A baseball team mitigates player turnover by developing a strong bench and a good bullpen. Similarly, each section in a weekly singing can develop plenty of good singers, so that when the inevitable happens and someone can’t show up, you still have enough strong singers to hold down your part.

Our basses in the Berkeley weekly singing have become a strong bench. We have a strong sense of camaraderie; we actively reach out to and support newcomers when they join us; we’re sympathetic to each other when we make mistakes; we chat with each other during breaks; we listen well to each other; and we each play off the strengths of each other (e.g., those of us who are loud but not always accurate follow the guy who’s accurate but not always loud, etc.). We’ve built up a deep enough bass bench now that we can generally count on having at least four strong singers each week. And if one of our strong singers happens to be out of town this week to attend the Seattle Folklife Festival, we have plenty more strong singers to take his place on the front bench.

Yes, of course you can do this sort of thing throughout your local singing. But it seems to me you’re going to feel closer, both literally and figuratively, to the singers you sit right next to week after week. Yes, I know many singers like to try singing in different sections, and I like it when someone who usually sings treble or tenor comes and sings with us for a bit. But the guys I sit next to week after week are the ones I really rely on. And maybe this all is true mostly for altos and basses. Trebles and tenors tend to trade back and forth promiscuously, but if you really have a bass or an alto voice you’re going to stick pretty close to your own section.

In any case, the basses sounded particularly fine tonight, even though one of our strong singers was indeed at the Seattle Folklife Festival, even though another strong singer is home with his toddler, even though we were missing a couple of other basses for unknown reasons. We have a strong bench with good team spirit. It’s a good group of guys, who are also lots of fun to sing with.

First, today’s class sounded really good. There were just ten of us — two tenors, two trebles, three altos, and three basses — but we took full advantage of the strengths of the room to create a big warm sound. The room we sing in is relatively small (about 16 feet square); the walls and ceiling are mostly wood with a couple of big windows; the floor is hard vinyl. The hard surfaces, square shape, and low ceiling mean you can hear everyone clearly; all that wood means that you get a nice warm sound. wish I had had an audio recorder, because we gave some nice readings of some of the tunes.

Second, after the singing Peter and I were talking about how many verses you should sing of a given tune. Both of us prefer to sing more verses, rather than less. If there are up to four verses, Peter said he prefers to sing them all; that would tend to be my preference. Peter and I both agreed that singing more verses can be better for newer singers; an additional verse or two can give a new singer time to get it right. From my point of view, why stop singing after just a verse or two? why not sing another verse or two, and take the time to enjoy the tune?

Of course, every practice singing has its own way of doing things. Many practice singings prefer to sing fewer verses, so the class can cover more songs in a given time, and there’s a lot to be said for that approach. But a strong case can also be made for singing all the verses of each tune: the class may get through fewer tunes, but they will know those tunes better. Peter pointed out that there exist practice singings, which are dominated by traditional Sacred Harp singers, where the class sings every verse of a tune; so there is precedent in the tradition for either approach.

As is true of so many things in Sacred Harp singing, there’s not one right way of doing things. And I think we’re lucky in the Bay area to have both approaches available: the Berkeley weekly singing moves through lots of tunes with only a few verses; the Palo Alto singing likes to sing lots of verses. I feel I’m a better singer because I can take advantage of both approaches. But I think I do prefer doing a couple more verses, taking a little more time to enjoy singing each tune.

The Walker setting appears quite simple at first. Each of the parts makes melodic sense on its own, and all the parts seem to come together sensibly. But closer examination reveals some challenging chords: at the beginning of the third and second-to-last measures there’s a major third over a minor second, and the third beat of the fifth measure has a major second over a major second over a major sixth.

The class gave a good reading of the tune, and those crunchy chords sounded great in context. This one is definitely worth singing again, and it would be fun to work on it with a small ensemble to get those strange chords sounding exactly right.

Friendship. 8.6.8.6.8.8.8.6.

Aside from that, the class made the tune sound good. I felt I achieved what I was aiming for: a tune in the eighteenth century style, but with a distinctly contemporary feel to it.

Adobe Creek. C.M.

Grizzly Peaks. H.M.

Easy to pick up, and probably worth singing again.

New Thirteenth. L.M.

The text is a metrical paraphrase of Psalm 13 by Queen Elizabeth I; the imagery of the poetry is really quite vivid, and the melody seemed to come naturally from the words. The tune uses a number of conventions of eighteenth century singing school and West Gallery tunes, including the typical rhythmic figure of half note, dotted quarter, eighth, half note in the opening of the fuguing section.

Also in the style of some eighteenth century composers, e.g. William Billings, this tune keeps the fuguing section somewhat separate from the rest of the tune, allowing you to pull out the fuguing section and still be left with a coherent plain tune. However, Billings typically stuck the fuguing section on at the end of the paling tune, not in the middle of the plain tune.

San Mateo. C.M.

