Monday, October 6, 2014

Communal Song: Shape-note singing and Americana, Traditions in the US

So I have obviously made all of you very curious to read this blog with such an ostentatious title (heavy sarcasm!) Congrats if you are still reading. I am always leery about using the colon in my title. It can seem pretentious and obnoxious

Today I am mostly concerned about why we sing. Last we I talked about the importance of the communal act of singing. Today I want to talk a little about the history of why we have choirs, particularly in the US, and why the traditions still have a place in society.

Robert Morgan says that 2 main factors created the choral tradition in America: a scarcity of instruments in the colonial years and the heavy role of religious life, especially in Puritan traditions.
Puritans actual forbade instruments in worship. So community singing, choirs, became a natural form of musical expression in worship. It wasn't anything new. Most of western music history traces it's way through the Christian church with  the largest portion of music based in choral writing and congregational singing. 
 A major difference in the American tradition is that for the first part of our history, colonial days to the early 19th century, the music was actually divorced from and developed independently from the European Schools. No where is this more evident than in the music of Shape-Note singing, 

On the fall LCA concert "We Gather" we are singing a song based in that tradition, Big Sky. Though the text and tune are newly composed, the essence and stylistic intent of the composer clearly reflects the Shape-Note style. Here is an example of a traditional shape note score and a video of a performance.
The basic tonal color, as you can hear, is very bright and forward. There is basically one volume, LOUD! The director changes with each song sung. The choir, or really communal gathering, of Shape-note conference singers, sit in a square with each section, SATB, facing the center. This is Holy music, and the tradition lives on to this day with Sacred Harp conferences all over the country.

Another selection from the fall concert includes: "How Can I Keep From Singing?" (also known by its first line of text "My Life Flows On in Endless Song"), a Christian hymn with music written by American Baptist minister Robert Wadsworth Lowry. The song is frequently, though erroneously, cited as a traditional Quaker hymn. 

Pete Seeger learned a version of this song from Doris Plenn, a family friend, who learned it from her North Carolina family. His version made this song fairly well known in the folk revival of the 1960s. Seeger's version omits or modifies much of the Christian wording of the original. A reference in the added verse intended by Seeger and by Plenn—both active in left-wing causes—is to 'witch hunts' of the House Un-American Activities Committee (Seeger himself was sentenced to a year in jail in 1955 as a result of his testimony before the Committee, which he did not serve due to a technicality). Most folk singers, including Enya, have followed Seeger's version.
In the late 1970s and early 80s, How Can I Keep From Singing was recorded by Catholic Folk musician Ed Gutfreund (on an album called "From An Indirect Love"), and the music was published in a widely used Catholic Hymnal called "Glory and Praise", and was popular among Catholic liturgical music ministers, especially those who used guitar. In this, and in an 1993 recording by Marty Haugen, Jeanne Cotter, and David Haas, the quatrain beginning: "No storm can shake my inmost calm ..." is used as a repeated refrain.
It is also sung by Dahlia Malloy (Minnie Driver) in the episode 'Virgin Territory' from Season One of FX's The Riches.
In his radio singing debut, actor Martin Sheen performed this song (using the Plenn–Seeger lyrics) on A Prairie Home Companion in September 2007. 

So what do we get out of this? First of all a great choral music heritage that grew from some of these songs' traditions and the development of choral organizations in the colleges and civic organizations. Second, a sense of connection with our past, heritage, and the spirit of music. Finally, a realization, I hope, that choral music embodies a part of the human spirit that is only possible when a group of people come together to make music with their voices. It is a completely unique, yet very common and communal, endeavor. And I hope that the Lincoln Choral artists convey our sense of these traditions, while still moving forward, and offer our audience a great "in the moment" experience of being in community. 


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