I was asked to come up with an album of the week for my company's Yammer chat group. Here's what I wrote.
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Thanks for letting me choose this week's Album of the Week. I'm choosing the Ninth Ireland Sacred Harp Convention (2019, Sunday).
My choice is not actually a favourite album. It's a Youtube playlist of recordings from an annual event in Ireland in 2019. The people in the recording are singing from a book named the Sacred Harp, which has also become the name of this style of music.
This playlist is an excellent way of hearing Sacred Harp singing, but this is not how I usually experience this music - I sing with friends once a month. The in-person experience is close to indescribable, so I chose this playlist because it gives a great insight into Sacred Harp.
Sacred Harp is an early American singing tradition that has spread across the world. In Australia we have two regular Sacred Harp groups - one each in Sydney and Melbourne. Look us up on Facebook!
We get together and sing for the moment. It has a lot in common with punk: there is no audition, no rehearsal, no performance, no leader, and no audience. We drag the church pews into a hollow square so we are facing each other. The words of the songs are very Protestant Christian, and they are intense; we sing of grief, death, joy, sickness, love, and loss. We sing loudly and no-one tries to make their voice sound sweet.
If you want to come along, you'll be welcome, even if you think you can't sing. No-one asks your opinions on religion or politics. People will shuffle up to make room for you, hand you a book, point out which page we are on, and off you go.
When it's my turn to pick, I choose the song we'll all sing next. I call it out so everyone can hear: number 47! I get up and stand in the middle so everyone can see and hear me. I choose the pitch and sing the first notes out loud so everyone knows where to start – when I’m feeling nervous I ask someone else to set the key. I then lead the song at the speed I want it sung (I tend to like them fast). First we sing the song by saying the names of the notes instead of the words: Fa, So, La, and Mi (this is why you can't understand the singers's words in the first part of each song in the playlist). This is the only practice we get! Straightaway I launch us in to the actual song, which we sing once only. As the final note echoes, I sit down and the next person picks another song and it all starts again.
Sacred Harp is loud, occasionally dissonant, grim, sung by amateurs, rough around the edges, and over too soon for my liking. I hope you hear something here that speaks to you.
More about Sacred Harp:
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