Yet Another Unitarian Universalist
A postmodern heretic's spiritual journey
I’ve described my shape note adventures of the past two days on my Sacred Harp blog. Here are links to part one and part two. Probably not of great interest except to those shape note afficiandos, or those with an interest in traditional Southern culture.
Update 6/19: And here’s part three.
We’re about to head off on a road trip across the country. Carol is stopping the newspaper and asking the neighbors to keep an eye on our apartment; I’m ironing and packing. Tomorrow we’ll start driving towards Charlotte, North Carolina, planning to arrive in time for General Assembly.
Along the way, I’ll spend the Friday and Saturday before General Assembly at the National Sacred Harp Convention, and that Sunday at the annual all-day singing at the Macedonia Church outside Section, Alabama. I’ll be at Ministry Days before General Assembly. At General Assembly, I’ll be reporting for the UU World Web site, and I’ll be making a brief appearance at workshop no. 3049.
If you’re going to be at any of those events, look for me — I’d love to say hi!
Yes, I sing Sacred Harp music every week in Berkeley. Yes, beginners are welcome. And a great place to check out this wild, raucous, loud, centuries-old genre of indigenous American music is the upcoming all-day singing on Saturday, April 23, in Berkeley — the 7th Annual Golden Gate All-Day-Singing. I know of several beginners who will be singing with us on April 23 — plus a former lead singer of a grunge-core band, a Grammy-award winning singer of medieval music, a K-6 music teacher, a church organist, a singer-songwriter, a couple of old folkies, two or three academics, and several dozen ordinary people.
Scott Wells, at Boy in the Bands, poses an excellent question regarding the upcoming General Assembly (GA) of Unitarian Universalists: “What might we show or teach one another in the hallways and cafés of Charlotte?”
My answer: I really want to share some Sacred Harp singing at GA. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s “theologically incorrect,” but it’s rockin good music that draws in punk rockers — Grammy-winning performers of medieval music — avant-garde sound artists — young urbanites — folkies — and just ordinary people like you. This is whatreal hymn singing sounds like: loud, raucous, unrestrained, by turns mournful and ecstatic.
I kinda doubt there will be many Sacred Harp singers at GA, but if you’re one, let me know, and let’s see if we can set something up.
This is the four hundredth anniversary of the King James Version translation of the Bible (KJV). As one way of honoring this monument of English prose literature, I’ve been composing some a capella four-part musical settings for short excerpts of the KJV. These settings are in the idiom of American singing-school music, an unbroken tradition of composition and performance going back to about 1720, and carried on today by Sacred Harp singers.
So here’s a song for Advent. The text is Mark 1.2-3; although Isaiah 40 might seem to make more sense as a text for Advent, the prose in the KJV translation of Mark 1.2-3 was just too perfect to pass up, and preachers are wont to use bits of Mark 1 as texts during Advent (for churches that use the lectionary, Mark 1.1-8 is the gospel reading for the second Sunday in advent in lectionary year B). As is traditional in this musical idiom, the song is named after a geographical place.
If you know anything about composition, this breaks many standard rules, but it is consistent with the Sacred Harp idiom.