Methodology

My approach to studying the urban revival of Sacred Harp singing in northern and western cities is based on three related approaches:

(1) I use the techniques of creative non-fiction, reportage, and (to some extent) the New Journalism. I spent a year in graduate school doing creative non-fiction, studying for part of that time under Dan Wakefield. Thus, I write in the first person, and record my own impressions, feelings, thoughts; but at the same time, I also try to record relevant facts.

The medium of blogging has a definite effect on creative non-fiction techniques. I find what I write here is less like Dan Wakefield’s book Returning, in which Wakefield tells an intensely personal linear story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, using most of the techniques of fiction (unifying narrative, conversations, characterizations, etc.) — and more like Daniel Defoe’s non-linear book The Storm, in which which Defoe collects factoids and other people’s stories and assembles them as a sort of collage, interspersed with his thoughts and feelings. Blogging, consisting as it does of a series of entries arranged in reverse chronological order, tends to push one away from writing a long coherent narrative, and towards putting together a collage of factoids and shorter stories.

(2) I also approach the subject as a documentarian. I use Doing Documentary Work by Robert Coles as a resource book. I find Coles particularly useful in the following areas: (a) sorting out how retain the distance required by documentary work, while also remaining emotionally engaged; (2) respecting the humanity of the persons whom one is documenting; (3) understanding how documentary work calls on one to draw out larger themes, and even to make moral judgments.

(3) I hold a master of divinity degree, and am ordained and fellowshipped as a Unitarian Universalist minister. While I do use my theological training to help me understand the religious aspects of Sacred Harp singing, I don’t take a narrow sectarian viewpoint; when it is necessary to do theology, I use a descriptive approach that draws from Anthony Pinn’s approach in his book Varieties of African American Religious Experience; this descriptive approach is derived from what Gordon Kaufman calls “third order theology.” This approach fits neatly with creative nonfiction and documentary work.

Please note that my approach owes little or nothing to anthropology, sociology, history, or ethnomusicology. Equally important, I am not an academic. For academic approaches, see the page “Some books of interest” (link below).

A word about terminology

To simplify matters, I use some terminology that may seem inaccurate.

— My practice is to call what I do “documentary work,” and to refer to myself in this context as a “documentarian.” It would probably be more accurate to call me a “creative non-fiction writer,” but that term has so many meanings that it is almost useless.

— I refer to the “urban revival” or the “northern revival” of Sacred Harp singing, even though these are in some sense misnomers. Many, even most, of the people who participate in the “urban revival” actually live in the suburbs; a few live in rural areas. Many of those participating in the “northern revival” actually live in the Far West, or even in the South. It would be more accurate, but far too cumbersome, to speak of “Sacred Harp singers who come from a cultural milieu other than those traditional Southern singers from areas with a long history of Sacred Harp singing.”

More about methodology

Questions to ask — Some of the questions I consider when documenting singings.

Visual and audio documentation — Incorporating photographs into this project, and referring to videos, photographs, and audio recordings from within this project.

Some books of interest to the Sacred Harp documentarian — Brief overviews of books by Stephen Marini, Kiri Miller, and John Bealle.