse Mercer, The Cluster of Divine Hymns and Social Poems (Augusta,
Georgia: ca. 1817); William Dossey, The Choice (ca. 1820); Andrew
Broaddus, Dover Selection of Spiritual Songs (1828; 2nd ed. 1829); and
Staunton S. Burdett, The Baptist Harmony) Pleasant Hill, S.C.: 1834).
8. Although
much of the source information derives from Walker himself, from standard works
such as Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, and from various first-line
indexes of the numerous Watts publications, some of it is from the manuscript
index of first lines and tunes by the late Charles L. Atkins, who catalogued
the contents of several hundred American tunebooks and hymnbooks over a nearly
sixty-year period.
9. Again,
no single source contains this information. It has been gleaned from
examination of numerous tunebooks and also from Atkins' index.
10. Walker adds
"A.S.H." to his name even in The Christian Harmony (p. 41). In
the same publication he paid tribute to his friend William Hauser by adding the
initials A.H.H. (for Author of the Hesperian Harp) to his name.
11. This
is by Walker's
own attribution, with some supplementation from Atkins' index.
12. The
concerns of the New England ministers may be seen in Thomas Symmes, Utile
Dulci, or, a Joco-Serious Dialogue, Concerning Regular Singing
(Boston: B. Green, 1721); John Eliot, A Brief Discourse Concerning Regular
Singing (Boston: B. Green, Jun., 1725); and Cotton Mather, The
Accomplished Singer (Boston: B. Green, 1721).
13. Early
night school classes are described in Robert F. Seybolt, The Evening School
in Colonial America, Bulletin No. 24, Bureau of Educational Research, College of Education,
University of Illinois,
Urbana, 1925.
14. Alan
C. Buechner, "Yankee Singing Schools and the Golden Age of Choral Music in
New England 1760-1800" (Ed.D. diss., Harvard Graduate School of Education,
1960).
15. For
a study of the Tuft's book see "The First American Music Textbook,"
in Irving Lowens, Music and Musicians in Early America (New York:
Norton, 1964).
16. See
Glenn C. Wilcox, "The Singing School Movement in the United States,"
in Report of the Eighth Congress of the International Musicological Society,
vol.2 (New York, 1961).
17. For
an account of this movement and of one family of musicians and entrepreneurs
who helped to spread singing schools, see James W. Scholten, "The Chapins:
A Study of Men and Sacred Music West of the Alleghenies, 1795-1842" (Ed.D.
diss., Univ. of Michigan, 1972).
18. This
is more fully discussed in Richard Crawford, Andrew Law, American Psalmodist
(Evanston: Northwestern Univ., 1968).
19. See
"The Easy Instructor (1790-1831)," in Lowens, Music and Musicians.
20. This
change from predominantly American to mostly European compositions can be seen
by comparing successive editions of such long-lived tunebooks as Village
Harmony, Easy Instructor, Worcester
Collection, Bridgewater Collection, and Missouri Harmony. A
parallel change in one denomination is documented in Raymond J. Martin,
"The Transition from Psalmody to Hymnody in Southern Presbyterianism,
1735-1901" (S.M.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1963).
21. The
best account of this is in Edward B. Birge, History of Public School Music
in the United States (Boston: Ditson, 1928; reprint Washington: Music
Educators National Conference, 1966).
22. Experimental
demonstration of the value of shape notes in public school music is reported in
George H. Kyme, "An Experiment in Teaching Children to Read Music with
Shape Notes." Journal of Research in Music Education 8(1): 3-8
(1960).
23. For
the ubiquity of shape notes see George P. Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern
Uplands (Chapel Hill: U North Carolina P, 1933; reprint New York: Dover,
1965); Earl Loessel, "The Use of Character Notes and Other Unorthodox
Notations in Teaching the Reading of Music in Northern United States During the
Nineteenth Century" (Ed.D. diss., Univ. Michigan, 1959); and Musical
Million, Aldine S. Kieffer, editor, a journal devoted to the propagation of
shape notes published at Dayton, Va., by Ruebush-Kieffer and Co., January
1870-December 1914.
24. Jesse
Aiken (spelled also Aikin) developed the seven-shape system that became the
standard of the industry. His success was due not only to his seven shapes, but
also his interaction with rivals, which apparently included intimidation and
threatened lawsuit. Jackson,
in White Spirituals, p. 352,, has an amusing
anecdote about this. The prosaic official version of the same incident is in
the author's preface to Aldine S. Kieffer, The Temple Star (Singer's
Glen, Va.: Ruebush-Kieffer, 1877).
25. The
Social Harp, an extremely rare book by John G. McCurry, is available in an
excellent reprint edited by Daniel W. Patterson and John F. Garst (Athens: U
Georgia P, 1973). The most accessible of various editions of the New Harp of
Columbia is a reprint edited by Dorothy D. Horn, Ron Petersen, and Candra
Phillips (Knoxville: U Tennessee P, 1978).
26. George
P. Jackson, Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America (Locust Valley, N.Y.:
J.J. Autustin, 1937; reprint New York: Dover, 1964).
27. See
Jackson, Spiritual Folk-Songs and his other works, especially White
Spirituals and Down-East Spirituals and Others (Locust Valley, New
York: J.J. Augustin, 1937), which he considered to be supplementary to Spiritual
Folk-Songs.
28. The
best single source of information on Benton's
Big Singing is the 1939 reprint of the Southern Harmony (note 3 above).
For journalistic account, see "A Reporter At Large: The Big Singing,"
in the New Yorker, January 19, 1987.
29. There
are some indications that denoting tempo by meter signature is another vestige
of antiquity: from the tactus of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and/or
the even older theory of mensural notation by Franco of Cologne in the
mid-thirteenth century.
30. During
the festival special copies of Southern Harmony were presented to
President Nixon and the White House Library.
31. The
record may be obtained through Dr. Ray Mofield, President, Society
for the Preservation of Southern Harmony Singing, Inc., Benton, Ky., 42025.
|
|
