Tag: Southern singings

We had to drive up from Birmingham, so I arrived about half an hour late to the annual singing at the Macedonia Church in Macedonia, Alabama. Carol dropped me off, and drove off to walk through Cathedral Caverns while I was singing.

From the moment I walked in the door, it was obvious that these people had sung together for a long time — generations, really. You can tell when a group of singers knows each other well; there’s a unity of purpose that comes with long acquaintanceship, and that can only come with lots of time spent singing together.

I wanted to sit in the back of the bass section and mostly listen, but there were only five other basses, so there wasn’t a place for me to hide; I had to sing, though compared to them I was rhythmically sloppy. And they sang faster than I was used to, so I missed some eighth notes here and there. But perhaps that’s the best way to listen: sit in your section, try to keep up with the people next to you, keep your voice down, and listen to how the other sections interact with yours.

As people were called up to lead a lesson (most leaders did two songs in a lesson), I began to realize that there were an awful lot of Iveys and Woottens in this singing. Or to put it another way, I was singing with Sacred Harp aristocracy, so I hoped to sit in the back bench of the tenors and not lead a song; I don’t much like to lead in any case.

But after the morning recess, the basses got me to sit on the front bench for a while, and when the chair asked me to lead a lesson, I said I guessed I would. Not that I led the lesson; the front bench of the tenors led the lesson. The second tune I led took off at such a fast clip that I just waved my hand up and down, and hung on for dear life until the end.

At lunch, I wound up sitting and talking with one of the basses. I said I was surprised that there were so few basses; only about half a dozen of us, when there were a good forty or fifty tenors. (There were perhaps seven altos, and maybe eight trebles.) He said it was a little surprising, and hadn’t always been that way. Then we got to talking about universalism — turns out he’s in the universalist camp, theologically speaking, and is a little disappointed in Rob Bell for not quite going all the way — and that conversation consumed us for the rest of lunch.

It seemed to me that there were more younger people on the last day of the National Sacred Harp Convention; today was not quite the sea of gray heads that I saw yesterday. Not that there’s anything wrong with gray hair; that’s now officially my hair color on my driver’s license. But I like it best when there’s a more even distribution of ages.

After the first break, two girls in their early teens stood up together to lead the class. The tenor front bench reminded them to announce the number of the tune they were leading, and once they got the pitch, they started right in. When they had finished, I heard someone from the tenor front bench, and someone else from further back in the tenors, say the same thing in approving voices: Good job.” The girls smiled as they walked out of the hollow square.

Then a middle-aged woman from the altos was called, and she brought an older teenaged girl with her into the hollow square. The girl stood where I couldn’t see her, so I don’t know how well she led, but I do know that she was smiling pretty broadly when the tune was over.

A little later on, a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, was called into the hollow square and invited an older woman to stand there and lead with him. He obviously knew what he was doing. And there you have something of a progression of ages: two young teens who need each other’s support, and an older teenager who didn’t mind having an adult nearby when leading; and then the young adult who is more competent than some of us older adults.

According to today’s The Birmingham News:

About 200 people attended the first day of the 32nd annual National Sacred Harp Singing Convention on Thursday at First Christian Church on Valleydale Road, keeping alive a tradition that dates back centuries. …

Sacred harp [sic] never died out in Alabama and has experienced a world-wide renaissance. A group of five people from the United Kingdom sang Thursday in the convention. [p. 6B]

Early on, one of the elders of the convention (I didn’t catch his name) stood up to lead a lesson, and prefaced it by saying that things had gotten a little out of synch yesterday. He suggested, earnestly and forthrightly, that the class should look at the leader as much as they look at their books. He also mentioned something about someone who led two songs in a row yesterday. Apparently by missing the first day of the convention, I missed a certain amount of turmoil.

At lunch time, I wound up sitting at a table with two of those people from the U.K., along with a woman from Ireland, a man from Chattanooga, a woman from Massachusetts, a man from Knoxville, and Leland who sings with the Berkeley local singing in the summer. The Irishwoman, the Chattanoogan, and the two people from Yorkshire had all attended Camp Fasola earlier in the week, and had been at the convention yesterday.

“It sounds much better today,” said one of the campers. “Yes, there were problems with the front bench yesterday,” said another, adding that the people on the front bench were not together. Then there was cheerful talk of checking one’s ego at the door, and comments about how one person on the front bench still wasn’t quite in synch. “You’ve got to watch the leader,” said one, “after all, in a class this big, they’re the only ones most people can see.”