The text is a metrical paraphrase of Psalm 1 by Robert Burns. The tune uses some of the conventions of eighteenth century tunes in 3/2 of the New England singing school and of West Gallery music.

Some of the more experienced singers left during the break, but despite that I think the singing got better after the break. I believe this is because some of our newer singers have gotten quite good, especially following the Golden Gate All-day Singing.

It was a warm evening, and we had the double doors behind the alto section propped open. Towards the end of the evening, a homeless woman appeared in those doors, and stood there listening to us with obvious pleasure. In one break between songs, she asked, “Is that medieval music?” and we told her, No, it’s American music, mostly from the nineteenth century. She stayed to talk to people after the singing was over; of course she asked a few people for money, but I also heard some singers invite her to come sing with us any Monday night.

Greetings, Dan,

Your recent blog entries concerning retaining the interest of new-to-Sacred Harp singers, learner groups, and singing schools have been particularly of interest to Rick and me. We thought you might be interested in what we’ve found to work in Los Angeles in a small way.

As you’ve noted, frequently visitors attend one or two singings and never return. Over several years we noticed this too. We thought it might be a help to have a “bridge” between introductory-level singing and full-out participation. As a result, we started a Sacred Harp Learners Group in spring 1999. Since then, Rick and I have been hosting Learners Group one Saturday a month from 4 to 6 at our home. (In L.A., many regular local Sacred Harp singings are hosted in private homes also).

“Learners” is facilitated primarily by Rick and is structured not as a singing but — depending on number and music experience level of new people — as basic instruction (with one simple visual aid) along with two hours of everybody reading through each part in unison, one part at a time, then putting the parts together. Most newcomers sit with the tenors at first and are encouraged to explore which part(s) suit their voices best. Rick chooses songs according to who shows up with what experience. He’s developed a method of working through fuguing tunes that works very well.

Often — in fact, usually — experienced local singers outnumber newer ones. Sometimes there are no newcomers. It’s fortunate for this group that a few of our best local singers have been interested enough to participate regularly ever since 1999. The relaxed pace seems to serve a purpose for longtime singers which really can’t be indulged in a regular singing without spoiling the singing.

Although the primary purpose of Learners is to aid newer singers, we consider us all to be “learners” and try to make it interesting to singers of all levels. We don’t turn Learners into a regular singing, ever. When only old-timers are there, we might sing through more complicated songs that people want to work on, or that Rick has noted deserve attention based on recent fiascoes at a convention.

Learners is also a place for questions about Sacred Harp tradition, leading, convention protocol, and FAQs of all kinds. Rick is a teacher professionally (not music), and people seem to enjoy the facilitated sightsinging practice. My contribution is anchoring the tenor section, keying, as a sidekick, and doing beverages and basic snacks during the social break.

I doubt our version of Learners could work without a consistent location and regular personnel. But within that context, a lot of procedural variations could be possible. Most of our new local singers that have stuck with Sacred Harp over the past decade seem to have come to/through Learners: either before ever going to a singing, or after attending a one or two singings first. We have no data, of course, but that’s how it looks to us.

Very best regards from us both, and thank you for the work you’re putting into Sacred Harp singing and for your weblog.

Laura Boyd Russell

My thanks to Laura for sending along this account of the L.A. Learner’s Group. I’d love to hear from other people (including Bay Area singers, of course) about what you’ve done to help new singers. And I’d love to hear from new singers about what’s working for you, and what you think you’d like more of.

Every musical ensemble has its moments when not much seems to go right; moments when tempers may grow short, when small errors reinforce each other, when the best musical intentions can’t seem to effect improvement. Tonight wasn’t the worst musical experience I’ve ever had, not by a long shot. (It was nowhere near as bad, for example, as that Christmas Eve gig where the guitarist showed up late and out of tune after which none of the rest of us could ever get back in tune. Nor was it as bad as the time someone asked me, who sings bass for good reason, to sing high harmony over a tenor voice. Nor was it as bad as the choral concert where the basses were singing three different versions of the bass part, none of which was correct.) But tonight was no better than “meh.”

And tonight’s singing got me thinking about what it is I try to do when things don’t go well musically. Mostly I try to focus on the basics of my own performance. So tonight I focused on Sacred Harp basics — trying to sing every note accurately, trying to follow the leader — and on the basics of singing — breathing, intonation, enunciation, and relaxing the throat, face, and mouth. And I also try to stay patient, which is difficult as I am not a particularly patient person, and this is one of my great musical weaknesses.

I think one of the most challenging aspects of making music with other people is the way it can force one to confront one’s own personal weaknesses. While certainly the whole class was having its problems at tonight’s singing, I had to confront my own personal problems as well: that I was tensing up my throat and mouth and not always breathing from the diaphragm, which caused my intonation to waver and which made me mispronounce words; that I was not fully concentrating on singing the notes; that I am not a patient person.

Being a minister, of course I think there’s a theological aspect to this. Making music with others is an exercise in mindfulness and humility. It is an exercise in getting the self out of the way so that we can experience union with something greater than ourselves.